Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Kennebunkport

"Recent Storm Damage
Help
The Healing Dune Grass
Please Stay Back From
Rope" -sign on Gooserocks Beach


We spent two weeks in Maine. My favorite place. The place I go back to in my head when I need an escape from life's uber-jazz.

I introduced my husband to my family and Maine at about the same time. I wanted to see if the boy from St.Louis would love what I loved. He did. So we bought a house on the beach and had five beautiful children and lived happily ever after.... okay, so we didn't buy the house on the beach, but everything else is true.

Thanks (and I do mean thanks) to very generous family members, we are able to travel to the beautiful Northeast for some life transforming R&R.

This is the Kennebunkport Routine:
Wake up. Husband and I sneak out of the house- not hard to do with 4 teenagers and one sleeping pre-teen.
Get coffee and a muffin in Cape Porpoise (Cape Porpoise???!!!) I love writing those words.
Park car at beach. Breathe deeply. Smell a beach rose. Watch bee roll in pollen of beach rose.
Eat blueberry muffin. Hold hands and walk with husband.
Pray.

That's the beginning of a perfect Kennebunkport day.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Fourth of July

"...the fireworks are hailing over little Eden tonight..."- Bruce Springsteen

I used to be cynical. I still have tendencies along those lines, but I'm much older and have come once again to the GO space on the Monopoly board. A place where I understand where people are coming from a little better. Cynical and critical for me went hand in hand. Heavy on the critical.
Judging people who made me feel insecure. Country club people who dressed their kids in matching red, white, and blue outfits on the fourth of July. People who got manicures. Rich people. Money seemed like the unreachable star. Something that you had to be beautiful, super smart and gifted, or know someone to aquire. If you belong to this group, happiness is a sure thing-right?
I don't subscribe to People magazine but I eagerly catch up on all the celeb gossip while in the dentists office. I really would have liked to have had some of Christie Brinkley's beauty(duh)but it sure hasn't brought her happiness. Love has not found Andy Hardy(an obscure reference that I picked up from Breakfast at Tiffany's) or Christie Brinkley. I'm not jazzed about it. It doesn't make me feel better about myself, but it does reinforce what I do know- there is only One source for true joy and it has nothing to do with personal beauty, talent, or money.
Oops, I've got to run... my kids in nonmatching outfits are waiting for me at the pool and I have no idea what I'm going to wear...

Happy Fourth of July!!!!