letter to the editor

Missing camera changes vacation focus

Tue, 08/22/2017 - 11:15am

Dear Editor:

Returning home from a wondrous few days in Boothbay, I was presented with a challenge.

My camera was missing!

With it was the looked-forward- to video replay of the wave sounds and the roll of the Eastwind schooner, the painterly vistas of Monhegan, the hollyhocks to be painted later in watercolor. Worse yet was my skepticism that, if found, could it be recovered? I had a certain trust in Maine residents, but would a tourist be likely to see the value of those pictures to some unmet person?

As I made phone calls to the various Boothbay businesses my bad mood dissipated. There was Amber at the lunch counter who empathized with the loss of my bald eagle snapshot and suggested that she’d look further at Renys. I remembered Amber talking about the value of a lunch counter in connecting community. Now this young woman was extending her values to a distant tourist. Cindy at Eastwind schooner immediately did a search and breathed a note of optimism into the endeavor. She called me back later with a personal message. Speaking over the cacophony of Moody’s Diner a kind voice promised a dedicated search. And there were the police and others all of whom seemed genuinely engaged.

While it is fun to review a vacation through photos, seldom does the traveler have an “encore” experience with the people of a place. While I realized that the photos were fleeting, the post-trip interactions with Boothbay and Damariscotta residents left me with something far more lasting: a sense of human connectedness and a review of what character truly means.

Hours later the camera appeared in my luggage. I was reminded of Gurdjieff who said that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. It is part of our age to be forever recording events digitally As a solo traveler, my coming to Boothbay had been all about taking lots of photos. Behind the lens, I failed to appreciate my human encounters.

What makes a vacation truly memorable is the interactions we have with people: sharing values which transcend the careless capture of personal experience.

Jean Ager

West Chester, Pennsylvania