For two weeks in October I was at sea on a cruise in Canada and New England. We launched from Montreal, stopped for a day at Quebec City, and got soaked in Saguenay. From there it was on to Corner Brook, Newfoundland, Sydney and Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Saint John, New Brunswick. The ship set anchor in Bar Harbor, Maine and after a brisk ride in the tender I and my sister met the tour guide for the Ocean Trail walk.
We decided to stay in town for lunch. My sister had seen an advertisement for “The Best Blueberry Pie in Town” at a café on the pier but was disappointed to find that the café was out of blueberry pie. She picked an alternate while I walked to a mom-and-pop restaurant that had boxed lunch lobster roll. They also had beautiful wedges of pie heaped with blueberries. I ordered two slices.
We met up in the park overlooking the harbor. I savored the sweet lobster meat with the sun warming my face, a cool ocean breeze occasionally shifting my hair. The air was crisp and clean, so different from the smoggy stagnant air at home. I took a bite of blueberry pie and melted into the present moment of not-sweet-yet not-tart blueberries.
On the way back from a driving tour of Acadia National Park, we saw that the café was closed. Not just closed for the day. Closed for the season. We took the last tender of the day back to our ship on the last cruise of the season. In this era of everything-available-all-the-time, it restored my soul to connect with seasons and flavors that can only be enjoyed in the present. All five senses were engaged in reminders that everything in nature exists for a reason, at a specific time and place.