MonochromeMonday: Portland, Maine - A Place to Call Home.

I've traveled a lot. But Portland, Maine, I will always know as home, and I always find myself returning to this eastern port-side city. The place you see in the photograph, this is Wharf Street, where cobblestones and bricks line the roadway, where pavement never was. This street is central to the area in Portland known as downtown, and The Old Port. The Old Port is lined with hundreds of restaurants, bars, and the like. And Portland sits right on the Atlantic Ocean, where lobstermen and fishermen make a living, and bring back the catch of the day to the port-side people.

Most of the streets around here look like this one--brick buildings, brick sidewalks--and many of the streets are cobblestone. There's something about the bricks and stones slamming against the soles of my boots that always brings a smile to my face, and a moment between my friends and I where I must explain to them the happiness it brings me. "I don't know," I say. "It just feels right."

It's not often you see this street as empty as you do in this picture. Most days these streets see the fast-paced walks of businessmen and women on break. And most evenings, especially weekend nights, these streets are swarmed with party people. Many are stumbling, laughing, having a good time, and likely (hopefully) calling a friend or a cab for a safe trip home at closing time. But every so often, Wharf Street is empty, and the cobblestones get a break, too, from the party people, from the businessmen, from the lobstermen, from it all.

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-CTS