I'm like a newbie on Culebra...part uno

You know how it is the first time you fall in love with Culebra, when the magic juju is working full force? Where you know you have found another heart home, even while they know your real home awaits your return? Well, that's how I feel right now. I couldn't live here, but my heart has found a new space and I am jumping/dancing/walking in the wonder, here in Maine.
Of course, I've also had a lot of wine...

That was last night. I still feel the same this morning!

There are samenesses, even while so very different. Gulls and water and stars and light, so different and so much the same. And there are differences...a fire in a fireplace made many generations ago. Buoys stamped with family names from generations gone but still the same families fish on. Fresnel lenses, the same ones I've seen in lighthouses on so many islands, yet here is another one...with gentle warning words, don't touch, and it was so hard NOT to touch it because, for the first time in a lighthouse, it was touchable, right in front of me, right THERE!

Pemaquid Lighthoue - Fresnel lens

And the people. At least the ones I've met. Kind and of the earth and sea, carrying that sort of basic geographical survivor mentality I understand in this rocky land with salt rivers and huge trees. And the smell, the smell of this place right in the moment of now is eons old in air cool enough to let that smell go right up your nose into your brain. Just like Culebra, but different. There are brothers and sisters of the earth and sea here, who will never meet but would know each other under the skin right away, over a beer on the water.Some things you just know.

I've taken a zillion photos and will take a zillion more to share this same difference with you. One thing I couldn't get in pixels. Yet. Fireflies. Simple little electrical pulses of living light, flickering the not quite dark of dusk. One got caught in Laurie's hair and I'm slightly ashamed to say I think we murdered it while I tried to get a photo...oops!

It was that silly attempt to capture magic, which can only be done when you are seven, in a jar;and your father persuades you to see them free before you go to sleep. That light hides in your memory until once again FIREFLIES! and you have to call your brother who shared those summer nights - and the first thing he says, when you tell him you are on the edge of woods watching fireflies is "Get the jar!! Get the jar!!" It's like that.

Wild things

Cormorant

Color me red

Pemaquid Lighthouse in lupines

From the top

Eel rakes (good lord, EEL rakes!)

Charcoal floats - made when materials grew scarce in the war years. 

These are from the late 1940's. Who knew? Not me

Sandee, who, unknown to us, gave us part of her lunch hour to tell us incredible stories 

in the museum - we thought she was the docent, she knew so much family history 

of some of the incredible items and had such great stories -  

we found her perking up the gardens as we were reluctantly leaving. 

I thanked her for her generous time and she said, "Oh, I just like to keep busy." 

Lucky for us!! Thank you, Sandee!

Pot buoys...lots of them! Traps behind them

A fire made for a Caribbean soul - 

the burning wood smelled as good as the fire looks..

.and warmed me right up.

 Eider duck on the sea

.

Red House Green Boat

I know it's not Culebra, but it sure has the vibe. Yes all you Maniacs who insisted I'd catch that, I do, you were right. I give! If you, dear reader, aren't bored with Maine photos yet, there will be more tomorrow. And if you ARE bored, there will be more tomorrow anyway!

I'll remind you again, but Debora Brum the Brazilian singer, will be back at Gretchen's Da Bar on the 19th of this month! In Culebra, in case you haven't had your coffee yet...If you have a chance to catch this appearance, take it. She's great, Gretchen takes good care of the customers and it's just a good time.