I've been threatening to start a blog since taking early retirement last August, but the learning curve had me stymied.  It would have been quicker just to rent a 10-year-old, but I couldn't find one who took dictation.

Retirement snuck up much earlier than expected, after 5 years as a travel agent in Boston and 20 very happy years as a staff assistant at Duke.  That's a long time behind a desk, and family concerns had been urging me homewards to New England for the last year or so. 

So the grand migration from Durham NC to Eastport ME is (slowly) underway.  I now have 2 huge storage units full of boxes and an unhealthy dependency on my incredibly gorgeous and wonderful carpenter, Oskar.  The house is basically stripped, I've been camping out in the empty shell as we slowly renovate (funds permitting), and I've had to go out and buy thrift-store replacements of most of the stuff in storage (winter coat, frying pan, etc) just to get through the winter.  Glaciers move faster than me and are better organized about it.

So what does this have to do with jewelry?  Did I mention Eastport Maine?  So, the fantasy is to live beside the ocean and make jewelry in a small New England town.  Why Eastport?  Because, after 20 years of laissez-faire bureaucracy, this ergophobic cube monkey needs (desperately needs) an adventure.

I first discovered Eastport through the novels of mystery writer Sarah Graves and thought I'd go take a look.  Fell in love.  The town is full of gently decaying old houses, perched on an island in a cold, turbulent bay on the Canadian border.  Small, remote, and fallen on hard times, but definitely still kicking, Eastport vibrates with a passionate sense of its own identity, slightly gritty humor, and die-hard independence.  It was love at first sight, and that was even before the Pirate Festival. 

If I don't measure up, Eastport may yet spurn me as unworthy, but I do love the place.  After a long time on the road, living where accident and convenience led me, I think I'm actually on my way to the first home I've chosen for love.(test)