Eastport, A Magical Place
A reflection and a story from the edge of the sea
My time here in Eastport has once again been nothing short of magical. When we first arrived, I felt a bit sad and melancholic. Maybe because deep down I know we likely won’t be coming back next year. Even the year after feels uncertain, if it happens at all.
And then we learned that Harris Point Cabins, where we’ve been lucky to have a full hookup RV site with ocean views and quiet mornings, is up for sale. The asking price is $1.2 million. Who knows what changes that might bring. It’s a reminder that nothing stays the same forever, not even the places that feel like home.
Still, this visit has brought so much joy. We’ve met some wonderful people, many who came just for the annual Pirate Festival, and one couple who has rented the same cozy cabin here every summer for the last eleven years. I get it. There’s something about this place that draws you back again and again.
The Pirate Festival was just as quirky and fun as I remembered. I loved riding my bike into town, weaving past the harbor and weathered old buildings, feeling like part of something timeless and playful all at once.
And while I arrived feeling a bit blocked creatively, I’m happy to say that passed. I finished Book 2 of my series, the English version, and I’m now working on the German translation. Eastport worked its magic once again. Maybe it always will.
A Fictional Pause – Inspired by This Place
Every so often, I find that a place doesn’t just hold memories. It stirs something older. Something quieter. Something that feels like it’s been with me all along.
That’s what Eastport has become for me. And so I wrote this short story as a way to honor that feeling — a fictional reflection born from very real emotions.
Where the Tide Remembers
A fictional short story by Anke Smith
She was born in Germany many moons ago, beneath a sky that felt too vast for the small town where her first cry was heard. Her family was loving, rooted, but she was not. From the beginning, she carried a strange restlessness, as if another shore far away was calling her name.
They traveled often. She learned to love many places — the green hush of forests, the hum of city streets, the warmth of train stations smelling of coffee and rain. Yet every arrival came with the same quiet absence. Even as a child, she sometimes woke as though she had lived too long, carrying a weariness she could not explain.
In her twenties, she crossed the ocean, drawn by opportunity and something harder to name. She made her living in the travel world, weaving her way from Alaska’s ice-edged fjords to Hawaii’s volcanic shores, through the 48 states in between, searching — all but one. Maine.
She didn’t come to Maine until her fifties, when her spirit felt thin and threadbare. The kind of tired no rest could touch. But from her first breath of pine-laced air, something in her began to stir. In the stillness of its forests, the mirrored calm of its lakes, the relentless music of the sea, her weariness began to loosen, slow and steady, like a heartbeat returning after a long silence.
And then came Eastport.
She felt it before she saw it, the subtle shift inside, as if the tide within her had turned. The streets were modest, the buildings weatherworn, the people unhurried. Yet as she stood at the water’s edge, the salt wind on her face, she knew with startling certainty — she had been here before. Not in this life, but in some life. Perhaps many.
The sea gave no answers. It only sighed against the shore, as if to say,
You have found your way back.
And she believed it.
Thank you, Eastport.
Maybe we’ll return someday. Maybe not. But you’ve already left your mark — in my heart, on the page, and deep in the tide that remembers.
