September 18 2006 - Maine

I am sitting at a little white desk in a bedroom straight out of Anne of Green Gables. The view from the window includes an apple tree, a hammock, a lawn covered in yellow asters, the bay surrounding Cushings island, Portland in the distance, and a couple of stray seagulls.

This is a magical please. Although no one place in the US can truly lay claim to being quintessentially American, New England comes pretty close. This island isn’t large, a half a mile across and a little more than a mile long. It takes about 15 minutes by Water Taxi or Ferry to get here from Portland. It is crisscrossed by little roads and footpaths, berry bushes, fields of goldenrod, and birch tree forests, where I managed to get lost the first day we were here. There is a “down town” of sorts; two tree-lined streets, with beautiful old houses, mostly from the turn of the century (the previous century); and a few news ones, built to look as if they COULD be from the turn of the century. There are no cars. In fact, there are no bicycles. There is one truck, used to carry groceries and luggage to the houses. There are handheld carts, also for the same purpose. There are deer, but few squirrels and no skunks or raccoons. It is a peaceful place.

This house has been in Jeff’s family for 5 generations. One of his relatives was on the Titanic; his family has a lot of history. They are from St. Louis, strangely enough; he went to Ladue High School and graduated in 1971. We haven’t found any people that we both know, but that’s not really surprising. I don’t think we traveled in the same circles! The house is huge – it has 9 bedrooms, and porches, sun rooms, a giant dining room and kitchen, and a tennis court in the back. The view from the corner lawn back to the house looks like something out of a Winslow Homer painting.

There were 17 of us Texas-connected friends here at one point. Some have already left; I think there are still 13 of us today. Yesterday we went on a tour of Kennebunkport and ate at George Senior’s favorite lobster roll restaurant. We also went to see a lighthouse. Today we have been decadently lazy. Jeff took us on a walking tour of the island this morning, and some people went sailing this afternoon. I declined the offer (I know Lee would be appalled, but I’ve had plenty of opportunities to go sailing in my lifetime) and spent the afternoon lazing in a hammock hoping not to get hit by a falling apple.

I’ve been running on the paths around the island every morning. The weather has been just perfect – highs in the low 70’s, lows in the low 50’s. The breeze is chilly, but the sun is warm.

The company has been delightful too. It’s kind of a strange thing; because of our Yahoo Group, we all know each other very well in some ways, but not at all in others. This is a chance to get to know what we are all like in our just normal, everyday behavior. One thing that has been funny, but no surprise – every single one of us is a fairly bossy woman! Its interesting to see how we try hard to accommodate each other, and then rebel against each other’s bossiness in silly ways (such as NO I’m NOT going on a walk, or YES I AM having another piece of See’s Candy! Ha!).

We are an amazingly compatible group of ladies, and the husbands that have tagged along are really fun to be around, and good sports too. We are awfully fortunate to have such generous friends as Corry and Jeff that were kind enough to invite us to this island. I really wondered what this was going to be like; it’s turned out to be really special.