Articles
Some thoughts from a PFA
Any place can be uniquely beautiful, but it’s the people who have lived there all their lives who are the caretakers. Mainers know what they’re doing, and you — the vacationer, the new resident, even the one-time visitor — are here because of that. So, contribute whenever possible and however you can; Mainers will accept and respect ideas, especially when they foster that same sense of place they hold dear.
A Portrait to Paint
That is what poetry sometimes must be — a woven tapestry of necessary conversations coming from all the rooms of a world, horrid, beautiful and resilient. All of it here in this collection sweeps us to a better understanding, a better place, if but for a moment.
It’s all about the journey
To touch a point on a map that beckons our arrival, then set foot on that spot to collect what has been there waiting for us to find is what makes life special. To explore is to see life, and most assuredly it is the journey itself that is life.
What does democracy look like?
I think democracy is like an old coat. Over time it becomes worn and frayed; stiches pull, but do not break. It is washed from time to time; gets beat up, thrown down, held up against the sun as we wrangle it across our shoulders. We button it to the very top — keeping out the dark cold, keeping us warm with our thoughts, keeping our empathy for one another safe within — away from the threats looking to intercede. It is a whole made of pieces.
A story can be just the right medicine
Sometimes a break in the day needs us just about as much as we need that break. Deep breaths may slow down the heart rate, but a good story or memory is tonic for the soul.
For answers, head to the river
Each of us walked away with our own personal connection to the river and to each other. We also, collectively, left as one after sharing time and place in a sanctuary of goodness. It was a good trip, a necessary journey, and one that I know will sustain us all through our lifetimes.
Notes on the Landscape of Home
Time. It is in everything. It holds onto everything and sometimes it folds in on itself allowing a much-needed pause in life. This was my first thought as I closed the book Notes on the Landscape of Home by Susan Hand Shetterly. It is an exceptional collection of essays from a writer undoubtedly grounded in both time and place.
A Countryman’s Journal: Views of Life and Nature from a Maine Coastal Farm
These essays are not a memoir of a person but that of a person’s relationship with a place — a coastal farm tucked between folds of wooded fields and the sea. The words take you there, sit you down on a rock or a stump amidst shadows of sunlight and fog trails and reveal the unfolding life of a farm, the farm Barrette named “Amen Farm.”
Take It Easy – Portland in the 70s & From the Mountains to the Sea
Two books found me. One took me back in time with black-and-white images of a city during a decade I often think about. The other informed me of “what might have been” by showing me in text and color images of what eventually became reality for a river. Both books, separately and together, are about Maine.
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