The Spoils of Maine

Where the Soul Breathes Easy

Photo by Gena Vazquez

There’s a place in the northeastern corner of this country where the air still smells of pine and salt, where the morning fog drapes itself over the coastline like a woolen shawl, and where the rhythm of life is slow enough to match the heartbeat of the earth itself. That place is Maine.

On one of the hottest Sundays of the Summer, this California girl made her way up the winding coastline to enjoy the spoils of Maine. To step into Maine is to step into a living, breathing postcard, only this postcard has dirt under its nails, gulls calling overhead, and a tide that pulls the worries right out of your bones. It’s the crunch of a forest trail beneath your boots, the soft sway of lupines in the summer wind, the steady hum of a lobster boat returning home at dusk as it leaves Casco Bay and pulls into Broad Sound.

Here, the coast is more than a boundary; it’s a living hymn to the sea. Jagged granite fingers reach into the Atlantic, holding fast against waves that have been crashing for millennia. Salt marshes sway like a whisper. Lighthouses stand watch, their weathered walls telling stories of storms and safe harbors. Fisherfolk and sailors marinading in all its marine wonder.