The Girl With Blue Hair: This is about the past.

Today, as I begin writing this, it is now Thursday, March twenty-sixth, two thousand and nine.

When I was 17, I went to Maine, as we had done a few times before and still do every year or two during the summer. We have a small wooden camp that my great- (+ one more great, maybe) grandfather on my mother's side built a very, very long time ago. It's in very northern Maine, almost to Canada. The area is this gorgeous, barely-touched place with trees everywhere and dirt/gravel roads. There are so many farms. Relatives on my mother's side, up until my grandfather when he was around twenty-something, were all potato farmers there.

Anyways, I was 17 and in bad shape. I went there with my mother, my brothers, and Mateo's (my middle brother who was 20 at the time) girlfriend. My grandparents and some relatives were there at the same time. I was going through a really rough patch and was pretty unwilling to go on vacation; I figured I'd end up just being completely and utterly miserable, both towards myself and to be around. I was especially not in the mood to be around Mateo, who was, at the time, experiencing New Love and fucking hell, that shit sucks to be around when you're miserable.

So we started the twelve-hour drive to Maine in July. The night before, I had gotten pretty wasted at Manda's and did some things I'd rather not mention here. We stopped in Ogunquit for a day or two. I spent most of the day alone and occasionally talking to strangers. I had bright blue hair and apparently, that means "Talk to me" in stranger-language. I wrote constantly. I literally filled more than half of a composition notebook by the end of one day; it felt good but sickening, like itching bugbites and receiving relief, but pus and blood, too.

On the way to northern Maine, we stayed in a hotel in Ogunquit (one of my favorite places in the world). This was taken that night.

A six or so hour drive more north, we finally got to the camp. As usual, it was exactly as I had remembered it. The air was so sweet, fresh...clean. The lake reflected everything around it when still, though occasionally there were small boats or canoes or even swimmers just hanging around. I have a fear of water where I can't see the bottom, so swimming there didn't ever really fly with me, but I love being close to water. It's always beautiful there. Always. There is never a day (there or anywhere, really) when the sky doesn't make my mouth drop at least once, but in Maine, everything on the ground is perfect, too.

This is Cross Lake:

This is the camp:

I've been co-dependent on people for so long. Parents, friends, lovers...I was always terrible at being alone. I hated it, was terrified of it. Ogunquit, sitting and walking by myself, was the first place I really got a chance to be alone because...I had to be. I couldn't be around friends because they were hundreds of miles away and I couldn't be around my family, at the time, because I didn't want to ruin their vacations and be a miserable asshole. I talked to some strangers, as I said, but for the most part, I was alone. It was so odd and uncomfortable but I eventually realized how badly I had needed it.

I ate strawberries that were better than any I had ever had before. Perfect ones that we bought from a store on the road we drove on to my great Aunt Barbara's house. The berries were picked and sold same-day; absolutely perfect.

(I was, and still am, extremely pale. I'm not as pale now as I was then, but my skin rarely changes much from this color, or lack thereof.)

I love Maine, I really do. I need to live there someday. I have a feeling that's where I'll "settle."