Esmeralda Santiago
“The way life should be”

Summer is here and so am I. In Maine, that is, a state so proud of itself that its slogan is “The Way Life Should be.”

During the dark months I live in New York, but the minute daffodils poke through the winter hardened earth, I dream of going north, to Mid-Coast Maine. This year I arrived here in early May, when the lilacs were just beginning their showy riot of color and fragrance. The air was still cold enough for fleece sweaters and thick socks, and the ocean had not yet shed its gloomy winter gray.

Our house was overrun with mice, who had taken up residence over the harsh winter. Blizzard winds had felled so many of our trees that it looked as if a bomb had exploded in the middle of our woods. The deck was rotting, the basement was wet, the hot water heater had stopped heating, the well had sprung a leak. It was good to be home.

I come up here to write. The solitude and quiet of our small fishing village are perfect for the focus a full-length book requires. But it’s also a place to find inspiration. On my own, I could have never, for example, come up with a story like the one I read in the local tri-weekly.

A couple drove up to a lobster pound, took some lobsters, then went home to cook them. As he set the water to boil, she realized there was no more beer in the house. So, she went to get some while he watched the pot. A few minutes later, a town police officer noticed a car moving erratically down an otherwise quiet side street. He pulled the driver over, and while questioning her, noticed live lobsters crawling around the back seat. She was charged with larceny and driving while impaired. Very carefully, the police removed 136 lobsters.
That news item is a reason I love Maine. Where else would you hear such a story? Were they really going to eat 136 lobsters?

My quiet summer will be disrupted by chain saw wielding landscapers and well drillers. Still, I’m looking forward to the rest of my stay here and to reading the weekly newspaper as a source of inspiration. For a writer, it’s the way life should be.