For many of us summer means moving into the slow lane of life and enjoying the simple pleasures of the season. Yet there is no slowing down for some, and so for them our coastal village has posted a cautionary sign of the times (pictured above). The sign is positioned just after the welcome sign and before the speed limit sign of 25 miles per hour at the village entrance. And the signage is not for nothing, as a boy was killed here by yet another speeding tourist several years ago. 

As Carl Honore writes in his groundbreaking book In Praise of Slowness: “An American physician coined the term ‘time-sickness’ to describe the obsessive belief that ‘time is getting away, that there isn’t enough of it, and that you must pedal faster and faster to keep up.’ These days, the whole world is time-sick. We all belong to the same cult of speed.” Actually not all of us, but if you are feeling “the need for speed,” then this post is for you.

I recently perused the artbook At First Light: Two Centuries of Maine Artists, Their Homes and Studios in which the authors write about the natural appeal to artists (and others) of our adopted home state. “Attracted to its rugged beauty, artists have found in Maine a place to connect more directly with the natural world. For many, the wildness that Henry David Thoreau described in The Maine Woods was and continues to be a significant reason for relocating to this place, at least temporarily.” But it is safe to say that “wildness” is found off the fast track. 

And author Dan Kieran writes in The Idle Traveller: The Art of Slow Travel: “The idea of human beings struggling to achieve in the real world the perfect image they have of their own lives is something we see all around us. For one thing, it explains why we seem so content to live on the high-velocity conveyor belt of ‘tomorrow,’ because it presupposes happiness in the future as a reward for suffering today.” 

Here at home, I stumbled upon a tee shirt in our general store that stated: “Welcome to Port Clyde, Maine: It’s not the end of the world, but you can see it from here.” That is debatable but it does seem like it at times. Personally, I relish the slower pace of life here and can barely wait until the tourist season is over and life returns to a subdued rhythm. Our sense of slowness here is admittedly not for everyone but I encourage you to savor your life wherever you live.