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Retired publishing executive ecstatic with the idea of spending most of his time on the coast of Maine

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Double time

How wonderful to drive 200 miles north and have spring all over again, or at least the flowers of spring. There's a seaonal lag of several weeks, so we get a second dose of crocuses, daffodils, tulips, and crabapples. But best of all, these warmish days of very late spring/very early summer bring lavish displays of lilac.

These are not the occasional single sprout seen leaning tentatively over a suburban fence. These are massive clumps - 15 feet high and twice as many wide - growing wild everywhere, some deep purple and some white but most the stunning ur-purple of royalty and riches. They are monsters of scent. In close the smell is overwhelming; at a distance, mixed with sea air, the smell of the lilac shouts, "Summer is here!" Of course, we pay for it at the end of summer, when the lag reverses, but that hardly matters now, does it.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I enjoy your Maine musings. My inlaws lived on Rackliff Island for several years. Some of my favorite summer memories are wrapped up in Miller's Lobster, Camden, Owls Head Museum, and just puttering around the towns and shore.

Your style and topic selection reminds me of E. B. White. And like EBW and Strunk before him, you are spare without being terse. Thanks for sharing.

Pat Shannon said...

In September you said you were going to read Wesley McNair's new anthology, A Place Called Maine. Did you? If so, what did you think of it?

You are my first blog spot. Your writing appeals to me and I know where you are. My heart was left on a beach in Owls Head several years go. Now I live inland and can only search the shore in the winter.

Jim Krosschell said...

I haven't yet read his book and shame on me.