6:45 a.m. in Portland, ME
6:45 a.m. in Portland, Maine is a weightless, in-between time. In the stillness, before the city shakes itself fully awake, there’s only the sour, bready scent of the breweries and occasionally, when the wind is right, the faint whiff of salt and sea. In the spring, there’s mown grass and beach roses. In the fall, dry leaves and chimney smoke. I’ve never been a morning person, but I’m a high school teacher now, so 6:45 a.m. finds me shouldering my bag, balancing my coffee as I shrug the door closed, and heading off into either the city’s early light or winter darkness.
Before I switched to a school in a neighborhood farther away, I used to walk to work each day. The route is still so familiar to me—I suspect I could travel it with my eyes closed. The steep descent towards the cove, then the uncanny quiet of the public soccer fields at this hour, then the sharp and bitter smell of the coffee roastery. The sporadic whoosh of air as the city bus makes its rounds. The third-floor window that sometimes had a bare arm extended out of it, holding a cigarette with its thin trail of smoke.
I’ve only lived in Maine eight years. Some people say that to be a true Mainer, your grandparents need to have been born here. According to those rigid standards, I’m still an outsider. But I know many things the tourists do not know. I know the salt marshes turn the color of rust in the fall. I know that anyone here will help you—with anything—if they suspect you need it. I know that most hospitality workers cannot afford to live in the city where they work. I know that soon teachers won’t be able to either. I know which restaurants are worth the hype, which streets are best avoided from June through August. I know the schedule of the public library. I know the city’s ghost stories, and I know which walks are prettier when the tide is in and which are prettier when the tide is out. I know about a beach, rocky and tucked away, that is so small it doesn’t have a name or appear on any map. I know about shoulder seasons, and how the cruise ships are so tall they change the city skyline.
I don’t know how long you have to live in a place before you belong to it, but I know the way fog can prickle your skin if it’s thick enough, how to tune out the screams of seagulls when I’m trying to sleep. And I know this city at its most unguarded, in the dreamy space between day and night.
About the Author
Rebecca Turkewitz is a writer and high school teacher living in Portland, Maine. She is the author of the story collection Here in the Night (Black Lawrence Press, July 2023). Her fiction and humor writing have appeared in The Normal School, Electric Literature, SmokeLong Quarterly, The New Yorker’s Daily Shouts, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in fiction from The Ohio State University.
Illustration by Jane Demarest.
Edited by Tusshara Nalakumar Srilatha.
