Janet and I took a little time off. We headed up to Maine on a long 4 day weekend. Nothing planned, just ambled up the coast towards Booth Bay.

On the way up, before crossing the river to Booth Bay, we went to Wiscassett where Janet and her family once had a “shack” that they all went to as a family each summer in her early years. I wanted to see Janet’s roots so Janet took me to her girlhood home in the woods. The shack was long since gone but the old barn was still standing. It was in the middle of the woods not far from a major river. The remnants of a rope swing where Janet used to swing Kathy, her oldest daughter was still there. We pulled off the road and up onto what used to be her father’s land. I was now entering her childhood and was about to take a walking tour with her and share all of her memories.

Time had stood still. The large barn was in incredible condition, just as it had always been. The house had long since been gone but Janet already knew that. When we stepped out of the car, there was no sound at all, like walking into a noiseless vacuum. It was absolutely astonishing as if my hearing had suddenly left me. Gradually, I became accustomed to the sound of the woods, a sound that I had also known during boyscout camp as a child of 11 but had forgotten deep inside my memory. We opened the door to the barn and stepped in. The stories and memories poured out of Janet as I listened, fascinated by the joy she had experienced as her family escaped the city and went to paradise. I had heard the stories before but now, I could see it unfolding in front of me. All the stories about her brothers and sisters, family friends, people who I now share my life with became real and touchable as if I too had been a part of those days.

As we entered, Janet saw her mother’s dustpan and broom still leaning against the wall. All sense of present time and place disappeared as we walked around the barn. No running water, going to the outhouse when it was freezing outside, going to gather buckets of water, I was part of it now. I had seen the pictures of all the family at that age and I could picture them there. It was now real and I could, in my mind’s eye hear the conversations and see her family’s life happening in front of me.

Janet left the barn and began leading me down to a path off the road and into some very thick woods. We went up and down mini mountains as she had done when she was a kid because she wanted to show me her special spot on the river. It was still there, a time worn rock formation jutting out into the river just below a steep incline off the side of the river walls. “All the same”, she said. We trekked back up through the woods and could hear only nature. No cars, no traffic, just quiet.

We got into the car and Janet directed me through rural roads that she had not been on in 15 years, roads she had begun to travel when she was 5, roads to where she had gone to dances as a young teenager and to an old spillway on the river where her brother had learned to swim. We headed back to town and walked as she showed me where she used to go on her bicycle and what each building was. No roadmaps, just memory as a guide. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful time.

At near day’s end, we crossed the river and continued on to Boothbay. In one day, I had met the child, the girl, the young woman and the young mother that was Janet and felt a part of each segment of her life, feeling closer to her inner soul than I had ever believed possible.