Time, Travel, and Maine Time

 Guest Blog by John Ford

One of the nice things about traveling from Sharon, MA to Appleton, Maine is the dedicated four hours of reflection time spent getting there. Sure, most people would probably say that’s too long to travel, but I’ve found that time to be a welcomed reprise from the world and the prerequisite for entering “Maine Time,” which is far different than  “Massachusetts Time.” In Maine, it takes a minimum of a half hour to get anywhere. Time is protracted in Maine, and I’ve come to love that, too.


Often during the rides, Ann-Marie and I listen to audio books on our way North ( Remind me sometime to give you some great book recommendations). Other times, she listens to photography pod casts with her ear buds, and I just enjoy the quiet time thinking. I usually tell myself that during this trip I’m going to focus on some issues and work through some solutions in my mind. Or, I plan to to formulate a nice story to blog about. However, I find that my focus lasts for about 30 seconds, and then, like a frenetic squirrel running from tree to tree, my thoughts start to bounce from one random thought to another. During the most recent trip I couldn’t help but to think, “Do smart people have the capacity to think longer thoughts, and is that why they’re smart?”


Although, I also realize that while I struggle to focus, my brain is also competing with my musings by consciously and subconsciously computing the millions of pieces of information that is required to keep my car traveling safely on the road. It’s probably a good thing that my focus is overridden by self-preservation.


In any event, here are a couple of random thoughts I had during our recent trip to Maine. 


One of these random thoughts was about sleep. I could write a whole blog on sleep. When I worked the midnight shift ( ten years in total) I came to truly appreciate the body’s need for unadulterated shut-eye. My sleep pattern became so disrupted and disjointed that, at one point I was close to hospitalization. Thank goodness those days (and nights) are in the past.


In my 66 years, or approximately 23,496 nights of potential sleep, I have had plenty of good slumber. Yet, during this life, only a very small number of nights of remarkable sleep. The kind of rest that feels like you’re waking from another world.  Maybe three remarkable sleeps total - and two could be credited to whatever drug they give you before an Upper GI and a Colonoscopy. 


The best natural sleep I can remember occurred when I was 12 years old.I had the 
the best sleep I had ever had. It was  the  summer of 1968. I was on a New Hampshire camping trip with my family. The campground had a small pond and a row boat which could be used at will. Rowing a boat by myself was a thrill to a 12 year old and I spent hours perfecting my maritime skills in the warmth of our late August vacation. Exhausted, I later returned to our old ten-man, cabin style, tent. The pungency of the thick, slightly mildewed, canvass was the comforting smell of those rare vacations that we took. It’s funny how your brain can magically recall odors. 


I feel bad for kids nowadays. Today, most families don’t go camping and if they do they usually have one of those fancy nylon LL Bean jobs that beautifully repels rain and can be put up in seconds.  Our tent took hours to put together and my father would systematically lay the parts out before my mother and I were assigned our places for the moment of truth. Something like the itinerant tent raisers at the Barnum and Bailey Circus. We also had those foldable cots that were awesome, particularly when compared to constantly deflating air mattresses, or the hardness of the ground.


I had fallen asleep on one one of those cots and I awoke a lifetime later with the setting sun playing on my face. My hair was wet with sweat and my body truly felt as if I had been transported to another place. I was in a fog, but also truly energized. What made the waking moments even more eerie was that as I peered outside the tent there was no-one to be found. My parents and siblings were absent. In fact, the whole campground seemed deserted. If I had reached the age of shaving, I would not have been surprised if I had found a Rip Van Winkle beard sporting from my face.  As I stood alone outside the tent, the world seemed so lonely and scary, but it also felt so wonderfully refreshed and exhilarating, due to this unearthly sleep I had just physically experienced.


I didn’t know at the age of 12 that some 54 years later  during time transport to Maine, I would be again reliving that experience. But, that’s what “Maine Time” does, it transports you - sometimes to places that are neatly tucked away on a camping cot in 1968.


I find myself hoping that someday I can experience a sleep like that again. In the meantime, I can look forward to my next colonoscopy. I think it’s scheduled for 2024. “Hey, Ann Marie, did I miss the exit?”
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