Back Cove

I walked a lot when I was a freshman and sophomore in high school. Portland, Maine is a pretty small city, so it was easy enough to get around without a car. I only really took the bus if I needed to get somewhere quickly, or if it was raining. It was about a half an hour walk into town. Another ten minutes or so to the pier and Flatbread Pizza and Casco Bay Lines.

I never got sick of walking. Sometimes I wouldn't even need to go anywhere. I would just walk.

Behind the apartment complex where I lived there was a park. Payson Park. Just beyond that park was Baxter Boulevard and Back Cove. Back Cove is sort of this water inlet from Casco Bay. There's a trail that goes along it that's about three and a half miles if you walk all the way around. 

I probably walked around Back Cove fifty times or more during my sophomore year of high school. I remember that winter was especially tough for me, so I'd leave home and walk the trail two or three times in a row.

I had a long bout of insomnia from eighth grade until about my junior year of high school. It was at its worse that winter during my sophomore year, so I sometimes walked the trail at night. I can't exactly describe what I felt when I walked the trail at night... the only feeling I can really relate it to is when I spent that week sailing off the coast of Maine. It was like I wasn't me, almost. I was just my thoughts. It was cold and it was dark. It was exhilarating sometimes. It was terrifying other times. During the day the trail was full of people on their morning runs and bike rides. But at night it was quiet, empty, and it was all mine.

One night my sister's dad caught me leaving the house. He asked me where I was going. I didn't answer, I just walked out the door. I remember worrying that he would follow me, or shout at me, or hit me, or call the cops or something. But I just kept walking until I reached the trail. He didn't do anything about it. In fact, he never even mentioned it again.

Another night I was picked up by a cop. He asked me what I was doing out so late. "I couldn't sleep," I said. Then he asked me a ton of questions. I don't even remember what they were. Eventually he just brought me home and told me that it's too dangerous to be out at night. I told him I understood, and that I wouldn't do it again. I walked again the next night.

It was a sort of reckless freedom that I had. During those nights I felt, more than anything, like I was on my own. In the best and worst of ways.

I stopped walking when I moved out and lived with my friend Olivia. She didn't live near Back Cove, and I didn't feel right leaving her house in the middle of the night. I knew her mom would worry if she ever found me missing. But at night I was always itching to leave. Eventually my restlessness lessened. But every once in a while, when I have trouble sleeping, I still get the urge to get up and walk. Sometimes I wait until it passes. Other times I actually do it. It's never the same as it was back then; but then again, I'm not the same as I was back then.

I had the urge again tonight, even though I wasn't trying to sleep. So I decided to write about it. And for a moment, I could almost feel the cold air on my face again. I could almost smell the tide and hear the occasional car passing. And for a moment I could feel that peculiar feeling again. The one where I'm not me, I'm just my thoughts.The one where I'm a profound speck of dust in something that's infinitely bigger and emptier than I could ever imagine.