The entire month of August generally always feels like the last weekend of vacation. Things are still suitably vacation-like but you can see the end coming.
Soon enough the kids will be back in school, the leaves will turn and then fall and the next thing you know, there will be three feet of snow on the ground and temperatures will be struggling to break out of the single digits.
Every season in Maine has its charm of course, but summer feels like the season. Every business in business is open. Seemingly everybody with anything to do with Maine comes to visit, and lengthy daylight hours, outdoor activities, and iced drinks rule the day.
For reasons that have nothing to do with the actual event, up to this year, we have had mixed feelings about Olde Bristol Days, Bristol’s annual community celebration. If you have never been we encourage you to go.
Colonial Pemaquid is jam-packed for the occasion with activities, entertainment, food, and vendors, but solely due to its pride of place on the calendar, Olde Bristol Days has an entirely different feel than something like Boothbay’s Windjammer Days or Damariscotta’s Pirate Rendezvous, both of which take place in June.
In June the possibilities of the season seem endless. There is plenty of summer for everyone and the days stretch out before us like a glorious vista.
By late August, our summer visitors are counting down the minutes before they button up the seasonal cottages and head back home. It’s still wonderful, but bittersweet.
Fitting it is, somehow, that Vikki Hilton, of Damariscotta, took her leave this week, and on her way out, set an example for the rest of us to live by.
Diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, Vikki and her husband Walter and family very publicly shared the ups and downs of Vikki’s final illness via Facebook. Right up until the end, she was encouraging visitors in an effort to see as many friends as she could before her seasons ended.
More than one came away saying she provided more comfort to them than they did to her. That’s profound.
We are going to Olde Bristol Days this weekend, and bittersweet or not, we are going to savor every precious moment, right up until the end.
