It took me a good minute before I saw them.
Young fiddleheads in a tight huddle with shiny brown wrappings over them.
Near one cluster was another, and then another.
Soon, all of them would stretch up and out of foraging range, in their quick season.
Settling in for a sabbatical, I learned that dandelion petals bring a brightness to morning eggs (the time to pick the flowers, just the yellow, is in the early morning). And their leaves are less bitter before the flowers arrive.
Spring descended on Maine a month into my stay in showy bowers, and I spent my mornings in the cottage kitchen working on the next issue of Saucy magazine and watching everything bloom outside the sun room.
I spent hours trying to understand how to bring forward texture in a photo, examining the way light changes throughout the day.
My sabbatical cottage is filled with my wise friend Keryn’s energy – now she lives with her husband Mike in a beautiful barn near blueberry barrens that look red as the sun sets.
I frequently just drove, down roads that had no outlet, and crossed quiet scenes I would pull over and sit and admire.
A favorite walk has been the one up Beech Hill Preserve where a house with a living roof sits, providing a reason to hike the hill and look out on the wooded islands and coastline.
Most frequently in these two months, I would walk the breakwater to the lighthouse in Rockland.
And then I would look back at the mainland, and decide to return.
I would pull into coves on the way back to the cottage,
to walk around flowers as I had circled the lighthouse.
And now it is time for this Prodigal Daughter of Maine to return to Brooklyn for a bit, grateful for my time reveling in this beauty, and especially for my Maine friends, who shelter me and take me in when the city overwhelms…
