We’d flown since early morning from Seattle’s SeaTac Airport, via Detroit, then Boston and finally home to Portland. It’s late. I’m tired and hungry. You don’t get anything to eat on the later flights. Not even a peanut. Home after Christmas. Our headlights cascade down a long, winding, driveway piled three feet deep with snow. […]
Meetinghouse
Janet Anderson-Murch: Life is what happens around the dining room table
When I was a young child, my parents brought home a Moosehead furniture-made, dark maple, dining room table with eight matching chairs. The glossy wood table was beautiful and there were two leaves to add more room for more people as needed. For you see, in my family, dinner was the most important meal of […]
Jane P. Lord: Summer promises kept
“When winter comes, with frosty flowers on the pane, The thought of you will warm our hearts, ‘Til we return here once again.” These are the last lines of our most revered summer camp song, “By a Glistening Lake.” It was sung through sobs on the last night of camp, at what was called the […]
Christ Mavi Bafouana Mpandzou, Portland: A journey of joy, if only in imagination
I was born and grew up in Congo-Brazzaville, a country located in Central Africa. It has been three years since I have left my country in difficult conditions. I had to move for safety reasons and, I am currently living peacefully in the United States. I always remember that day of October 24, 2015 standing […]
Molly Young, Portland: One encounter, two experiences
It was two o’clock in the morning and I was tired, lonely. I was supposed to be staying in a Washington D.C. hostel that had bedbugs the size of cats, but in the middle of a humid night, I figured I’d be more comfortable waiting for my 4:30 a.m. train in a cracked, plastic chair […]
Jody Rich, Waterville: A familiar drive can be full of surprises
It was the winter of 1974-75 and I was a freshman at University of Maine/Farmington. I was riding home to Tewksbury, Mass., with Dave, who lived in nearby Billerica. It was snowing when we left after his last class on Friday. When I got into his Chevy, Dave muttered, “I’m not sure how good my […]
J. Lauren Sangster, Portland: Sometimes you have to decide
My husband and I moved to Maine five-and-a-half years ago. He’s from Scotland and his family all live there. I’m from Kentucky and all of my immediate family lives there. We are the ones that decided to move elsewhere for a while, but then settled away from family. So, here we are and we love […]
Janice Anderson, Richmond: Dad and an angel, waiting for me
The Anderson Christmas angel was simple. She was not a store-bought porcelain doll. Her simple starched lace dress held the round head made of wood. Her hair, eyes and slight smile were painted on. Her halo and arms were shiny gold pipe cleaners. Her wings were of gold tin foil. The trumpet she played joyously […]
Brian Wentzell, Portland: Walking through the woods of memory
One cold, quiet morning last autumn, I went out to the woods behind my family’s house in rural New Hampshire for solitude and fresh air. It was an intense and emotional week. I’d retuned home to to be with my father and sister to help take care of my mother, who was in hospice and […]
Sally Hinckley, South Portland: Family finds re-entry rocky
We dashed from our berths in the bowels of the boat to the main deck. My mother held my brother in one arm while I grabbed onto her dress. All dependents were told to get on deck near their assigned life boats. Lots of words were spoken over the PA system. One of those words […]