An existential test in Maine
What happens when a Type A person (me) is forced to relax?
“If you’re thinking of getting hurt, check the weather, first,” is the only advice I was given about visiting Matinicus. But that tip arrived when I was already on the island with no way to get off.
Let me back up. When I returned from north Florida where I’d gone to prep my novel for editorial delivery (it’s coming out in the US and the UK in 2026), I returned to a husband who had cooked up a surprise. Our daughter was at camp for three weeks and we hadn’t planned anything. Did I fancy going to an isolated island twenty-two miles off the coast of Maine called “Matinicus” that required packing in everything you could possibly need, including toilet paper and water, making do in a beach shack and swimming (“swimming”) in 49-degree seas? There was just one cabin left with available dates—but we’d have to leave in five days. He’d make all the arrangements, he said. He really wanted to do this.
I hadn’t unpacked from my work trip yet. I hadn’t caught up on my emails. I know myself (Type A, control freak) and spending a week I’d designated for catch up on meal planning and worst-case scenario packing and rebottling oils, salts and vinegars into smaller tubes wasn’t in the cards. But I drag my husband to north Florida every year; a place he doesn’t like. He tolerates it, or rather, I should say, he tolerates my enchantment with it, but it isn’t his thing.
Frigid water and remote Atlantic beaches, that’s his thing. His family is from Brittany in the northwest of France, (picture Ireland, but French) so frolicking in icy water equals joy for him, as does unreliable WiFi and sand on wooden floors.
“Email” did not seem like a good reason to turn down a trip to Maine. I’d have several weeks before I heard back from my editors with further revision requests on my new novel, so while there were things I should be doing to stay ahead of my to-do list, not being on top of things in the summer is part of summer’s fun. I told my husband I’d go to Matinicus if he planned everything, researched everything, told me what to pack—a reversal of how things usually work in our household, where I’m the cruise director and the packing guide.
The trip to Matinicus demanded a lot of preparation. There are three ways to reach the island: the first is by ferry, but the ferry’s once a month. The second is by pilot boat charter—there were a few of these available each week, but if the seas were too high, the boat couldn’t make the crossing. The third option was a puddle jumper—a Cessna 206 that cost ten dollars more than the pilot boat and took twelve minutes instead of an hour plus.
We opted for the airplane. Nervous flyer in me be damned—I wanted to see the smattering of Maine Islands around Matinicus from a tiny plane.
My first indication that I was in dangerous territory for a control freak was at the Knox County Regional airport in Rockland, a six-hour drive from our house. We’d spoken to the pilots at Penobscot Air a few times that day and they assured us conditions looked good for our short trip, but when we showed up with our cart of food and toilet paper and drinkable water (the water on Matinicus is rusty), conditions had changed. Our destination was covered in fog, the ceiling wasn’t passable, and it wasn’t looking like we’d make it out that day.
“What about the boat?” I said. “We can take the boat.”
“The boat left at 2:30,” said one of the pilots.
It was 2:45pm. Was there another boat that day? Of course not.
We were invited to sit down, take a refreshment from the fridge, help ourselves to what was left of that morning’s donut box.
“Sometimes people get stuck here for a week,” laughed another pilot. “You never know with fog.”
I had to excuse myself and go outside to suck in air. The owner of the cabin we’d rented hadn’t mentioned that we might not make it to Matinicus for the start of our reservation. The nightly rate was expensive. It was almost the Fourth of July— hotels, if there were any left, were going to cost a fortune. The food we’d brought wasn’t going to survive a twenty-four hour layover, and if the food went off, we were out of luck because there wasn’t a single convenience on the island: no stores, no restaurants, no cafés, no nothing. I tried to keep on breathing. I’d let Jesus take the wheel here—or rather, my husband—and now my control freak was completely freaking out.
Back in the airport, one of the pilots said that people often drove into Rockland for a beer or ice cream to make the wait more interesting—they’d call our cell phones if there was an opening in the fog. We declined, knowing if there was a meteorological development, the best place for us to take advantage of it was right there in the lobby. We chatted with the pilots, looked through the old magazines they had available, read a fascinating profile of Penobscot Air that was framed in the hallway.
About ninety minutes later, one of the pilots—Stan—said he thought we should go up and have a look. As in, go up into the sky. “I can’t guarantee anything,” he offered, “but if we go up and there’s an opening in the fog, I can try to land if it feels safe.”
The nervous flyer in me didn’t exist anymore: she had been replaced by the cheapskate that knew we wouldn’t get our nightly rental fee back if we didn’t make it to the island. LFG, as the kids say.1
We shoved our bags into the Cessna, strapped on seatbelts and a headset, and with no fuss, we were off. Time lapse between seatbelts on and wheels up = thirty seconds. (Penobscot Air has probably ruined me for regular flights—the next time I have to sit on a tarmac for upwards of two hours, I’ll long for the friendly green and white colors of this small and able plane.)
Taking us up no matter what the outcome was a kindness on Stan’s part, because once we were airborne, I recognized that the fog was no freaking joke. The islands closest to shore were mostly visible, but as we got further out to sea and approached Matinicus, Matinicus was not. I was sitting in the jumper seat behind my husband and the pilot so I couldn’t see anyone’s expressions, but my assessment through the window was that it wasn’t looking good.
