Here and Away: Discovering Home on an Island in Maine

In the summer of 1995, after years of being deeply but inexplicably drawn to northeast Maine from her native Midwest, Deborah Cummins traveled to Deer Isle, an island in eastern Penobscot Bay. A small island may seem a surprising choice for someone who doesn’t swim very well and is transformed to a welter of thumbs aboard a boat, a place with no previous connections or ties, but there, Cummins writes, “I came home to a place where I’d never been, to a home I didn’t know I’d lost.”
In this gathering of invigorating, thoughtful personal essays and lyrical meditations that span several years during which this summer visitor becomes cottage renter and finally a homeowner, Cummins invites readers to join in her journey of discovery and deepening

Newly but firmly planted in an island landscape of granite ledges, spruce forests, ever-changing shorelines, pocked mudflats, miniscule islets, and a beloved garden – among fellow inhabitants that include lobstermen, artists, deft arborists, and a laconic plumber, as well as ospreys, crows, a fox family, and an old dog – Cummins also unearths memories of her childhood and Midwestern roots, artfully weaving present and past. Confronted by unexpected loss, she is increasingly sustained by the knowledge that this small island has become her “belonging-place.”