visited the Umbrella Cover Museum for the first time by accident.

I was a few weeks into my reporting internship in Maine, and my summer roommate Charley and I decided to visit Peaks Island, a popular island neighborhood of Portland. We stepped off the 15-minute ferry and walked up the main street, trying to get away from the crowd of passengers.

In the rush, we nearly walked past a small house. To the left of its open door was a large cutout of an older woman. She held an accordion and wore an umbrella hat, her cardboard grin beaming to the people hurrying by on the sidewalk.

Charley and I looked at each other in confusion before we read the small sign near the door: “Umbrella Cover Museum.”

The door was open, so we wandered inside. A small crowd had already begun to gather, sharing perplexed glances. Umbrella covers were everywhere — hung from the ceiling, arranged in particular exhibits, lying on the small desk in the middle of the room.

Not umbrellas. Umbrella covers. The fabric sleeves that come with new umbrellas.

The older woman from the cardboard cutout stood in the center of the room, waving in passersby. She wore bright red glasses and flowy blue floral pants, and her earnest enthusiasm radiated across the cramped room.

When the room was nearly overflowing with people, the woman introduced herself as Nancy 3. Hoffman, the curator of the museum. (Yes, she legally changed her middle name to the number three. She told me later that she did it because it’s unique, and because a number can be understood in every language.)

Nancy 3 led us through a detailed tour of the museum, pointing out countless covers — every color, every pattern, every shape and size I could imagine.

There were black umbrella covers arranged to recreate Stonehenge. There were red ones in the shape of a lobster. There were umbrella covers for large patio umbrellas, homemade knitted covers, even a plastic banana umbrella cover — the “umb-banana,” she called it.

And, considering she started her collection in 1996, the variety is no surprise. Her 730 covers earned a Guinness World Record in 2012. She says her collection now exceeds 2,600.

Nancy 3 then gestured to a small closed door in the corner with a sign on it that read “SEXY COVERS” and “Parental Guidance Suggested.” Charley and I cautiously opened the door. It was a small bathroom, layered in more “adult” covers, from lace to cheetah print. A small box of “X-rated” covers (including a scandalous cover depicting a hand with its middle finger raised) was hung on the wall near the sink. Nancy 3 called this room the “Red Light District.”

Nancy 3 abruptly started passing around small plastic maracas. When I grabbed one and turned back to Nancy 3, an accordion had suddenly appeared in her hands. She placed a laminated sign on her desk with lyrics and announced we would now sing the theme song for the Umbrella Cover Museum. To the tune of her expert accordion playing and her lilting voice, we all giggled and sang along.

“Umbrella covers, the thing that you lose when it starts to rain,” we sang, reading off the lyrics she displayed. “Umbrella covers, we all celebrate the mundane!”

That was the motto of the Umbrella Cover Museum: celebrate the mundane. It is fitting, to say the least. There is truly nothing more mundane than umbrella covers. In fact, they are so boring that most people drop them on the ground when it rains — which is how Nancy 3 collects them, she says. She wanders around after a rainstorm and tracks them down.

While they are easy to overlook, umbrella covers are all very different. Glancing around the museum, I started to understand Nancy 3’s obsession. They were each fun and odd in their own distinct way.

I visited the Umbrella Cover Museum five times over the summer.

Every time one of my friends or family visited me, I dragged them to meet Nancy 3, and each visitor reacted the same way — a little confused, a little amused, and newly appreciative for an everyday object they had never once thought about.

By my third visit, Nancy 3 knew me by name. She seemed surprised to have such a consistent guest. On my fifth visit, I dragged my entire family with me.

Knowing I was already well-versed in the standard tour, Nancy 3 gave my family the exclusive one. She dug through filing cabinets to find rare umbrella covers, and she asked us about our interests — we told her we were from Minnesota, so she found her favorite umbrella covers from Minnesota. We told her we lived on a farm, and she unveiled an umbrella cover with sheep on it.

I am, evidently, obsessed with the Umbrella Cover Museum. I mention it whenever someone asks about my summer, I think of it each time it rains, and most importantly, I cannot shake its motto.

To celebrate the mundane — to slow down and find beauty in things often overlooked — is a herculean task amid the fast-paced complexity of Harvard life. It is overwhelming and extraordinary. Boredom is discouraged; the pressure to be unique and incredible is constant.

When I moved from Maine back to campus, I spent the first few days in a whirlwind of stress as I adjusted to junior year. At the end of a particularly overwhelming week, I drove to Portland for a concert with two of my friends and naturally dragged them to the Umbrella Cover Museum.

It was closed for the season.

I had even brought an umbrella cover with me (a plain black one, the most mundane of all). I stuck it on the door and emailed Nancy 3.

“I left an umbrella cover (donated to me by my friend, now donated to you),” I wrote. “I understand it is very plain, but I assume you don’t mind that it is a bit mundane.”

Nancy 3 responded minutes later, thanking me for stopping by and bringing my friends, and wishing me “a great year at Harvard.”

“Let me know when you will be back next year!” she wrote.

I sent another email to Nancy 3 recently, asking her if she had any advice to share for this article. Her reply was simple: “Don’t judge anything or anyone by Cover.”

“Even a plain black Umbrella Cover can have a very interesting and worthwhile story,” Nancy 3 wrote.

“Don’t get too hung up in competition or labels,” she added. “Come back to appreciating the little things in life, the things that make us more the same than different.”

Her email signature read, “Celebrate the Mundane! That covers it!”

When I think my summer in Maine was less glamorous than some of my peers, when I worry my grades are not up to an extraordinary standard, when I fail to achieve perfection in my extracurriculars, I remind myself of the Umbrella Cover Museum. I remind myself of the woman who has devoted 30 years of her life to collecting the most boring items on the planet, and I remind myself that she loves every one.

I remind myself that mundanity, therefore, cannot exist. If a collection of the most ordinary items on the planet can be so extraordinary, then any standard of “ordinary” can’t be real.

I had another particularly difficult week soon after my most recent visit to Portland. To rein in my thoughts, I was walking laps with one of my friends across the John W. Weeks Memorial Bridge.

It was drizzling and cold as we walked, sharing the pressures we felt. Harvard life, it seemed, wasn’t letting up for a second. On our second lap around the Charles River, something on the ground caught my eye.

An umbrella cover laid in a puddle, forgotten and ignored.

It was a perfectly timed reminder. Slow down, enjoy the simple things, and celebrate the mundane.

—Magazine writer Megan L. Blonigen can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at mblon.50. Follow her on X at @MeganBlonigen