Maine is My Mississippi

I eloped to Biloxi when I was 19.  Biloxi was dull, quiet, remote, and strange; it felt like it was deep in the stronghold of some eternal, physical and mental South, with its plantations, railroads, I-9, small town, deserted streets and spooky Spanish Moss.  Being recently married, I was distracted by my new life.   I was also running away from my overbearing mother, my father's death, and my too fast paced life in New York City.  More than anything Biloxi was dull.  What can you say about living in a state of dullness? It pulls you into a feeling of nothingness; it looks like an endless overcast day; and it seems like the people who live in such a place are in a faraway mental time zone you can’t reach or don’t even want to try to reach.  That was my Biloxi and that is also my Portland. 

If I compare the two, I can see the similarities of living in each place in an exhausted state of mind. Yet, I now admit that the perfect antidote for my mental, physical and psychological exhaustion was and will always be dullness.  When I was in Biloxi, my husband spent his days at Keesler Air Force base, and I spent my time eating and watching soaps at our one bedroom apartment across the street from the beach.  (I might have been depressed then). Looking back, I should have done more, seen more, but sometimes I fell into the dark funk about time and place.  I allowed the disconnect of Biloxi to take hold of me.  Really, I should have gone exploring, read more about the place during the Civil War, and visited its cemetaries, plantations, and museums. I should have looked beyond what Biloxi felt like and made it my own, made its antidote of dullness into an elixir of discovery, like I have done in Portland; this would have healed me quicker, made my mind clearer, made me to leave the past behind and be in my immediate present - as difficult a challenge as that was in Biloxi. But, I didn't learn my lesson then.  I learned it now. 

Like Biloxi, I arrived in Portland exhausted and in need of break from raising two kids on my own.  It’s strange how Portland was a step back in time to the same mental state I had in Biloxi.  This time, though, I recognized the feeling and the same languid , strange dullness that gripped the place and anchored it in a full stop - like in Biloxi.  Maybe that’s what "real" time travel is all about: knowing how place fits in your own own mental time zone. Really, you don’t need a machine to go back into a familiar piece of your own history or even a memory of it.  You just need to know where you are at the moment: whether its your past, a fresh present, or a glimpse into your future. It was Confucius who said something to the effect of knowing your future by understanding your past.  

This time, though, I go beyond the dull.  I understand that being in a state of dullness is the only way for me to heal in places with an overwhelming sense of it. And Portland is dull; it is also remote, austere, slow.  Its people are loners, artsy/folksy, religious zealots, drunks, hard-scrabble poor, and/or detached rich white folk who fear anything that is the least bit different from them, especially the beautiful Somali immigrants, who even in the midst of winter walk the streets in light and colorful headscarves and skirts (The Catholic organizations here have  sponsored many immigrants from this war-torn area; but people here now fear there are too many Somalians coming to town). But, I go beyond all that. I recalibrate dullness into a daily adventures: I hike in the forest with my guidebooks on trees, wild flowers and birds;  ride the ferries to Peaks and Long Islands;  visit the museums; rent old, foreign and documentaries from the library; read all the books I have ever wanted to read; write; and date the Maine men.  Mostly, I forget I am exhausted. 

I know I won’t be here forever, because I didn’t stay in Biloxi forever.  But, I am here now.