This column first ran in the Press Herald in 2005.

Even here, a place I am assured is paradise, I find myself missing Maine – a place I know actually is.

Do not get me wrong. There is much to love about California. Waves crash below Pacific Coast Highway symphonically, as beautifully as their Atlantic cousins do at Bar Harbor. The “Hollywood” sign, perched in the verdant hills above my new hometown, manages to be both precarious and majestic. And Malibu, where billionaires share ocean views with skunks and rabbits, offers sunsets so lovely and nights so clear I sometimes think the breeze is God’s very breath.

Still, I miss Maine.

I miss Maine in September, when the fragrance of apples fills the air. I miss it in June, when daylight lingers forever, and the ferry to Peaks Island magically spirits passengers farther than the 15 minutes would suggest. I miss it in December, when snowflakes caress lollipop lights in the Old Port, and the whole town seems to gather in the window of Gritty McDuff’s.

But I most miss it now – whenever now may be. This particular now is Thanksgiving. I know it is fashionable among some to deride Thanksgiving, to dismiss it as hokey or worse. I know that some people complain that it has become too commercial and has lost its meaning. Those people lose.

For all its hokiness, for its emphasis on turkey, this very American holiday still has meaning. If it weren’t so important, this would not be the busiest travel weekend of the year. People do not abide cramped airplanes and congested freeways for the trivial.

I lived a dozen Thanksgivings in Maine. I spent them in mansions in Falmouth, in apartments in Munjoy Hill, in condos on Brackett Street. I’m thankful for them all.

One Tuesday about 10 years ago, two days before Thanksgiving, I had no holiday plans. I called my friends Neil and Stacy, who had been married all of a month. “I have nowhere to go for Thanksgiving,” I told Stacy. “Oh,” she said, genuinely sad for me. Suddenly she brightened.

“You’ll come here.”

I knew she would say that, knew she would invite me to her home on Emerson Street. That is why I called.

My friend Stacy is a combination of Martha Stewart and Uma Thurman – a smart, fierce, intelligent and beautiful woman who since that Thanksgiving produced a child who surpasses even their parents in those qualities. I knew she’d build a memorable Thanksgiving. And she did.

Stacy had turned her little apartment on the hill into something Martha herself would envy. She didn’t merely bake cookies, she individually cut them into festive shapes – little turkeys and pilgrims and cornucopias. I wouldn’t be surprised if she personally churned the butter. The place glowed in pumpkin-scented candlelight and the guests basked in the warmth despite the cold November night.

But the perfection of that Thanksgiving was not in the alarmingly delicious turkey or the tasteful decorations. It was in the joy of the moment: The promise of a new marriage, the laughter of comfortable friendship, the purity of offering thanks.

We all have had our challenges in the years since then, but days like that Thanksgiving offer strength and hope. Thanksgiving in Maine always does.

Thanksgiving is somehow less cozy when it’s warm outside, but it’s just as meaningful. Today I give thanks. For my family, for my friends, for
nieces and nephews I barely know. For apple-scented air. For the promise and hope of the coming new year. I am thankful for Thanksgivings past and future, for crashing waves, for skunks in Malibu and – today especially – for Maine Thanksgivings.