The Maine Thing
In March I came out to Maine for a new job. I had a car load of clothes, a computer, and a few books and kitchen pots. Since then, we’ve moved more substantially, but it’s July and the process goes on. Plenty of loose ends to tie up.
Maine is cool in a very L. L. Beany sort of way. It’s like northern Wisconsin but more so. Rivers, lakes, pine trees, trailer houses, junk piles, and elemental rocks. Beautiful old farmhouses – with barns attached – and moose warnings along the freeway. Instead of a great lake, Maine has the Atlantic Ocean and almost 3,500 miles of coastline with 3,000 islands and fractally complex peninsulas. Portland is one of the best cities in the US by many measures. And the seafood, oh, the seafood!
We live in Winthrop, a town named after one of the founding Puritans and Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Many folks in Maine descend from those 17th Century settlers, although newcomers like us are becoming more common. Not a lot of people come from Maine unless they already live here. With 1.2 million people, Maine is still pretty much a state of small towns spread out along rural highways and rivers.
We miss our friends and family back in Wisconsin and will return often, but for now, we’re enthralled with the Maine thing.