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Essays From Here
A selection of essays from FBC’s inaugural creative writing contest, Stories from Here.
Learn more about the contest and its connection to our mission here.
Essay Winner
Selected by Margie Patlak
Barnacle Dreams
Karen Olga Zimmermann
Do you look up when you walk, like my hiking pal who is always on the watch for a bird, or towards the ground as I do, scanning for crawling things, miniscule growing things, or perhaps, when near the sea, barnacles?
It is the little things that bring me joy, and barnacles come in multiple sizes, ranging from small to smaller to tiny. Whatever their size, they are easy to find, unlike micrometeorites on a rooftop, or a frozen wood frog in leaf litter, which I am always hopeful of discovering. There was a time I cursed barnacles. I had, in a burst of exuberance, leaped into the sea from a rocky ledge. I did have the foresight to make sure I would be able to climb back out onto the rocks but failed to take note of all the barnacles on those rocks. Thin red scratches across the front of my thighs and the inside of my upper arms getting sprayed with salty water was a painful lesson about the power of barnacles. Seemingly innocuous, they should not be ignored, and they have stories to share.
These days I lie on my belly, although not on barnacle-encrusted rock, to peer into tide pools and watch barnacles feeding. They have four hard, calcareous plates which form the operculum. Like the operculum of a snail these plates can close tightly, which is helpful for retaining moisture when the barnacles are left high and dry at low tide. But when they are underwater they open, allowing six pairs of feathery cirri to rhythmically unfurl and re-curl, coming in and out of their volcano-shaped shelter. It is mesmerizing. There are several types and patterns of this unfurling, and since I no longer take barnacles for granted I watch to see if I can distinguish these patterns. Rhythmic opening and closing indicates feeding — sweeping the water for food. Smaller pumping movements help with waste removal. When I move my hand and cast a shadow over the barnacles sometimes their cirri quickly withdraw, plates clamp shut, and all movement stops. Moving my hand away and allowing the sun to shine on the barnacles sets them once again in motion. I put my face as close to the surface of the tidepool as I can without inhaling saltwater and watch. The world recedes. I am aware of nothing except the gentle opening and closing of the fanlike legs.
Charles Darwin went far deeper with his barnacle obsession, writing about them on a daily basis for eight years from 1846 to 1854. He even named a barnacle, a burrowing barnacle he discovered while aboard the HMS Beagle. Darwin named his barnacle “Mr. Arthrobalanus.” Watching the unique and individual barnacles in my aquarium I can understand the temptation to name them. On a rock a small barnacle I name Avery is pressed tightly against a much larger barnacle, Jordan. I know when they return to the shore if Avery avoids being eaten by a whelk or seastar it will outlive Jordan, but whoever lives longer, neither Jordan nor Avery will care that they had names.
The common rock barnacles in Maine, Semibalanus balanoides, live up to eight years, but they are rarely larger than half an inch. I eye the larger ones and contemplate dining on them, but they are just too small. I save that treat for visiting the Azores, where barnacles can grow up to two or two-and-a-half inches. I ate them on a visit to Terceira in 2016, where they were served with a nail for prying out the edible portion. This was new to me, and the sweet and briney meat filled me with delight and astonishment. Having a crooked nail as a utensil added to the experience, and, I am firmly convinced, to the flavor. A return visit in 2022 found them still on the menu, still served with a nail, and still delicious.
Darwin spent eight years studying barnacles. I am a casual observer when the tides and good weather align. I do not want to spend eight years topping my aquarium with salt water and exchanging strong, wide Avery the big barnacle for an unknown one. I just want to revel in the joy I have learning about them, and bore my friends with barnacle facts. When a mother barnacle releases her young to the sea, they are called nauplii. They are self-propelled larvae and can travel as far as ten kilometers. They molt numerous times, eventually metamorphosing into a cyprid. This is the last stage at which a barnacle can roam. It no longer eats, and simply searches for a forever home. This could be on a rock, a boat, or a shell. Once it finds it, usually near other barnacles, it plants its head on the surface, secretes a brown glue to hold it there, and builds a dome-shaped home of six stationary plates, and four moving plates to form the operculum. The glue is so strong that when the animal dies, the base shell is still glued to the rock. Yes, this is being studied, we could probably use barnacle glue.
The barnacle will never move from that spot again. But the adventure is not over. Barnacles are cemented close to other barnacles, and this is so they can reproduce. Every barnacle has both eggs and a sperm tube. The tube is up to eight times the length of the barnacle and has a tip that can taste and smell, and poke into the cases of neighboring barnacles to find ripe eggs. When it finds them, it sends in sperm to fertilize them, then discards this tube — it can grow a new one. This characteristic has garnered fame for the barnacle as having the world’s largest penis, proportionally at any rate. The fertilized eggs are kept safe in the hard-plated home until it is time to send them forth on their own adventures.
