blisters v: resurgam

One of the main issues anyone on the road will face is hygiene. Not a super casual conversation if you’re with someone, who can smell you straight away, nor super fun when your stank gets bad enough that you can smell yourself. Showers aren’t prevalent on the road, especially not taking an interstates, and buying a motel room every night isn’t possible.

So?

At first it’ll take a bathroom of any kind, then it’ll just take seclusion and frequent glances to make sure you’re alone, and before you know it, all your shame is gone and you’ll just do what you need to do in the front seat of your car to get on with the day! Baby wipes are gold. I’d use sinks to water bottles to wash my hair. I shaved in a small bucket that I couldn’t bring myself to repurpose the entire trip. The vehicle will smell like you but having your windows down during the day and (cracked) at night will help immensely. Mostly, it’s a morale thing. Pants off, pants on. Shirt off, shirt on. The illusion of cleanliness is as important as actually being clean.

I bought a drink as I left Concord. The air was cool and I put my sweatpants on. Coming from Virginia, this behavior in August was unheard of. Being on the road in 2012 in the midwest, the memories that often take over my body sweats just thinking about it. I cleaned myself, settled into my seat, turned on Bomb the Music Industry!’s Vacation and let it guide me toward Route 1.

I avoided Boston by going the opposite way and doubling back. I took Highway 133 (the epic Great Pond-Washington-Willow-Andover-E Main-Haverhill viaduct, a new street name for every mile!) to Route 1, which was now the Newburyport Turnpike. I drove into (not on purpose) the city-sized treat of Portsmouth. Wrong turns and one-ways led me through the cramped but cozy downtown. Compact lanes, shops, little parks. There was also detours and construction, but I can’t fault them for not rolling out the red carpet. It’s a completely ridiculous way to judge a city but people looked like they were walking with purpose, the streets felt like they made sense, it felt like I was in New England. In time, I made it across the Piscataqua River on Route 1, the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge, named for Sarah M. Long, employee of the Maine-New Hampshire Interstate Bridge Authority for 50 years. I liked the old bridge but it looks like in 2015, they broke ground on its replacement.

I’ll never forget driving into Maine for the first time. Lovely, lovely Maine. First, I marveled at the forgotten rules of summer when I looked at my weather app to see it was almost 100 degrees in Lawrence while only 72 at the state border! Second, the signs in the median driving in were so damn polite — you asked me not to speed, not to litter, not to play music too loud, to watch for moose and snowmobilers, all without sounding like an asshole. And if I did break the law — like speeding, which I would never do! — you told me that cops patrol with radar, aircraft, bikes as well as the standard marked and unmarked cars. If your cops were also ninjas or could fly, I’m sure you’d’ve let us know those were options of apprehension.

Sure, you kept hoping, a little incessantly, that I’d have a great visit.

Maine, enough of the neediness!, as if there was another option.

The natural progression of my car brought me to Portland, Maine. I’d think about this city a lot over the years, especially once I moved to Portland, Oregon. But five years ago, I wanted to come to take notes for a novel I still dreaming of writing. In it, my main character was born in the woods surrounding Sebago Lake in the 1830s, he and his father living in Portland during his childhood before circumstances lead him to Kansas Territory.

I made my way into the city in awe of its ports and piers that seemed bustling. Commercial Street briefly took me aback, reminding me of when I worked off Waterside Drive in Norfolk, the Elizabeth River surrounding me. I took Market Street straight up the gut of the city, passing the ornate City Hall at Congress, turning onto Cumberland Avenue. I figured a parking garage would be better than meters, especially if I was going to stay here a while.

I soaked in the history as I parked and walked the sunny streets. The city is Maine’s largest and was founded in 1623, although officially settled in 1633. It’s a city that’s constantly being beat down throughout the centuries (destroyed in 1676, burned down by the Royal Navy in 1775, the Great Fire of 1866); the city’s motto, appropriately, is Resurgam (“I will rise again”). The city gave the Oregon one (where I’m writing from) its name. It became a capital only to have it stolen for a lesser city (sounds familiar). It had a rum riot in 1855 in response to prohibition of liquor in the state. It would be involved in the northernmost battle of the Civil War when Confederate raiders entered the harbor in 1863. It’s experienced the fluctuations of the 20th century as most cities have and still stands to continue, much like me, onward.

I walked Elm Street right down into the indomitable 22 Monument Square, concrete contrasted with brick to let the monument to Maine’s Civil War soldiers glow. It was a marked contrast to the monuments from Virginia or deeper in the south, which glorified the Confederacy with a nod and a oh-yeah-look-at-the-Union-too! Portland’s Soldiers and Sailors Monument made no bones about the “the sons who died for the Union.” I came between the farmer’s markets on Mondays and Wednesdays but could see the skeletons of it. I headed southwest down Congress, passing the New Herald’s Time and Temperature Building (10:14, 78 degrees).

I stopped into the Maine Historical Society founded in 1822 and one of the oldest in the United States. The nondescript Brown Library apparently holds an original copy of the Declaration of Independence. The Wadsworth-Longfellow House, just next to the museum, was built in 1785 and was the childhood home of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I kept down Congress — past the Port City Music Hall, the Maine Art College. I turned down Oak Street toward the Casco Bay, toward the smell of seafood. I thought about getting a lobster for lunch, but decided again it. I stopped at Becky’s Diner on Commercial and got lobster rolls and clam chowder, which was extraordinary. I walked back up Commercial to Union, then back to the plaza. (In October, as I was checking on those places I’d left, I ran into an article in the Portland Sun about Monument Square, about how there was too many homeless around, young people going to shows — in short, a vibrancy that they were scared of. In a letter to the paper a few days later, my thoughts were echoed by Peter Hayward, “Portland’s downtown is lively, vibrant, and is a microcosm of society… Street people are as worthy as office people.” Couldn’t agree more! I’m sure the hapless writer was also dismayed at the Occupy marches through the square that fall!) My mom called as I continued to wander down Spring Street, sitting in front of the Lobsterman statue outside the cinema.

It was a weird conversation because I was elusive — to her and to myself. I told her I wanted to spend a few days, that I thought Maine was lovely. She asked where I was headed to next and I told her I was definitely going to Acadia National Park soon. I didn’t tell her, however, that part of me was thinking of staying. It’s funny now, five years on: the liminality that would last months and I thought of ending after one week on the road. Portland was that kind of city. I’m sure it still is. I hung up with her and began my trek back across the plaza toward the parking garage. While I’d come back to eat breakfast and head to Acadia, I got back in my car as the afternoon was settling in. I drove out via Congress again, trying to see myself in it. I followed Congress around the city, under 295, took the fork onto Highway 9 then 25. River Road eventually merged into Roosevelt Trail that led into South Casco, then into Sebago Lake State Park.