Essex
Coming off of Route 9, Essex greeted me with a yellow field of daffodils by Liberty Pond. I saw more little patches of yellow here and there as I drove along West Avenue toward downtown.
Downtown itself is a sight from another century, another continent, or both. The roads – at least in the springtime – belong as much to pedestrians as they do to cars. Crosswalks are a suggestion; there’s a walkable freedom in the streets that surpasses most American towns, even Connecticut towns.
I came to Essex after a few hours spent at the Book Barn in Niantic. I wanted to stop by the Essex Coffee and Tea Company to sit down and read for a bit – which I did! The space feels a bit cramped when you walk in, but it opens up to plenty of seating space around a corner. I had an iced mocha drink, and I sat and read about the history of coastal communities along the Bering Strait for about an hour. It was a pleasant, steady hour, and I heard in the background a procession of voices coming in and out. Lots of conversation between the baristas and customers. One older guy talked about his decision to return to his native Connecticut after years spent in some other place, but I couldn’t hear most of what he said.
Afterwards, I walked down to the pier by the Connecticut River Museum. I didn’t stop in the museum itself, but a plaque outside tells the story of the British raid on Essex during the War of 1812. The downtown culture seems centered around this event; small plaques on buildings tell their dates of construction, most of them in the years surrounding the Revolutionary War.
There were sailboats on the river earlier, but they were gone by the time I approached the pier. A dad was taking pictures of his two kids smiling at the pier’s edge. Seagulls perched on the pier’s posts; I made multiple attempts at seeing how close I could get before they flew off. About three or four feet, it turns out, though they start getting antsy once you’re within six feet. There were plenty of ducks, too, and a lone crow (not a raven!) hanging out on the shore among them.
I walked back toward the Green and exchanged hellos with plenty of dog-walkers along the way. Sometimes the Shoreline communities can feel a bit quietly hostile, and maybe that’s just my own class-based preconceptions, but I didn’t feel that in my brief time in Essex. To be fair, I don’t know if Essex truly counts as Shoreline, being just inland of the Connecticut River’s mouth, and it’s also not quite as wealthy as some of the Shoreline communities. Anyway, lots of courteous smiles.
Spring is loud on the Green. Downtown, too, but the Green is a straight-up wall of birdsong. If I were better at identifying birdcalls, I’d have fun standing there and trying to pick each one out from it all. In any case, it was really lovely background noise.
My final stop was a second waterfront behind the Green’s parking lot. It’s tucked away, quieter than the marina. An older couple sat on the lone bench by the water. I stood on a rock wall at the water’s edge and watched a lone duck, off in the distance, dive beneath the water. I didn’t see it come back up; maybe it did and flew off. I walked back at the same time as the couple was getting up, and we said hi to each other as we were walking up the path to the parking lot.