Thirty-odd years ago barnacles drew attention to themselves by scraping my skin and causing a sting I still recall vividly. It took that long to circle back and get to know them. Actually, to become a bit obsessed. I bought an aquarium just so I could bring a rock encrusted with them home. The barnacles kept me company in the kitchen for weeks, and yes, I did converse with them daily before sending them back to the sea. I read as many stories and books about barnacles and Darwin’s research as I could find. I painted pictures of them and wrote about them in my journal. Though tempted, I have yet to dissect one. Darwin dissected countless specimens, and had them shipped to him from all over the world. I marvel at how he did that with the tools and technology he had available. I do not envy his years of monotonous dissections, so tedious he famously complained in a letter, “I hate a barnacle as no man ever did before.” Instead, I am grateful I still feel wonder as I lean in to watch these small crustaceans, or dream of gently undulating tendrils.
Next time you are near the ocean in barnacle country, take the time to crouch down and look. They are there, countless barnacles, so many sizes. Can you see the operculum? Can you see the tiny ones and the old ones? Perhaps they will unfurl and curl for you, as they fan the water for a meal. I never tire of watching them. I have yet to see the miniscule nauplii and cyprids, though, except on the internet. But I have a microscope and time, and cannot think of a better way to spend the day.
About the Author
Karen Olga Zimmermann paints and writes about Maine’s conveyor belt of seasons and the ever-changing wonders they offer. Fascinated by the tiny things in life, she spends most days with a hand lens around her neck, hiking, observing, and learning about our natural world. Karen is a Maine Master Naturalist, Registered Maine Guide, writer, watercolorist, and nature journal instructor. A year-round resident of Otter Creek, she cannot imagine living anywhere else.
Honorable Mentions
Selected by Margie Patlak
Maine
Sonnie Shepherd
It’s the wildness that first draws you in. Standing on a rocky shoreline, watching as the waves crash into your soul, knowing that even if you must leave for a time, you’ll be back.
I first visited Maine in the 1980s; and like so many others I’ve talked with since, the state captured me, became a part of me, made me its willing prisoner — free to go, but only in a physical sense. Years and careers prevented me from moving here for decades, though I willingly returned for a few days at a time whenever I could. Spring breaks, autumn holidays . . . each visit was magical and wild and drew me deeper into a relationship with the ocean, the woods and trails, and the people with whom I interacted. The growing sense that this was where I belonged.
My midwestern colleagues (to a person!) warned of the winters and called me brave for moving so far, not knowing a soul; for exchanging central heating for stacking wood and the warmth of a woodstove on a winter’s eve . . . for trading the “security” of the suburbs where I was surrounded by neighbors stopping by (though locked doors were a “must”), for a sanctuary safely surrounded by towering trees, osprey soaring overhead, and visits by deer, bear, and wild turkeys.
Human neighbors here, too, of course; but that word “neighbor” taking on a whole new meaning. Families that go back generations who respect your need for nature but who embrace you with genuine care, even though you’ll always be “from away.” Still, welcoming you “home” to Maine. To finally finding “life as it should be.” A coastal way of life driven by ocean waves and currents, so foreign to those in landlocked states. Clammers, lobstermen and women, elver fishermen, kelp farmers stopping by the Circle K for a breakfast of red hot dogs as you purchase your morning coffee. Heading off to another day, a dangerous way of life, driven by the tides; but life itself for those who farm the waters and who can’t imagine life in a cubicle or a classroom.
Maine is traffic jams that consist not of clogged freeways, but of logging trucks slowly making their way from the forests of the northern and western portions of the state where towering moose lumber across roadways, carrying huge loads that will one day be houses, furniture, toys, even tiny matchsticks. It’s summers filled with festivals, and those same lumberjacks entertaining us with heroic feats of log rolling, crosscut saw contests, and creative carvings.
It’s embracing every season — snowy winters filled with skiing, ice carousels, snowmobiles, ice fishing shacks dotting frozen lakes. Spring, affectionately known as mud season. Short but heavenly summers when colors replace the whiteness of winter with wildflowers waving along roadways, and darkened skies carpeted with stars more numerous than you knew existed behind the city lights where you once lived. Then fall, when the trees transform into bursts of reds, yellows, and oranges and then turn to rusts and golds, bringing not one, but two autumns, until the world is quiet and the snows once again blanket the forest.
