New Harbor and Pemaquid: Familial Echoes

I recently spent a few days in New Harbor and Pemaquid, Maine, a favorite get-away spot. Every time I make this trip, ghosts and memories ride along.

My mother’s family spent summers near Boothbay, which sits at the end of a neighboring peninsula. She and her siblings regularly came to Pemaquid Point and I have pictures of her and her brother and later of her with my dad or with friends picnicking and playing on the rocks. Later in her life, she wrote about the delights of those summer visits, including excursions to Pemaquid:

“When Cap’n Newell Gray could leave his haying he would load his boat, the Osprey, with people of all ages and take us to places like Damariscotta or Center Heron or Pemaquid and there we would scramble on the rocks, explore, and gorge ourselves on picnic fare. I was always amazed at the fact that Cap’n Newell could find his way home in a thick fog without any trouble. He would stop the boat and listen and he could tell by the sound of the water just where we were.“

I first came here with my parents after a long drive east from Ohio when I was 9 or 10, then again as a teen. In the 1970s and early 1980s my parents spent extended summer/fall stays in New Harbor and I’d come for regular weekend visits from my Massachusetts home. 

Since then, I’ve come up every few years, sometimes alone; sometimes with friends. My last two visits, in 2015 and 2016, were with my sister. We rented a cottage on a cove with its quiet light and birds darting and swooping.

I haven’t been back since Barbara died; I expected to feel some sadness as I moved through spaces I’d shared with her. And I did feel the prick of tears as I drove north on the Maine turnpike, crossed over the bridge from Wiscasset to Edgecomb, continued north on 1 to the Damariscotta turnoff. But mostly I eased into—and was eased by—the familiarity and a sense of coming home.

I spent a leisurely few days, revisiting favorite places and exploring some new ones. A highlight was a visit to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, where I spent several hours immersed in color, texture, and scent. 

And each day I made my way to Pemaquid Point—a big pile of rocks spilling into the sea, a lighthouse, a small cafe.

Pemaquid has long had power for me. I remember many years ago sitting for long stretches huddled against a sheltering pile of rocks, shutting out the sounds of other visitors and sinking into the crash of waves and the smell of salt and seaweed. I came there one evening when I was in my 20s and caught up in some sort of tumult—there was a full moon and a high tide—magic, an easing of spirit. I came again the spring that my dad died and 10 years later, the summer my mom died, needing the touchstone of a place that has familial echoes. 

On this visit I sat on a bench at the top of the rocks and watched the shifting moods of sky and ocean, the sun glinting a path across the water and as I sat there I imagined my mom and dad, my sister sitting with me, taking it all in.