You land once and then you really land.

On moving and community and landing in a place.

I landed in Southern Maine over 18 months ago by way of our home for the past almost 10 years that was in Colorado. But I would say that I, myself, really landed in Maine about three-ish months ago.

To be clear, I am not here for the lobster.

I am not a boat person.

I have barely touched the islands you can ferry over to or hike at low tide and camp on.

I have seen a lighthouse. Or two. I have not been in one.

I haven’t been to the outdoor concert venue in Portland.

Nor have I gone to Acadia National Park, yet.

However.

I have been to the local library every single week since I moved here. We have a collaborative event together later this month, actually.

And I have walked the beach we live near more days than I haven’t. With my kids. Solo. With my dog. With a friend. Last Summer, we had pizza Fridays on the sand.

I frequent a local café called Bev’s one town over and they know my coffee order by heart. And my husband’s, too.

I take baked goods, broth and soup to my neighbors and friends.

And just today, my dear friend brought me a piece of coffee cake and soup she made yesterday.

I volunteer each year at the Scholastic Book Fair in the Fall and the Wellness Day in the Spring at my children’s school.

And there is something about rounding year two that is rounding me out, too. My first year here was a touch bleak and thin. Both the experience after moving and my body. Year two has been where the healing set in and I feel my strength coming back in ways I recognize and new ways that lend itself to being 41 and alchemizing layers of ego on the beach walks.

A friend recently messaged me saying she felt she was in a friend desert and asked how I already had a social life in Maine? She is in that hairy time where your first kiddo is just turning 2 years old and you have changed and life looks different and you’re feeling around in the dark and daycare is a different frequency in friend making than say, elementary school.

I felt for her because that is the time when you really need community the most. That validation that someone is just as tired as you or just as annoyed as you or just as overwhelmed with love and the responsibility of it all.

The thing about landing and then landing again is that it kind of sneaks up on you. It does not even come close to looking how you thought it would. And in all honesty, I had no idea what my life in Maine would like. We really moved here on a feeling, intuition and core values. We did not know a single person who lived here. And had really only visited the ocean.

Oh but that ocean, she called to me. She said, “I will take care of you. I hold so many living creatures, come here and I will hold you, too”. And she has delivered on that promise. The waves, the salt, the snow at the beach, the frigid cold of her waters and the ever changing frequency day after day after day.

My youngest learned to walk and took her first steps on the sand hand in hand with her sisters. I love that memory.

I knew when I recently landed for the second time when I had a friend over with her two kiddos and we were sledding in our side yard. And all the kids stayed out to sled and the parents came in to sit by the fire and watch them sled down the hill from the windows. There were coffees made and we just all sprawled all over the living room. My friend and I next to the fire talking about our kids, beef tallow and our shoulder flexibility (or lack there of) and Winter. My husband and her’s standing and talking about books.

This was after that same friend and our other friend just the week prior went out for a girls’ night. Just weeks after a holiday party at another friend’s house where again, we were sitting on the floor talking.

And even today, the friend that brought soup over. We sat on the floor.

It was like, look, look at you, you landed. And as if I kept missing it, the forces that be kept pulling me closer to the ground to say, “see now, from here, can you see? You are here”.

And a woman told me today she is leaving Colorado, to move to Sydney, Australia for six months. I love that for her. And she asked me, “wait, did I see you are leaving Maine?”.

I immediately responded, “oh gosh no, I just got here.”