I am, at heart, a summer girl.

Summer is, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine, the season of the heart. It is the season of fire. It is the season of joy and laughter.

I live, interestingly enough, in a state where the summer stint is brief. One might think that this is nonsensical. If I am such a summer girl as I claim, then would it then not make more sense to live in a warmer clime?

It might. And someday, perhaps, I will.

But right now I can be content with this place: Maine.

Maine is known as Vacationland for good reason.

We who live here understand why; those who visit us soon learn. Maine is a place for those who wish to re-connect with what is real--the realness that many are not privileged to live, most of the time.

Maine is a state of passion and intensity. We feel things to our core.  When it is hot, it is sweltering hot; when cold, it is frigid.

Which is why I live here. I live here because I like to live. I like to feel things to my core.

Give me not perpetual moderation.

I will take the sweltering heat any day. I will take the brilliant sun, and the off-shore breezes. I will take the brisk, dark Atlantic waters. I will take the succulent green trees which are soon to transform into dervishes of whirling color. I will take the sharp granite rocks under my soles. I will take the coastal sunrises, unobstructed.

I will take all of these and absorb them into my being, passionately. With fiery lust, I will live them. With great joy. With laughter.

Because I am a summer girl, and a Maine girl, both, at heart.

 

Frenchboro

2011