When I moved to Portland after college, there were some lonely years. Most of my best friends were from away anyway, and we had met under the trees on the quad at Bates. They went back to NYC, California, Chicago, Michigan. While there were some moments that were challenging (I couldn’t quite bring myself to go out to the bars by myself to meet people, thus having nobody with whom I could go out to the bars to meet people…and on and on), I cherish those solitary, self-sufficient days. I learned how to amuse myself. To slow down, to make friends at work. To eat lunch downtown with a book and my iPod.

Sometimes, when I needed to clear my head, I would make the short drive over the bridge to Cape Elizabeth to sit on a ledge over the rocky coast. With Portland Headlight to my right, and the fort to my left, the craggy boulders beneath me with their simmering tidal pools opening up to the vast expanse of the Atlantic, I could think. Roll in, crash, spray, roll out.

Now that I have a network of friends in the city, and my thoughtful, caring boyfriend, I don’t make it out to the lighthouse as often. I don’t need to. When we want to sun and hear the waves, we go to the sandy beach behind my boyfriend’s parents’ house. Miek had never been to the lighthouse, so this Saturday we took a walk there with Melo. I remembered why I love it there so much. The clarity, salt air, rose-hip perfume swirling around those cliffs.

xo Al