Lights on the Way Home

A few months ago, I shared that we traveled from Coquimbo, Chile, to Canada and the US on a short furlough. Now—six months, 34,000 km, 44 different beds, and countless letters, emails, and text messages later—we have finally arrived home. Or did we leave home to return here? Although I often feel ambivalent about the answer to that question, today I’m pointing out some of the lights on the way home.

After late-April beachcombing on the Northumberland Shore of Nova Scotia, we headed to Ontario, then South Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Tennessee—and finally Maine on Memorial Day weekend. If that pace sounds exhausting, it was. Which only served to make the savor of morning coffee on my brother’s screen porch, the haunting cry of the loons on the pond, and the heady fragrance of lilacs all more of an invitation. Lights, so to speak, on the way home to “the way life should be,” as the state welcome sign reads.

Or “the way life used to be,” as my husband says. He’s only teasing me, but seriously, it’s a blessing—an uncommon luxury, even—to find refuge in a place that feels like home despite the many changes. You can still come across Adirondack chairs, fried clams, and maple walnut cones at the local ice cream stand.

As well as black flies at the T-ball games, admittedly. But I’ll take the bad with the good. A visit to Reny’s makes up for a lot too. You gotta be from here to know this iconic store. It’s a Maine thing.

You may recall that during this time, I hoped to do some research for the book I’m currently working on, The Search for Rose Michaud. So I played the tourist around Downeast Maine and eventually Nova Scotia.

Some of the highlights on the way home to Rose:

Downeast

Though it’s an hour’s drive, give or take, from the town in which I grew up to the coast of Maine, my maternal grandfather hailed from Trescott, a tiny hamlet near the farthest eastern shoreline. A salt-of-the-earth Downeaster with an accent to prove it, ayuh, he eventually took over his stepfather’s inland dairy farm.

“Once more the weird laughter of the loons comes to my ear, the distance lends it a musical, melancholy sound. From a dangerous ledge off the lighthouse island floats in on the still air the gentle trolling of a warning bell as it swings on the rocking buoy; it might be tolling for the passing of summer and sweet weather with that persistent, pensive chime.” –Celia Thaxter

I’d never visited Lubec, the “big” town near Trescott, in spite of its proximity to Calais, where we frequently cross the border into Canada. So my husband and I decided to make the trip during our month in Maine. I’d observe it as if I were the fictionalized version of Diana Delacruz. Or her protégé, Keli Peterson, on the trail of her French great-grandmother.

It took us much longer to inch through Bangor and Ellsworth than I’d foreseen. So the setting sun limited our time to fully explore all the picturesque seaside villages—Hancock, Winter Harbor, Jonesport, Pleasant Point—along the way. But we did detour off the beaten track at Trescott–a widening of the road, a cemetery, and a dirt lane named after my grandfather’s family.

At first I couldn’t imagine how Downeast Maine connected with my search for Rose and her French heritage. But as I (re)learned, that region of the Pine Tree State was part of old Acadia, the original French communities in the New World. In fact, St. Croix Island marks their first attempt at settlement (1604-1605). I also realized that, even today, this rugged coastal area reflects much of the life and landscape Rose would have encountered a hundred years ago.

West Quoddy and Lubec

Before heading into Lubec, we stopped at the state park featuring West Quoddy Head Lighthouse. The easternmost point in the United States, this red-and-white striped beauty definitely lights the way home as it watches the sun rise each morning. It was first built in 1808, commissioned by Thomas Jefferson.

Unfortunately, we arrived closer to sunset. Next time, we’ll plan to spend the night, as my grandparents used to do, and catch the dawn.

On into the village before dark. It’s replete with quaint century-old houses and vintage shops. Some call Eastport, just north, “the easternmost town in the United States.” That might sound right, but take a good look at a map and you’ll figure out the honor belongs to Lubec. The lighthouse is actually even farther east than the town, on a separate peninsula.

