I've never been to ME

Photos

When Luis asked me if I wanted to go to Portland, Maine, for a few days, images of us in a snowy fishing village, sitting by the fire sipping General Foods International Coffee in oversized woolen sweaters came to mind. I'm always surprised by how my preconceived notions of a place rarely coincide with its reality--for instance, how unprepared I was to see TGI Friday's with valet parking in Jakarta.

In our 7 years together, Luis and I have never celebrated Valentine's Day. We both find it forced. If you really need to have a Hallmark-inspired day to remind each other how much in love you are, well, then, good for you--if you like that sort of thing.

In the midst of the Sturm und Drang of moving, we decided we needed a break. Living in New York can (and often does) suck the very life out of me. For the past 6 weeks our friend Jenn has been appearing in a professional production of Larry Shue's The Foreigner at the Portland Stage Company. This is the last week of the show, so we decided to drop everything and go. We left Monday morning around 11:00 a.m. On the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway we called Jenn to tell her we were on our way. The 320-mile trip normally takes about 6 hours, she said, so she'd see us around 5:30. At 4:00 we called Jenn to tell her we were 5 minutes away from her hotel. She was flabbergasted. "Oh my God!" she said. "I'm about 20 minutes away. I didn't think you guys would be here so soon."

"Well," I said, "I'm driving with Goggles Paisano, so what'd you expect?"

Portland was nothing like I imagined. For one thing, it was warm, in the mid-40s. "It reminds me of Brooklyn," Jenn said, though the resemblance wasn't apparent to me at first. "Portland is to Boston as Brooklyn is to Manhattan--very neighborhoody, local merchants, quiet." This was true. Portland has a Park Slope feel to it, without the pervasive stroller culture. It's an organic, no preservatives added, hormone-free zone.

Jenn was staying at the Eastland Park Hotel, facing the theater. Her room was in an older part of the hotel and reeked of stale cigarette smoke. "It's like that scene in Titanic where all the Irish people are in steerage and cling to each other as the tidal wave sweeps over them," she said.

Portland is a coastal town, surrounded by water, with lots of fishing and boating. Dozens of little islands dot the seascape. We drove along the Eastern Promenade water around sunset, ribbons of orange, pink, and violet streaking the horizon.

We had cocktails in the bar at the top of the hotel, which overlooks the city, before heading to dinner at Blue Spoon, a simple, homey restaurant that reminds me very much of Park Slope. I ate some tasty local oysters and a seafood stew. While we were at the restaurant it began to snow. So much for warm weather.

We drove around the city as the snow became heavier. The streets were deserted; the tranquility was refreshing. Jenn kept gushing that Portland would be a great little city to live in. She's not alone: Portland has been ranked one of the 10 most livable places in the United States, and the number one place to raise children. Even though Downeasters have a live-and-let-live mentality, we didn't see ourselves pulling up stakes and moving there. It seems like a pretty pleasant place. Luis could get a job as a corrections officer, which would up his gay appeal, and I could become a job placement counselor.

Yesterday we had breakfast at Becky's Diner, a local eatery frequented by fishermen. The oatmeal was especially delicious. Was it some special, steel-rolled, hand-picked, manually hulled local grain? So I asked the waitress, who pulled out a canister of Ralston (as in the pet food company) Quick Oats. "I don't know why it's so good, but lots of people comment on it," she said.

The snow from the previous night had been washed away by rain overnight. We were blessed with a 50-degree sunny day for our travels up coastal Route 1 to the towns of Brunswick, Bath, and Wiscasset. We stopped at an antiques mall near Brunswick, where I bought Luis a cute Victorian desk that's more to scale in our new apartment. Bath, which sits on the Kennebec River, still had fairly high snowbanks from a recent fall. The antique shops there were a bit of a bust. Wiscasset was more charming. The sign at its entrance says "Maine's Prettiest Village." "I'll be the judge of that," said Jenn.

As we sat eating lobster rolls, looking out at the Sheepscot River, it was hard to disagree with the sign's claim. Huge but simple clapboard houses outline the river's banks like a Norman Rockwell scene. Life is decidedly simpler here, I thought. Sometimes Luis and I wonder where the next phase of our lives will take us. As a place to grow old, Maine might not be so bad, but we're not really the outdoorsy type. I don't envision myself ice fishing or wearing plaid flannel any time soon.

Wherever I go I like to buy local specialties, things I can't get in New York (but can't you get anything in New York?). At a gourmet store called Treats I asked the counterperson if there was such a thing as Maine wine and, if so, could she recommend one. The wines she sold were made not from grapes but from other fruits such as pears, apples, blackberries, and Maine wild blueberries. I bought a bottle of blueberry wine, which sounds potentially gross but I'll give it a shot. I later bought a dozen bottles of Maine microbrews, including Geary's and Allagash, at the fabulous Portland Public Market.

Jenn's show started at 7:30. This is the third production I've seen her in, and as always, she was excellent and the show was funny. When we met her afterwards, she was incensed. "That was the WORST audience ever!" she said. "There was some teenager sitting in the front row who had been dragged there by his parents, and he sat the entire time with his arms folded glaring at us."

"We laughed a lot," I said apologetically. "But we were sitting near a lot of bitter lesbians, so we can't be held responsible for them," Luis said. We had drinks and food at Sebago Brewing Company (I had a Frye's Leap IPA on tap, which was OK) and watched the end of the Westminster Dog Show. Watching the canines being led around, I was glad I'd decided to take off my leash in the middle of all the madness and run free.

Today at Portland Architectural Salvage we bought a wonderful old medicine chest made of semipetrified wood. The chest and the Victorian desk will be the first new pieces we've bought for the new apartment.

We made it back to NY in 5 hours. Time flies when you're on the road. Before Monday I'd been to Paradise (PA), but I'd never been to ME. As a remembrance, I brought a little bit of ME back home to Brooklyn.