Too many people to see

First day of vacation. Nowhere to be. No time to get there. (I mean, no deadline to get there; plenty of time.) Josh and I slept over at my uncle and aunt's house, only they weren't there. (That is NOT the selfish joy part of the story! But we did get the chance to see them the night before.) When we hit the road, I decided this was the trip I was going to get in touch with my friend Holly who I had literally not seen since my high school graduation. She's an artist, she lives in Kennebunk, and thanks to Facebook I have some kind of a sense of what her life is like. Every time I mention I'm in Maine, she says to come by, so I finally decided to take her up on it. We hung out and talked for what must have been 2 hours, and could have gone on for a full day. She's just as wonderful as she was at 15.

At some point in the conversation I said to Josh, "If you met Holly somewhere and I wasn't there, and you didn't know our connection, but you were just talking, I bet at some point you would think to yourself, 'She's like the people from Harvard.'" He knew just what I meant. There's an energy, a kindness, a humor, a way to banter, a sense of place, and a way to connect with people that those of us who got lucky enough to be raised in Harvard got lucky enough to be infused with. Holly has it.

When we peeled ourselves off from seeing her, we almost went for a swim, but we realized we were really hungry, so as we headed to Biddeford to get some haddock, we came across this truck and stopped. I mean, look at it. Josh is practically a part of the decor! We had to stop!

Back on the road, heading North, Josh mentioned that he wanted a "nice" pair of jeans for shul and performing. I know I say I'm a terrible shopper, but the truth is I'm only a terrible shopper for myself. I asked him what he likes, and then I knew just where to go. Or at least what we should stop in Portland and which part of town. I had to use the Google to locate the kind of store for the kind of jeans he would want. And we did. And he did. And we came away with a perfect pair of jeans for the man. Plus, a stunning thick fog was rolling in to town, and we got to walk over cobblestone streets through the mist and pretend we were on set for a period piece about upscale denim shopping New Yorkers on a road trip.
 
Back on the road, heading North, we stopped in Brunswick, where our friend Louise had told us to pick her garden because she's away on a business trip in Croatia. So instead of buying vegetables, we loaded our cloth shopping bags with her overgrown zucchini, gorgeous tomatoes, and leaves of rainbow chard. As we headed North again, I got a little weepy, thinking about how grateful I am that I have friends I can stop by and visit, and friends who tell me to pick their garden, and friends (and uncles and aunts) who I can stay with, and that I am blessed with too many people to see, rather than too few.