A short bridge to Campobello Island, FDR’s summer home, dominates the town and leads to Canada. My husband couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to cross over.

“The border guard will ask where we’re from,” I said. “Why go into that long explanation when we don’t have to?”

Because we’re from everywhere and nowhere. We leave home to head home. We follow the lights on the way home.

“Home isn’t where you’re from, it’s where you find light when all grows dark.” ―Pierce Brown

I guess life on Canadian Campobello, a mere stone’s throw from the US, presented quite the experience during Covid-19, though. The only other way off the island is a long ferry ride.

Lighthouse Museum and Rockland

On an early summer morning the next week, we wound through the backwoods to the mid-coast area of Maine. More on that trip another day, but one of the first places we hit was the scenic port of Rockland. My father had worked on a construction project here at one time; I imagined him eating lunch near the rough but impressive breakwater.

As we strolled along the waterfront, we passed the Maine Lighthouse Museum and decided to take advantage of the senior discount 😊. The place had zero connection to my search for Rose Michaud, but everything to do with Legacy of the Linnenbrink Light, #3 in the Desert Island Diaries to which I’m presently giving a final tweak.

The museum turned out to house the largest collection of lighthouse, life­saving, and U.S. Coast Guard artifacts in the nation. Kudos to the folks who curated those fascinating displays. It all gave me several great ideas on lights for difficult and/or isolated coastal areas (light buoys, lightships, etc.) as well as inspired a handful of intriguing story ideas.

This serendipitous detour just may have lighted the way home for me as it sparked a renewed interest in the subject of maritime history in general. My mother collected lighthouses of all kinds. Since she downsized a few years ago, I found myself the recipient of some of them. Now I want to investigate where they’re from.

A resin miniature one, I know, is Portland (Maine) Headlight, probably the state’s most well-known. Another, like West Quoddy, is red and white, but candy-striped on the diagonal, so not quite the same. A pure white brick-textured-ceramic one comes from…?

South Shore and Peggy’s Cove

Then in mid-July, we had the opportunity to tour Nova Scotia’s South Shore towns of Lunenburg and Mahone Bay. As often as we’ve lived—off and on—in Canada’s Ocean Playground province, we’d never visited these charming old fishing villages. Spectacular, rather. They are Lubec on steroids, the British Loyalist version of Downeast, you might say.

Famously photographed Mahone Bay reflects its row of oceanside churches into the mirror waters of the cove. Just down shore, Lunenburg’s UNESCO World Heritage tiers of colonial style buildings and shops tower over the waterfront where the legendary sailing schooner, the Bluenose II, typically docks. How I longed to return to view the area during the fall foliage season, on the way home.

But as September slid into October and we segued to the height of autumn’s color show, we managed only to get as far south from Halifax as Peggy’s Cove. “Only,” I say, certainly an offense to the classic Nova Scotia beacon. This light on the way home reminds me of many previous visits…with friends long gone, children long grown, and parents long past scaling the granite boulders.

“Home is what you take with you, not what you leave behind.” —N.K. Jemisin

The once lonely lighthouse has now burgeoned into a mini marine theme park. The corresponding crowds frustrate a simple photo shoot and gamble against the crashing waves and slippery rocks. Yet we could spend the day with family. We checked out the Anne Murray albums (another Nova Scotia icon), priced the lobster rolls, and settled for waffle cones.

And you know? It still felt like a highlight on the way home.

While it seemed that I didn’t accomplish much these months, that I didn’t get much writing done, that the time was wasted… Much must be said for filling my wells a bit. For seeking and absorbing, learning and living.

Now I wander the world and wonder, not how it all fits in, but how to fit it all into my story.

“The written word is all that stands between memory and oblivion. Without books as our anchors, we are cast adrift, neither teaching nor learning. They are windows on the past, mirrors on the present, and prisms reflecting all possible futures. Books are lighthouses erected on the dark sea of time.” –Greg Weisman