But it’s the wildness that first draws you in. Standing on a rocky shoreline, watching as the waves crash into your soul, knowing that even if you must leave for a time, you’ll be back. A dozen years on, Maine is home. But then again, it always has been.
About the Author
Sonnie Shepherd began her broadcasting career in Indiana, where she worked in both radio and television. She later returned to school and earned her Master’s in Education, then enjoyed 23 wonderful years teaching Language Arts and Social Studies to sixth graders in Hilliard, Ohio. Upon retiring, she followed her dream of moving to Maine, where she found herself once again in broadcasting, earning more than a dozen MAB news awards. Today, she’s the news director on the stations of Maine Internet Radio, where you can hear her uncensored local and national news daily, as well as at downeastdigest.news. A former marathon runner, she enjoys kayaking, cross-country skiing, time with her cats, and exploring Maine with her best friend.
Selected by Cynthia Thayer
The Gray Ghost and the Green House
Michele Sheerman
My paternal grandmother made it her mission to instill in my cousin Amy and me a sense of homecoming towards Sullivan, a small town on the Downeast coast of Maine. She grew up there, in a stately, dark-green-shingled house, fronted by a white-columned porch, just up Route 1 from Frenchman Bay. She wanted us to know, in our marrow, that because she was from Sullivan, we were, too, by blood! For this reason, she’d let us run barefooted and wild over the mist-slick granite slabs of nearby Schoodic Point each summer. We’d leap from rock to rock with abandon, our feet barely touching their crystalline surfaces, sticking our landings as sure-footedly as mountain goats. Our mothers would have had conniptions, had they seen us engaging in such risky behavior. Nana felt no such terror. “Your feet know how to find the way, girls,” she would say with conviction. “You won’t fall. You are part of these rocks, and they are a part of you.”
Sometimes my Uncle Jim would accompany us on our adventures to Schoodic. He would dash ahead of us, sprinting toward Nana’s silver Toyota, nicknamed, The Gray Ghost, to claim the “shotgun seat”. No matter the weather, he’d be wearing his “uniform” of cut-off jeans, blousy white shirt that would balloon with wind, making his chest and arms look twice their size, his long, blond hair full of snarls, and feet bare, just like Amy’s and mine. We had a serious case of hero worship, and would each claim a side of him to crowd, hanging on his every word, as he displayed his special skill of calling the seagulls to him. “Gully, gully, gully!” he would shout, loud enough to be heard over wind so strong it caused the waves to break against the sea wall, spraying us with icy droplets of Atlantic Ocean. Because he was a part-time fisherman, he always kept a supply of live bait (in a bathtub, which delighted us). Little did we know he had used that bait to train the seagulls to come when he called. He wasn’t a mighty sorcerer of the sea, able to summon birds at will. He was simply a mortal man with a cooler full of minnows.
Ritual was an integral part of our trips to Sullivan with our grandmother. For instance, when The Gray Ghost’s wheels touched the Hancock end of the “Singing Bridge,” (a metal-treaded structure spanning Taunton Bay and connecting Hancock with Sullivan) we were to either hold our breath or hum till we got to the other side. Amy usually opted to hold her breath, and I chose to hum, as Nana did, trying in vain to harmonize with her. She played piano by ear and was gifted with perfect pitch, a source of great pride to her mother, who had been a music teacher and church organist. I often wonder if any of my great-grandmother’s students are still alive and living in Sullivan. Hundreds of children learned to play piano at Nanny Zelda’s side.
Once we crossed over to the Sullivan side of the bridge, the big green house became visible. Amy and I sprang into action, quickly gathering up the stacks of Nancy Drew books between us on the seat, and shoving them into our duffels. We didn’t want a single-second delay to keep us from leaping out of The Gray Ghost when Nana parked along the honeysuckle-flanked side entrance to the house. We’d throw open our doors, race into the kitchen, cross over into the library, and come to a halt beneath the red, oval, stained-glass window above the landing of the main staircase. We revered that window, as it served to measure our heights. We’d gauge our yearly growth by how much closer we’d gotten to seeing out of it without a boost from a chair, each other, or even Uncle Jim!
Another of our Sullivan rituals was to beg our Grampy, Nana’s father, to take us fishing up to Tunk, a crystal-clear and icy cold lake, surrounded by pines and full of trout. Grampy earned his stripes as a great-grandparent, bobbing up and down in his boat with us, patiently baiting both of our hooks, then removing our catches from the line. He was content to let us experience only the triumphant part of fishing, while he did all the grunt work. Having us, his legacy, there with him, puffy orange life jackets up to our ears, squealing, “I caught one! I caught one!” far outweighed his labors. Fishing at his side taught us to sit still a little longer, speak a little softer, and listen with all our might for the calls and songs of native birds around us.
