Maine's State Motto Is "Vacationland."

I'v concluded that my LiveJournal has become an utterly neglected place. How sad. How silly of me to begin every entry by musing over the fact that I never update. Ah well.

In brief, a recap of the past fantastic week:
Friday. Rode the bus in the rain all day to get home in the afternoon. Having pulled an all-nighter on Thursday and danced away most the energy I had stored up, Mei and I managed to remain awake for about three hours after arriving in Maine before collapsing to sleep for 13 hours straight. In that three hour interim, Mei had Henry the 8th's, and there was much rejoicing.
Saturday. Did not, through car and timing issues, attend the Vermont Renaissance Festival. Sadness. Instead, Max and I took Mei on a yardsaleing adventure, during which he acquired a free Rubik's cube by asking, "If I solve this, can I have it for free?" Played Halo and lazed about all afternoon, went driving that night to shake off the restlessness. This landed us in Denny's for four hours (in Maine, that's all that's open) where we had a very long, very complicated discussion upon the difference between a decision and a choice. When we finally drove home we posed this same question to my drunk and very laid back brother and his drunk and laid back friends, who, being drunk and laid back, found the entire thing fascinating and then were quickly distracted by Beirut.
Sunday. Sis's pool party. We ate lobster, I made good use of their diving board, Mei impressed everyone with his cubing, I learned to shoot a basketball (apparently I should take this up), Mei learned to swim underwater, I caught up with Sis and Adam and the crew, and there was all-around goodness. Great party, Sis.
Monday. Joined my parents at Boothbay Harbor on Phaiakian. Walked about the place, played pool. Meitar had never had fudge before in his life. This I marveled over. Then we ate fudge. Lots of it. That night on the boat we watched one of the best firework displays I have ever seen. I wish I had the skill to write that down, really I do.
Tuesday. Meitar sailed the boat from Boothbay to Sebasco, which he likened to a video game and seemed to enjoy greatly. I lounged, devoured great chunks of my latest book, and got a wee bit of a tan. At Sebasco there was more swimming, and then there were more fireworks, with much company from the Tondeleo and the Kennedys. There was also much cuddling. However, there was not more fudge. There was birthday cake instead. Happy birthday, beautiful.
Wednesday. Drove to Acadia National Park, which pretty much took all day. We purchased a National Parks pass, which will get us into any park in the country for an entire year. Hopefully we'll be making good use of that thing. Setting up camp and getting the fire, the stove and the gas lantern all lit provided us with some flare-ups and some interesting adventures, but in the end it was all really a grand success. We spent that night sitting around a nice roaring fire that Mei built, eating smores, drinking margaritas, lighting sparklers and being in love. I'm running out of superlative adjectives to describe this trip with, but it really just kept getting better and better.
Thursday. Hitchhiked to the top of Cadillac mountain, per tradition of my family. While lunching at the top, we were amusingly assaulted by a seagull who stole my lunch. No. Really. Right out of Mei's hand. After I stopped fuming and helplessly laughing over my arch-enemy, the seagull, we hiked down the mountain. The view, as usual, was amazing. It was refreshing to do that hike with Mei, who had never seen anything like it before. It gave me fresh eyes for the entire experience. That afternoon we spent in Bar Harbor, shopping for gifts, enjoying ourselves, each other, and the town, eating (yep) more fudge, and in general just being young. Much of this trip made me feel as though I was living rich, and living young.
Friday. After 16 hours of traveling, give or take a few stops and rests, we made the jump from our tent on an island off the coast of Maine to our apartment on 183rd street.
Recap: fin.

Just as the Island Explorer bus was pulling out of the Village Green in the twilight on Thursday night, Mei and I turned our heads to see a local band set up on the grandstand in the center of the park square, playing the Star Spangled Banner to a gathered audience of kids and families and senior citizens in lawn chairs that they'd probably all pulled off their porches to bring out into the night and listen to the music. It was like something out of Norman Rockwell, the intense overwhelming nostalgia, the small town vision almost frightening in its perfection.
This scene delighted me, and disturbed Mei. I have yet to discern exactly why, but I suspect that the severely alien nature of the entire thing may have given my city boy a nasty bit of culture shock.

When the Greyhound bus pulled into New York tonight at 12:30 am I looked out the windows and expected that familiar joyful rush, the comfort I've always gotten out of coming back to this city. It wasn't there. I feel lost and little and confused.

The Smuckers jam company has an advertising campaign designed to give the impression of a folksy, small town family business, full of wholesomeness and natural ingredients. People in New York City buy the jam, and they eat it, and I think they never quite believe that such things actually exist, or that if they do (and small towns are not simply some far-off, slightly boring, utterly backwards myth) that living there could never be as good as living in the center of an urban paradise.
My father, I slightly suspect from comments made over the years, holds a belief that many people who don't live in large cities share. This is that on some indescribable, fundamental level, cities are unhealthy. City life is unhealthy. There are no trees, no fresh air, no sky, and it's all concrete and unsafe streets and harsh neon glow where nothing can grow or flourish.

Both of these beliefs are, in my life, untrue. Maine is rich and beautiful and nourishing. New York City is rich and beautiful and nourishing. They feed different parts of me, but they are both valuable.
Knowing this makes me feel as though I've stepped outside of the way things should be. I am, and have been for four years, straddling a gap between two phenomenally different cultures, dearly in love with both of them, and unwilling to give either of them up. Sometimes this means I'm gifted, with my life gaining dimensions exponentially.
Tonight this means I am never going to be completely happy in one place. It upsets me; I have, through my own dual nature, managed to make myself feel homeless.

There is my bittersweet musing for the evening. But I am confident enough to say that although I am not content at the moment, I will wake up tomorrow just fine. Yes, I think I shall sleep well tonight. And now, to bed.

After such a week, how could I not be happy?