Since the onset of COVID-19, our early spring and summer has been full of unfamiliar territory, difficult decision making, and sacrifice across the board. Everyone has felt loss in some aspect of their lives, and I find myself deeply reflecting on what is most important. For me, it is spending quality time with my family. One place that draws both my family and my heart is Sprucewold in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

Throughout my whole life, I’ve spent my summers (and Thanksgivings, Christmases, Easters, Mother’s & Father’s Days, and many weekends in between) in Boothbay Harbor. When I was little, I split my time between my paternal grandmother Edna Rittershaus’ cozy house on Barters Island and my maternal grandparents, Alice and Chester Fossett’s harborside home at 1 Atlantic Avenue. When I was a bit older, my great-grandmother, Toat Fossett, went to live full time at 1 Atlantic. She graciously granted us (my parents and three siblings) the run of her little house on Spruce Point for the entire summer each year. We spent every sunny day on the tiny beach at Factory Cove from sun up to sundown. As a budding artist, I spent the days collecting shells and digging for marine clay, leading to many sun dried sculptures left on the rocks to be reclaimed by the sea. I remember sneaking a jellyfish home in a bucket I hoped to keep as a pet. (Turns out, that’s a tough sell for parents.) My sisters and brother and I would spend our time swimming, closely observing sea life, wearing seaweed wigs and mermaiding the days away. By the end of each day, blue lipped and wrapped up in sweatshirts and towels, we’d trudge all the way back to Nana’s house with our sandy feet and salty hair to read books in bed with flashlights.

As I grew older, I’ve loved spending time here with my aunts, uncles, cousins and the many extendeds beyond. My parents bought a cabin in Sprucewold in the year 2000, when I was at the start of my 20’s. I loved it — a beautiful antique log cabin, nestled in the woods, high above Linekin Bay. It quickly became a very special place, hosting many wonderful dinners for friends and family, sometimes 40+ people at a time! In 2011, my fiancé, Richard Brauman, and I planned our wedding in BBH — the wedding ceremony would take place on the harbor at the Rocktide Inn and the reception celebrated in the dreamy, vintage log cabin dining hall at the Sprucewold Lodge. While he tragically passed away weeks before the event was to take place, the many memories of our years spent loving these places together, are alive and well in my heart.

Five years ago, I bought my own beautiful log cabin in the woods of Sprucewold. She is 100 years old this year! My brother and sister-in-law own a cabin a few hundred yards away now as well. My nieces, 5, 7 and 9, run down the hill to my house, and nothing could make me happier than the sound of their feet running up the porch to say hello. These girls love all of the things that I loved about summers in Maine, and I so enjoy reliving it through their eyes. Small things, like providing marshmallows to roast in the fireplace, make me feel like I’m doling out divine treasure. I was fortunate to fall in love with my wonderful husband, Dan Neff, and last year we were blessed with a beautiful daughter, Minka. She is 18 months old now, and I love to watch her experience the sunlight shining through the pine trees and hearing the wind and the waves. Watching her delight makes my heart ache with joy. I look forward to her childhood — sleepovers with her grandparents, playing with her aunts and uncles, cooking and eating local seafood, swimming at the beach with her cousins, footbridge ice creams and warm band concert nights on the library lawn. Sprucewold is a jewel in the crown of Boothbay Harbor, and I am so very grateful for our time here and the love I feel in this place.

I know many of you, like many of my friends and family, cannot travel this year. Our annual Sprucewold Association meeting was held via Zoom and all of the community social activities we look forward to every year, have been cancelled. My nieces will likely not be able to roast marshmallows with me, and I can’t hug my 90 year old grandfather. This virus has pulled into sharp focus all of the things that I treasure. For those of you that read this column from far away, I’m very sorry you have to miss this magical place this year. I hope you are all staying safe, and I hope that some of my memories have brought some of your own to the surface, and that they will carry you through until it is safe to travel again.