Once we had caught our fill of fish, and the sun’s position began to signal it would soon be time for supper, we would take our places in the back of Grampy’s Jeep Wagoneer (a real honey, with metallic teal paint, and wooden veneer strips along her sides) and head back to the green house. If he had a couple of bucks burning a hole in his pocket, he would pull into Dunbar’s store on the way, and run in to grab three Eskimo Pies, whispering, “Shhhh! Don’t tell your grandmother,” as he handed them to us and winked. How we loved him!
When it was Nana’s turn to take us on adventures, they would always start the same way, and follow the same pattern, which is why it’s so easy to remember forty years later. She’d begin by driving along Route 1, past Frenchman Bay — “that’s where my best friend Freida Gray and I learned how to swim!” she’d holler — toward Sorrento, where her sister-in-law Ruthie lived, and where my mom and dad used to go to wild harvest “wrinkles”, a local term for periwinkle sea snails, to steam and drown in butter. “They’re basically Maine’s version of escargot,” Mum recently recalled. “We felt fancy eating them.” Amy and I were never served wrinkles, in Sorrento. Aunt Ruthie’s table was more likely to include Rice-a-Roni. She was the first person to serve it to me, and I had two huge helpings. When I told my cousin Jason, Ruthie’s grandson, about that meal recently, he said, “Yep. She was the best bad cook. Only good at making that kind of thing.”
Nana would drive us further down the peninsula after leaving Ruthie’s, and she’d point out familiar places. We would nod appreciatively, understanding it was her desired response from us. She’d then toodle us down to the harbor, where we’d stare agog at the summer-folk mansions, festooned with windows of all shapes and sizes, and appearing to almost hang over the water. Then Nana would park the Ghost and let us out to find a rock or patch of grass to sit on for a few minutes. I loved the sounds the buoy and boat bells made as the waves set them in motion, and the scent released from the Rosa rugosa (beach rose) bushes that the breeze carried to our noses. Somehow, even when we didn’t even stick our toes in the water during a visit, our skin still tasted of salt, as if we had, when we got home.
Each trip to Sullivan included at least one adventure to Schoodic Point, and the drive to get there offered just as much excitement as jumping those mist-slick boulders did. Part of the ritual was stopping at the diner in Winter Harbor for lunch (grilled cheese and fries, or burgers), Frazer Point as we entered Acadia National Park, to walk its gangplank over the water, and admire the view, and then on to any of several lookout spots where Nana could park the car and we could carefully climb down the bank to the pebble-strewn beaches. The pebbles were no ordinary stones. Like the Singing Bridge we had to cross to get to Sullivan, the smooth, rounded pebbles sang their own song. The tide would break against the shore, grabbing thousands of stones, dragging them in its wake. In doing so, a musical sound was produced as the pebbles rolled together back to the sea, tinkety-tink, clickety-clink, tinkety-tink, clickety clink in repetition. It is my favorite of nature’s songs.
I don’t get back Downeast often, though I live less than two hours away. My Nanny, Grampy, Nana, Aunt Ruthie, and Uncle Jim have all passed. The stately green house was razed, and a Dollar General erected in its place. The Singing Bridge has been silenced by concrete, but my memories never will be. I am proud to be a descendant of the Sargents, Bunkers, and Haveys of Sullivan, Maine. They have helped shape my identity and coaxed my own roots to fix in place alongside theirs. And they did it against the beautiful background of Hancock County, Maine.
About the Author
Michele Sheerman lives, bakes, farms, and wrangles geese, goats, chickens, and dogs on her much-loved dozen acres set among the pines and bogs of Etna, Maine. A voracious reader and large-print book proofer, writing is a relatively new pursuit. Currently at work on a memoir about her thru-hike attempt of the Appalachian Trail, Michele procrastinates regularly by writing funny stories about her life and experiences as a farmers’ market vendor. She shares many of her stories on her farm’s Facebook page. She is also proud to be part of a community of individuals who are committed to preserving the traditional art of spoken storytelling.
Michele considers herself blessed to have spent her formative years bouncing around in her grandmother’s old Toyota, enroute to the family home in Sullivan, Maine. Hancock County and Frenchman Bay fostered her love of the sound, smell, and iciness of the Atlantic Ocean, and taught her the importance of a deeply rooted sense of place and belonging.