From the archives - August 2023

We started our monthly newsletters in August 2023.

What Lives Within These Walls 8.18.2023

Despite my love of the annual Arts Festival in Brunswick, it always signifies that summer is coming to a close. At OneSixtyFive we are making ourselves feel better with lobster rolls! Join us tomorrow for our Arts Festival Special: Chef Stacie’s Lobster Roll and a pint of Maine Beer Co. Lunch. Yes, we think it’s a great idea, too.

In addition to being delicious, I hope that it will distract me from my particularly poignant end-of-summer blues. We have just moved our son into his dorm for his first year of college. When our daughter returns in two weeks for her own junior year, we will officially be “empty nesters.” This is an expression common enough to have earned its own emoji, one that has been littering social media feeds as parents say goodbye to their youngest. It's a simple picture of a round twig structure, tan and brown, and, well, empty.

A picture can indeed be worth a thousand words. For me, however, this emoji just doesn’t do the trick. Our nests, even when empty, are not bare. They are not colorless. My house may feel oddly quiet without Charlie, and the mud room floor doesn’t look right without his wardrobe of sneakers, slides, and Birkenstocks blocking everyone’s entry. There is no more need for endless pints of Ben and Jerry’s in the freezer. When Helen leaves, there will be no more faint sounds of guitar coming from her room, no more stories about funny dog names and adorable puppies that she cared for at Happy Tails, and there won’t be a trail of sweatshirts and backpacks in the front hall and on the kitchen island.

But I will still feel my children in the bones and the fabric of this house.

Maybe that’s what makes OneSixtyFive stand out as a destination that travelers come back to again and again: its bones and its fabric exude the warmth of all the amazing guests who have stepped through its front door along with the kindness and generous spirit of the employees who keep it so well. It’s not just a place to sleep and eat. Please come for a visit–we hope to see you soon!

So fun to remember - the Art Festival!