Proof I Was Here
Hello darlings, this is quite the ramble. And such a delight for me to record as I indulged in a nostalgia-driven diatribe from the beach where what I was speaking of took place. (A far from well-written sentence, but too lazy at this point to ask Claude or anyone else for help.)
5/24/20262 min read
Shownotes: Episode 5
episode description:
Dispatches from Temple Heights continues with a wandering walk down to the beach on one impossibly beautiful Maine afternoon.
Kristen reflects on first love, old cottages, lobster shacks, disappearing landmarks, family mythology, Spiritualist history, teenage summers, and the strange ache of realizing the places that shaped us never stay the same. Along the way: Ozzy Osbourne t-shirts, mixtapes, mayflies, sea glass, star magnolias, and a painted rock that vanished into a seawall decades ago.
As her father lies dying just steps away, memory itself becomes its own kind of shoreline — shifting, eroding, preserving fragments no one else knows are there.
episode timeline:
00:00 — Waking From a Nap / The Magnolia Tree
A glorious spring day in Maine. Kristen wakes from a nap while Seth watches over their dying father. The smell of the star magnolia tree triggers reflections on beauty, time, and fleeting things.
05:00 — Ownership, Beaches, and Small-Town Drama
Walking toward the beach sparks thoughts about territorial feelings, neighborhood politics, rights-of-way, and the strange emotional ownership we develop toward places from childhood.
10:30 — Benches for the Dead
Memorial benches, heart-shaped stones, and Carla’s unapologetic pruning of “non-heart” rocks lead to reflections on grief rituals and the personalities that surround death.
15:00 — The Cottage That Burned Down
The story of the original Babcock cottage — a mid-century time capsule — and memories of filming inside it as an awkward aspiring artist with a giant VHS camera.
21:00 — Old Houses vs. New Houses
The rebuilt house, bamboo invasions, disappearing hedges, and dreams of building a bocce court become meditations on preservation, taste, aging, and inheritance.
27:00 — The Lobster Shack
The beloved fisherman’s shack that stood for over a century is destroyed in a storm, taking decades of neighborhood history with it.
32:00 — The Newcombs and Summer People
Portraits of the neighboring families who shaped Temple Heights summers: Effie, Mavis, Chubby, Billy, and the rhythms of life in this tiny seaside community.
38:00 — First Love: John Fahey
Kristen remembers meeting John Fahey during the summer of 1985 — her first kiss, first love, mixtapes, handwritten letters, and the intoxicating ache of teenage longing.
47:00 — “Kris V. + Jon F.”
A painted rock on the beach becomes a monument to young love and memory — until it mysteriously disappears during seawall construction years later.
56:00 — The Spiritualists of Temple Heights
The strange and fascinating history of Temple Heights as a Spiritualist camp: ferries arriving from Boston, séances, mediums, and childhood memories of ghostly summer nights.
1:03:00 — Sea Glass, Swimming, and Maine Summers
Cold Atlantic swims, Sybil’s daily laps across the bay, sailing, lobster boats, and the sensory rituals of summers spent by the ocean.
1:10:00 — Mixtapes and Proof We Existed
Why objects matter. Mixtapes, carved names, old rocks, and the human need to leave evidence behind that we were once here and loved.
1:16:00 — Ryan Arrives / Returning to the Present
As Ryan drives up to Maine to visit his grandfather one last time, Kristen returns to the present moment: her father upstairs, still stubbornly alive, while the tide continues moving in and out below the house.