Slowly, slowly we trend into spring and thank our lucky stars for that. Here’s another little selection for you… of Maine, from Maine.

It’s eerily quiet along the coast now. Hereabouts we’re taking the present historic challenges extremely seriously but we know that this too shall pass and our streets and harbors will once again bustle when the current storm clears. How we look forward to seeing you back here then!

First, my apologies for missing two weeks of these “hugs from Maine.” I was away traveling and I must admit that it was great to thaw out a bit.

As ever, the very best part of going away was coming home…to Maine. Having said that, it’s March which means wildly varying temps and weather conditions. We all know that this is the eve of our Mud Season, the one time of year here for which I cannot think of a single person who has much of an appetite.

Lest you think that winter here doesn’t also have its gentler, more soul-nurturing side, I am sharing with you a “hug” I sent last year at this time. I hope that you enjoy it…again.

Much as I love winter here and usually go out of way to avoid leaving Maine, today I am again taking off for parts south for a week…and may possibly forgo my note to you next Sunday. In any event, all of us here wish you and yours all the best as well.

You may recall from my last “hug from Maine” that back in mid-January the coast of Maine was ravaged by two historically destructive storms and astronomical high tides. Damage assessment has painted a grim portrait of the consequences of the back-to-back events and it’s not a pretty picture. Millions upon millions of dollars in damages are going to have an intensely negative impact here, especially upon our working waterfronts in the fishing villages along the coast and out on the islands as they begin to gear up for our community-sustaining fishing season.

To that end, today I would humbly like to share with you a link to the Island Institute’s efforts to help those businesses and communities that give the coast its legendary and unique character. Put bluntly, an operative working waterfront is what keeps these towns going and these terribly impactive storms have imperiled the very life’s blood of our coastal communities. 

While everybody else is hoping for plenty of snow for skiing, or, perhaps, sturdy ice for inland fishing (etc. etc.) I am going to be indolent in the sun, charging my batteries and pretending to be unaware of all things Maine for ten days.

Having said that, it will be difficult—nay, impossible—for me to forget the battering the coast took from the two big wind/tide events last week. It’s with that in mind that I chose Azimuth at the top of this morning’s letter.

On Wednesday we had a serious SE blow that gusted to near 70 here. That wind, combined with high tide shortly before 10AM created a lot of damage along the coast, hitting some of the lower lying harbors hard indeed. More than a few buildings floated away and were beaten to death on the shorelines. Rockport is a relatively elevated harbor but SE is the one wind direction that really can do a number on us here. We were relatively lucky.

As you are reading this I am either out shoveling, roof-raking and snow-blowing OR (with all that on hold) cruising around in the truck hoping that an image or two might find me. Yep, it snowed all last night and I just plain LOVE days like this…for me they are the winter equivalent of getting out on Raven!

Tonight, Rockport’s Harbor will look something like these celebratory images…..likely no fog this year, and certainly no snow, but the celebratory mood will be with us, as always.

I’m deliberately sharing just a couple of much quieter images of our harbor as well….all indicative of the yin/yang of this very specific time of year. The celebration and festivities are always welcome, of course (and nobody loves fireworks more than me), but it is the quieter and softer side of winter life here that really sustains many of us.

Dear Friends, When we were young, our mother taught my brothers and me the quiet but deep gratification of sharing a proper Thank You. Every year at Thanksgiving we each wrote a letter to someone of our choice to whom we owed thanks for something in the past year and...

Dear Friends, It is a supremely gorgeous day here and minutes ago I walked from my studio over to the bridge—all of a one-minute stroll—to make these two images. Well, actually that’s not quite right; I did take my camera along (of course) but it was a little walk to...