Bar Harbor, Day #2

Here's my motivation. This outcropping at the edge of the ocean. I sit here and read. Why others haven't thought to bring fold-out chairs for sitting and reading and watching the waves I can't imagine. It seems like such an obvious thing to do. (Click images for larger versions.)
Here’s my motivation. This outcropping at the edge of the ocean. I sit here and read. Why others haven’t thought to bring fold-out chairs for sitting and reading and watching the waves I can’t imagine. It seems like such an obvious thing to do. (Click images for larger versions.)

This seagull advised me to stay in Bar Harbor for a few more days.In a parallel universe, I’m halfway back to Greenville right now. In this universe, though, I’ve spent several hours online instant-messaging with my “therapist” and she’s talked me off the ledge, which is why, rather than rocketing toward late arrival at a cheap hotel somewhere between Maine and South Carolina,

Interior of the Opera House Internet Cafe, the gold standard of such establishments.I’m drinking a cafe mocha at the Opera House Internet Cafe in Bar Harbor. It’s why, instead of hastily-downloaded paranormal talk radio programs and road noise, classical music is playing softly in the background as I consider the photo at right, taken about three hours ago at Otter Cove. You consider it, too, please, the view to my left as I sat in a fold-out chair decompressing with a book and a bottle of Amazing Mango juice. See what I saw as the last of the “bees” (as I think of the mild insanities that sometimes overcome me) left my head and I said to no one in particular what I’ve already written here: “In a parallel universe, I’m halfway back to Greenville right now.” Are you picturing it? …

The outcropping, the ocean, the evergreens reeking of Christmas. Can you feel the chilly breeze? Now imagine this: a seagull lands not six feet to my right, as if summoned by the observation just made. On cue. “In a parallel universe …” Boom. And as I imagine he would do in the film version of this unnerving day, the seagull stands staring at me for the longest time … long enough for me to reach into my backpack, take out my camera and frame several photos, one of which is posted here. Then he spreads his wings to the wind and floats away. You’ll forgive me if I interpret the seagull’s timely arrival, punctuating so perfectly my reference to unhappy parallel universes, as a sign from God (or my therapist) that I shouldn’t leave Bar Harbor prematurely.