Maine Voices:
A Celebration of the People of
Maine and the Places They Love
Edited
by Jeremy Sheaffer, Sarah Cecil, and Steven J. Holmes
196
pp. Hallowell, Maine:
The
Wilderness Society, $10.
Reviewed
by Burndett Andres
“What
is Maine?” asks Robert Perschel of the Wilderness Society. “There is the land,
the waters, the sky. Then there is the way we experience land, water, and sky
so that they become place. Place becomes relationship, relationship becomes
memory and memory becomes story. If you want to know what Maine is, if you want
to know the value of Maine, if you want to know which values to protect, you
ask people to tell you a story. That’s how Maine speaks to us – through the
voices of the people.”
In
2003, Mainers took the time to write essays describing places they cherish in
the Maine outdoors and how these places have played a part in shaping their
lives. They were all part of the Maine Voices Project, an effort made by the
Wilderness Society, the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, and independent
scholar Steve Holmes to capture the meaning of Maine’s natural world to today’s
Maine residents. Organizations from Kittery to Fort Kent invited their members
and friends to participate and individuals as dissimilar as L.L. Bean Chairman
Leon Gorman and six-year-old home-schooled Katherine Mawhinney responded. The project coordinators wanted this
publication to represent a broad spectrum of places and persons and have culled
seventy-seven of the best essays and organized them into nine sections.
As
befits his lofty estate, Governor Baldacci has written the umbrella essay, the
eloquent foreword, in which he encourages all Mainers, whether native or from
away, to tell their stories “to one another…tie these stories together and
forge a future that honors them all…Maine has many voices and many outstanding
landmarks, but we have only one future. To go confidently into that future, we
need to listen to one another – closely and with deep respect for differing
experiences and opinions. Just as in these essays, we should expect to be
surprised and enlightened. That will help prepare us for our responsibility to
conserve our natural resources and our way of life….”
The
essays are divided into eight sections. The first section is “Mountains and
Woods” and includes the words of Robert Kimber, a freelance writer, who
confesses “it is not I who possess that land; it is the land that possesses me
and always has.” The feeling of having been bewitched by the land is the common
element in almost all of these essays. Naturally, not all of the writers
express this sense of enchantment as eloquently as Mr. Kimber; some trip over
their own words waxing poetic about their chosen aspect of Maine. But they all
get the point across. Crystal Neoma Hitchings says it this way, “This place
will pull until my bones disappear into its raw earth…”
The
second section, “Rivers, Bogs, and Lakes,” comprises essays written by those
whose love of Maine is manifest in water. Celia Leber begins her story with the
words, “When I think about leaving Maine, it is like thinking about dying. I
fear most losing the water. Not the salt water of the ocean, but the blue lines
on the map….”
Section
three, “Coast and Islands,” gives equal time to those for whom Maine is defined by salt water. “Mainstay” is
one of these essays. It was dictated by Emily Muir to her caregiver just before
she died and describes the “eighty acres with a mile of shore” that was her
family home.
“The
Cycles of the Seasons” is next, and there is no agreement whatsoever about
which season should be most beloved. Even winter has its share of fans as
expressed by Lee Bellavance: “My favorite place in Maine is a place that hardly
ever exists. I’m not even sure of its name – it’s barely a trace on the maps
and it isn’t listed in any tourist books. A place that is created only during
the deepest and coldest of winters when the Fore River freezes and becomes an
enchanted highway. A smooth road fringed with trees and glittering with
billions of crystals of snow piled as high as Eldorado. And the being there is
more important than the where.”
The
fifth group of essays is called “Homes, Past and Present.” This group of
writers includes twelve-year-old Kane Kuchinski, “young old fart” Sarah O’Sullivan,
and the shortest essay in the book, a fabulous four sentence offering by
Frederick J. Jaeckel. His essay is prefaced with these words: “I have found
Maine to be a place of profound inspiration and beauty, populated by gentle
eccentrics. The love of this place called Maine not only colors my life, but
the lives of everyone I know.” His essay is a laconic marvel.
In
“Special Places, Near and Far” Maine is variously identified by the pine
needles; an enchanted rock; a bicycle seat; a fifty-three-acre parkland; an
erstwhile graveyard; fairy houses; a big spruce; and the feeling of homecoming
found by Michael G. Rowe in the middle of the “four-lane interstate highway at
the apex of the Piscataqua River Bridge as I am entering the great state of Maine
from New Hampshire. It is there at that moment, that particular place, that all
of Maine comes to me.”
The
seventh section “From Here and From Far Away” contains essays from Pulitzer
Prize winner Richard Ford, “a recent arrival to Maine,” and Reuben “Butch”
Phillips, Lt. Governor of the Penobscot Indian Nation whose ancestors were
having clambakes on Mt. Desert Island thousands of years ago.
“Dangers
and Defenders” is made up of the writings of an environmental consultant, a
white-water guide, a master planner, an environmental engineer, a
psychotherapist, a wildlife rehabilitator, a lumberman, and a conservationist who
all agree with teacher Susan Cunningham Healey of Maine and Hawaii who writes, “Like
the people of Maine, Hawaiians have traditionally had strong economic,
spiritual, and cultural bonds to their land. They are now struggling to reclaim
what has already been lost. As a native of Maine, I cannot ignore the lessons I
have learned so far from home. For us, it’s not too late. We still have our
wild roots, our abundance and variety of wildlife, our bountiful natural resources,
and our culture – all treasures to be savored and saved. We already recognize
the value and rarity of our tranquil way of life…let us work to preserve it.
Let’s keep Maine ‘the Way Life Should Be.’”
“More
Maine Voices” is made up of several dozen “excerpts (and a Couple of Poems)
from the Maine Voices Project Submissions” that could not all be printed in
their entirety but were too good to be left out, e.g., “Anyone who has hiked
Katahdin has a story to tell; In the Allagash, one can just sit back and
observe; If you think no place is perfect, think again; Making memories is what
we do here; It is here that I will live my life with grace, my path in step
with my spirit. And it is from here that I will see clearly all those who have
come before me, from my place…in Maine.”
The
voices of Maine captured here are those of the lover describing the beloved,
and the pilgrim trying to find words to share a glimpse of heaven. Jym St.
Pierre says, “I feel, for a long, quiet moment, an uncommon bliss. It occurs to
me that this would be a good time to pass over. Then an afterthought; perhaps I
have.”
The
appendix is an invitation to add your voice to theirs, to write about your own
favorite place in this magical land called Maine, and these essays could
inspire you to do just that.
For
Wolf Moon Press Journal – A Maine Magazine of Art and Opinion Issue #12 Nov/Dec. 2004
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