But then Stan threw his thumb up. I looked out the window again at what had been a swirling, rolling mass of nothingness like something out of a fantasy novel, but all of the sudden, there was a celestial break in the fog that revealed a gravel runway shining in the sun, a infrastructural peepshow of promise and relief.
We landed. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe our luck. Later, I would meet local homeowners who had purchased condos on the mainland because they (and their guests) were so often stranded from fog that it became more cost efficient to rent or own something than to keep paying for hotels. We tipped Stan handsomely and he went back into the sky. The fog closed over his departure and we didn’t hear his plane again until the next day when the sky was clear and the landings more of a sure thing.
That was just one example of the “best laid plans” irony that hit me each day in Matinicus. From learning that the lobstermen our home’s owner said we “could just call for lobster” actually needed two day’s notice (challenging, because all of our meals were planned around this unfortunate invertebrate) to power outages and the bikes that had been promised with the rental actually being the dominion of whatever island kid felt like riding them that day, the first part of the week, my inner control freak stood at the bow of my life and shouted whyyyyyyyyy into the ethers, but by day three, the micromanager in me had given up, defeated, and I understood that Matinicus is a place where you physically prepare for things to go one way but emotionally prepare for nothing to work out.
When our week was up, the skies were clear, and the airport said our departure flight would happen. It was something of a disappointment to see the skies unhindered. I didn’t want to leave.
Have you had an experience that proved challenging to you, existentially? A place that you had to dismantle your constitution to enjoy? Tell us about it in the comments!
The long road to publishing with Eva Langston In this podcast, I explained to Eva why it took ten years and three agents to get my debut novel published, even though I had interest for it out the gate. Thank you,
for this candid conversation, which you can listen to, here.Thank you to everyone who submitted work for last week’s project description + opening page exercise! I’ve turned off comments on that post because I’ve chosen the people I’m going to workshop—I can’t wait to share our sessions with you in the coming weeks! We’ll be looking at a novel where the description doesn’t prepare us for what we meet on the first page; another where the character arc needs finessing; one multiple POV book that needs a tighter descriptor of how the perspectives work together, and a descriptor whose POV isn’t clear, which makes the first page confusing. Everyone I’ve contacted has agreed to have their workshops filmed, so you’ll be able to see us untangle plot and character issues right here on Substack. Thanks again to everyone who trusted me (and us) with your words—you are writing marvelous things.
Bookshop.org is running an anti-prime sale! Until July 11th, any books and e-books you order via Bookshop.org will come with free shipping. Did you know you can keep on ongoing wishlist there? That’s where I keep my “want to read” list instead of hosting it on Goodreads. I find it easier to keep track of and the platform’s more attractive, plus, I’m not bringing traffic to Jeff Bezos when I surf there. (You can view my Bookshop wishlist here.)
I read my first J. Courtney Sullivan novel while on vacation and all I can say is, WOW. Are you all reading her? Her writing is so rich and knowledgeable and vast and emotional and generous and funny—I am going to become a J. Courtney Sullivan completist. I read MAINE in Maine, as one is wont to. I also read two Carl Hiaasen books, including a nonfiction takedown about Disneyword called TEAM RODENT. Speaking of Carl Hiaasen, who is part of the Friends of the Everglades organization that is fighting back against Alligator Alcatraz and the destruction of this sensitive and important ecosystem, if you have anything to spare this week, Friends of the Everglades will make good use of your donation.
Enjoy the rest of your week, and thanks for being here.
Courtney
LFG stands for “Let’s Fucking Go.” Pardon my French.
I was so invested in this story. I could feel the Type-A in me twist and shout.
My stepdad used to live in an off-grid cabin up (really up) in Canada. He lived there full time, on his little island, with his generator, cans of beans and horde of horseflies. I visited every summer, and every summer I hated the first two days. But by the end of the trip, I would inevitably sob because I didn't want to leave.
"I understood that Matinicus is a place where you physically prepare for things to go one way, but emotionally prepare for nothing to work out" is now seared into my heart.
Wonderful read.
I loved that read, Courtney. I giggled and empathized at the same time. The photo of you looking into the great beyond says so much. I was once a full-on Type-A, but this situation 51 years ago (I was 21) kicked off a life of rehab...
Three weeks after graduating from Smith College in 1974, I followed my new boyfriend to the remote Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. I wasn't an anthropologist, social worker, government employee, or missionary—reasons an educated white woman my age would have ventured there at the time. I was just a curious twenty-one-year-old trailing a rebellious boy. The romantic summer adventure I’d envisioned sharing with him did not include living in an armed American Indian Movement (AIM) camp. But that’s where I landed. Two days later, equally unanticipated, I was served peyote by Lakota medicine man Henry Crow Dog, born in 1899. Feeling both out of place and out of control, I considered leaving every day for about the first month, but some kindness on the part of those amazing old people, or some magic experience in a ceremony, kept me there. After years of holding back, thinking this story might not be mine to tell, I've finished a memoir about all that and more. It's now LFG time! (Please thank your kids for that one.)