This Is My Place

There's a place, a space where I feel whole. I arrive, close my eyes and breathe deep. I breathe so deep that my lungs fill to capacity and as I exhale I feel a release so immediate it's medicinal. I am so comfortable here.

 This place, Maine, is not just a vacation spot, it's so much more than that. It's where, when I think back on my childhood, some of my favorite memories took place. Hours upon hours of dodging waves with my sister while our bodies became numb from the frigid water, sitting around a nightly campfire with several close family friends singing Peter, Paul and Mary's "Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet, but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat…", sneaking into the camper to read a borrowed and forbidden copy of Judy Blume's Forever, and many more hours spent on the beach soaking up the sun and blaring the radio (Hearing Billy Idol's White Wedding can still take me back).

Sixteen years ago this week, one week after we were married, we moved to Maine and into our very first house. I discovered my green thumb in Maine cultivating a vegetable garden so large and prolific that I was forced to sell zucchini roadside so it wouldn't go to waste. I then turned those mad growing skills into flower gardening. This was also the time when digital photography was taking off and blogging was in its infancy. I combined my love and interest in all three by taking photos of my flower garden and blogging about it on AOL Hometown (remember that?). 13+ years later I'm still blogging about my garden but, thanks to improvements in technology, my photos are so much better. Maine is where I discovered my creative passions. It's also where we had our first son.

As with anything it's not perfect. I remember so clearly a 4th of July party that we were hosting where the day started off bright and sunny and warm but by mid-day when everyone was arriving a cool fog as thick as clam chowder rolled in off the coast and smothered our gathering and only 10 more miles inland it was still bright, sunny and warm. Also, If you live in the United States I don't have to tell you that the winters are long and cold, very cold. 

Life took us away from our semi-permanent spot in Maine, at first very far away and little by little we got closer. Now it's a 3-hour drive making week-long vacations and weekend getaways totally doable. Last summer we even found out that 4 moms and 8 kids can make it a day trip.

One day we'll move back to Maine, I have no doubt.  

 
So now that I've told you about my place, I'd love to hear about yours.

Thank you to the wonderful Focusing on Life ladies for the invitation.

                                                       Becky

It is our extreme pleasure to welcome Becky Laflam (Becky Sue) as our guest blogger today. I am sure many of you already know her from the Picture series of classes on BPC and she is also a member of the Prompt Addict community. You can see more of her wonderful work at Flickr and on her blog.  (In the list of tags on her blog, click on Maine for even more Maine beauty.) She's an Instagram addict and you can find her there as "beckysue".  Thanks for joining us today, Becky!