A Shade North of Ordinary

On our first and only morning in Presque Isle, Maine, Callie and I ventured to the Presque Isle Conference Center and Hotel’s breakfast lounge. I ate the complimentary breakfast. Callie ate rice cereal mixed with the pureed peas and Asian pear I’d brought from California. The breakfast lounge attendant asked me how we were, what we were doing in Presque Isle. I told her I was passing through on the way to give a presentation at the university in Fort Kent. The breakfast lounge attendant asked how we were finding the town so far, and I told her I knew about Presque Isle because of my interest in Maine’s history and looked forward to exploring the town once we had eaten. The breakfast lounge attendant asked if we found our room okay, what we thought of the snow, what we thought of the cold, and I answered all of her questions. The special attention meant the baby and I didn’t have to eat alone.

As we left the restaurant, the desk clerk asked how we were enjoying our stay so far, if we’d been able to adjust the thermostat to our satisfaction, if we’d enjoyed our breakfast, if we would be staying in Maine for long. It seemed this hotel specialized in personal attention. Closer to our room, both of the hotel maids we encountered in the hall stopped folding towels so they could ask me if my room was all right, how long I’d be in Presque Isle, how I was liking Maine so far, if I was bothered by the snow. “Isn’t that baby precious,” said the blonder of the two housekeepers. “Would you just look at all her hair!”

This degree of inquisitivness, directed at me, reminded me of a trip I once took to Achill Island, off the west coast of Ireland. I’d gone to visit friends who were living for the summer in the Heinrich Böll Cottage, a space that had been converted after Böll’s death from the writer’s family residence to a visiting artists’ studio space. My friends, the Irish and American artists Helen O’Leary and Paul Chidester, both had major shows they were preparing, and they wanted to make the most of their time in the Cottage. While Helen and Paul worked into the early afternoon, I’d stroll to the pub to drop letters into the postbox. This round-trip journey would have taken Helen or Paul twenty minutes, but it never failed to be a full morning’s adventure for me.

All along the path, island residents emerged from their whitewashed raised gable houses. “How are you today?” they’d ask. “Staying up at the Böll House, are you?” they’d ask. “How are you finding it on Achill?” they’d ask. “You’re only visiting us five days, are you? Can’t stay longer?” they’d ask. What are they feeding you? Have you tried the black sausage? Have you tried the soda bread? How do you find the black sausage? How do you find the soda bread? Heading down to the pub? Fancy a bit of Guinness? Have some postcards to send, do you? Want to tell your family about Achill? The wind gets so bad here some winters it could carry away a young child. Did you know that? Fancy a bit of Harp, do you? All down the lane and back again this continued.

Toward the end of my stay, Paul took me to a family home for dinner. As the meal was prepared, my hosts set me up at the table, a Harp lager in hand and some cheddar cheese and soda bread on a cutting block nearby. The resident children and their friends, ages four, six, seven, seven, and nine, crawled and climbed and wove themselves around my chair, peppering me with questions. This was 1998, and visitors were still rare in that part of Ireland. The children were friendly and inquisitive. They wanted to know all about America. What was New York...