![\"colin_2015\"](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/colin_2015.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cI am a tourist in my own life.\u201d Poet Linda Pastan may have written this line ironically, but I have a sunnier, more carefree take on it, which is odd for a Scorpio.<\/span><\/p>\nDuring perfect, crisp, fall days like this, we used to roll up the sidewalks in coastal towns like Ogunquit, Kennebunkport, Old Orchard, Freeport, Damariscotta, Boothbay Harbor, Bar Harbor, even Portland.<\/span><\/p>\n But now that the sense of \u201cMaine\u201d is blurring into a fashion meme (viz. checkered shirts and Bean Boots in Singapore) and even a state of mind, fall is a time of awakenings. Food tastes better. Just now, right now, the crash of waves is more reflective during a long walk on the beach.<\/span><\/p>\n I was born in Portland in Maine Eye and Ear Infirmary, the same hospital where Stephen King was born. (The last time I bragged about this, a local gave me the suspicious eye and challenged, \u201cWhat floor?\u201d)<\/em> In spite of my local credentials, I\u2019ve more than once been called \u201ca year-round summer person\u201d because I edit a city magazine that tirelessly looks for new attractions year-round. It\u2019s the greatest job in the world to get to showcase the quirky Maine I love.<\/span><\/p>\n Put another way, we\u2019re all in search of \u201ca permanent vacation.\u201d No, no, not the way the Angels use that phrase in their 1963 hit \u201cMy Boyfriend\u2019s Back.\u201d But in a freeing way where you can be commuting to work, look out your car window, and catch your breath when you see a deer, an eagle, a wave, a flock of seagulls. Tourists in our own lives, taking in the foliage? Okay! It\u2019s our luck as Mainers that at least we aren\u2019t commuters in our own lives. (Sorry, Yankees fans.)<\/span><\/p>\n So many business people I know have moved here to chase lost childhoods (summer camp, canoeing on a lake, tasting their first lobster rolls, even just sampling sincerity). In every case I can think of, they\u2019ve rediscovered themselves here.<\/span><\/p>\n If we are tourists in our own lives, and we live in a tourist destination like Maine, that\u2019s a double fantasy. Yoko Ono has told me (yes, I regularly chat with Yoko, well\u2026once) that even she and John Lennon tried Maine on when The Dakota got too claustrophobic. She said he started at Kittery, driving along the coast, saying,\u201c\u2018We should get this beautiful house hanging over the surf.\u2019 Then he\u2019d crane his neck and say, \u2018Look up there. Let\u2019s see that one.\u2019 Then he\u2019d see a place on the next peninsula steaming out of the fog and say, \u2018Hurry, let\u2019s go there.\u2019\u201d He was in a hurry for beauty\u2013that\u2019s how his mind worked.<\/span><\/p>\n We don\u2019t just live our own dreams here, we live everyone else\u2019s, too. If Maine is the wave at the end of the mind, we have to surf it. Hey-la-hey-lah. It\u2019s our responsibility so next summer we can share it with our guests.<\/span><\/p>\n \n \n \n<\/p>\n\n