the macchias dacha

In brief, I am back from Maine. The trip was not brief. Well, the time I spent in Maine was brief; the travel to and from was not. Eleven HOURS, my friends, it takes to get from Westchester to Maine, and it's an hour from the city to Chappaqua, where the car waits, and since before that I had to work a half day, Mr. Ben and I didn't get to start our expotition til early afternoon. And we didn't get back (to Chappaqua!) til midnight, to return the car, we had to commute with the commuters this morning, revoltingly early, in order to get to work on time.

Phew.

But Maine was beautiful. Mr. Ben's father, an emigre from Moscow, found a house on property to his liking on roughly the same latitude as the place where he grew up. He recognizes obscure wildflowers that grow on lilypads along the river and remembers from summer camp how to make necklaces out of them. To share in the nostalgia, Mr. Ben's father -- who we could call Dr. Mr. Ben -- invited his extended Russian emigre family, settled lo these many years in Brighton Beach. Everyone grumbled a bit about the driving length, at least until they got an unobstructed view of unpolluted air rolling out over unpolluted waters almost to Nova Scotia. And, at night, layers over layers of stars.

The weather obliged us. In fact, I think it was showing off. The fog retreated slowly our first morning, revealing the scenery in teasing bits, and then it stayed away entirely so we could get sunburned more easily. We went canoeing. We watched waterfalls. We wandered around town (which, though lacking in a single traffic light, does have an organic food store). We ate.

And now we're home. It's my second week at the new job. Things are going well, I think, mostly. It's always stressful to change jobs but I feel a little more confident and that's always good. Even if I'm not actually confident I have to fake it, because in this city I've learned people don't have much tolerance for the alternative.