In the college search, those eons ago, I created an extensive list, looked at student body characteristics, spoke with swim coaches, and considered where I might fit in best. In that entire process, while I trained and competed at Maine colleges, I never once considered applying to a school in state. I HAD to get away. Maine was boring and small and had nothing to offer young people. Most people I knew were looking out of state and the ones that chose the nearby ones, while not looked poorly upon, were just completely incomprehensible to me. I had to leave Maine, and I did. I spent four years in Minnesota, a summer in the southeast, 7 months in Washington DC, and a year-and-a-half in Spain before returning to the grand state of Maine.
And coming back to Maine was eye-opening. Only by being away did I learn that I came from a pretty incredible place. Mountains, ocean, the most amazing lakes, rivers, and hidden places I'd seen, even after all my exotic travels.
Sure, there aren't many people or much going on in Maine, but it felt more like home and more spectacular once I saw some other places.
Fast forward to leaving Maine again recently, something I knew I had to do for my career, but also that felt like being torn from a home I had only just rediscovered. As I pulled out of Carrabassett Valley, Maine, New England and then the East Coast, I had the panic that comes with someone not quite ready for a family realizing she wants to raise her hypothetical family there.
So I'm here in Utah, a place many people I know have ended up or spent some time in because it is known to be another natural beauty with a lot of great things to offer. People I meet tell me it's awesome, that they came here twenty years ago and still love it, that there's just so much to do and so much beauty to be had, and they really believe it.
That brings me to asking them, "where are you from originally?" or "where were you before Park City?" And I'm sensing a trend: They're from Philadelphia, Iowa, New Jersey, MASSACHUSETTS. Wonderful places, sure, but they're not Maine. Their license plates say something like "Garden State" when we all know they are a toxic cleanup site or "Birthplace of Aviation" which is a nice way of saying a great person was born there, and we'll take ownership of his assistant brother, too. Exceptional things to strive for, but not Vacationland.
Well goodness, if I were from "The Spirit of America" I might not feel such a sense of pride either. I'd head out in search of somewhere a little more exciting or just plain better, too. These are the people that love these relatively great places I've gone to, that really settle in and fall in love with a place. Maybe they're more positive generally, but they also don't have the quintessential rocky coast of Maine burned into their cognitive formation, or haven't grown used to hiking through what we refer to as "wilderness" truly without seeing other humans. There is a reason companies celebrating the natural world like L.L. Bean started in Maine and families like the Bush clan spend their summers there. The wilds of Maine formed such artistic and literary genius as regionalist author Sarah Orne Jewett and N.C. Wyeth. And there's a reason I awake in the night in a hot, sweaty panic thinking of the day I might have a Utah license or license plate.
For people who grew up in a true paradise, I wonder if we will ever find a place that compares. Sure, Maine lacks in social life, job opportunity, and general relations with the rest of the world, but it looks like this and makes good, down-to-earth, neat people.
I miss it, and I'll try to make a new home here, but I do hope that my kids won't have to grow up between the yuppy world within these town lines and the Mormon world of this state. It's a strange dichotomy, let's leave it at that.
Now that I've realized this, I'm going forward to explore and understand Utah, but Maine will always be the homeland tearing at my heart when I get a little down.
No comments:
Post a Comment