Tales from Rural Maine: Signs of life

As most New Englanders know, there is a large, but modest sign (at least in appearance) posted at the southernmost border of my home state intended to welcome visitors as they zoom into Maine on I-95 North from points unknown. "Maine The Way Life Should Be," it says.

(Facebook photo)

The sign has stood for as long as I can remember, inspiring sighs and grumbles from those of us who live here full-time, throughout the long, cold winters with sky-high heating costs and the other truths of real life in Maine, such as the highest health care costs in the nation, the highest per capita gun ownership, and no civil partnership or marriage rights for anyone except heterosexual couples. Only 25% of Mainers have a college education. Is that really the way life should be? Guns, mosquitoes, missing teeth, plastic-coated windows, menial labor and untreated illnesses are not what the authors of the sign meant to convey when they posted it. One imagines that the authors of the sign intended to conjure the simple thought: "Life should be like your vacation." Maine is, after all, Vacationland. It says so on our license plates.

Last year, our repugnant (or "industrious, pro-business," if you prefer) Tea Party governor, Paul LePage, amended the iconic sign. Why he had the right to use private funds to amend our Welcome to Maine sign, I'm not sure, but now, dangling from beneath this giant symbol of what Maine is meant to mean to others, there is a tinier sign, an afterthought tacked on, which looks (and metaphorically smells) very much like, as we say here in Maine, a dingleberry. The dingleberry reads, "Open For Business."

The sign is beloved by some in the business community and was, in fact, purchased with contributions made by LePage supporters and affixed after LePage's election, as a sort of trophy. LePage did not win a majority of the votes, by the way; most of the state voted for the Independent and Democratic candidates, but he is our governor, nonetheless.

Not long after the "Open For Business" addendum was added, it was removed by persons unknown. Eventually, funds were raised by "a group of businessmen" and a replacement "Open For Business" sign was tacked onto the bottom of The Way Life Should Be again. (This author would argue that the money they raised would be better spent on a scholarship to help some aspiring college student buy his or her books for the year, but hey, I'm not the governor or a lobbyist for the Maine Aggregate Association.)

(Facebook photo)

Now, as tourists zoom into the state to spend money on ski weekends and lobster and mosquito repellent, they are greeted with the message, "Welcome to Maine The Way Life Should Be Open For Business."

I feel a little sick even writing the words here that appear on that sign. It smacks of desperation, of commerce--there is something so coarse and...impure?...about this message. Your life should be open for business? Really?

Whereas before, one might drive past the sign and imagine a seaside clam bake or sunrise over Bar Harbor, it now feels as though we've crashed those dreams into a utility pole bearing a For Sale sign. The view from camp now has a Help Wanted sign slapped across it. A sign which says, "No, *seriously*, we're desperate. Bring your business here. Exploit our resources. Employ our people. Spend your money. Your help is WANTED."

It's crass and sad and it's not the way life should be. Although, I guess, these days, it may be the way life is. 

As an 8th-generation Mainer, I feel qualified to say that, honestly, the original sign has always irked me, since life in Maine is not the way life should be, but the affront of this new "open for business" appendage has really shifted my gentle distaste to something closer to outrage. At least before I knew they were selling a vision of Maine as Vacationland, but what (exactly?) are they selling now? Plus, let's face it, it wouldn't be very Mainer of me to think someone else can tell me how my life should be, in the first place. (My best guess is that whoever thought up that slogan was from away.) But, as any good Maine girl will be, I am possessed of some Yankee ingenuity. I am not about to point out a problem without offering a solution.

As a counter to this iconic and problematic Welcome to Maine sign, I offer two actual signs I drove past recently in the small mid-coast town of Searsport. One was in front of the fire department, the other at a church. They embody for me more of the true spirit of life in Maine and, with the exception of eating poultry, which no one would do in my version of the way life should be, these two signs do a better job of expressing how life should be than that sign at the border with its shiny, new Tea Party dingleberry.

The Searsport signs, to wit: 

"God is always eager

to listen turkey

supper Mar 10"

-and-

"Time to have your field

burned."

Welcome to Maine.

Naomi Graychase is a writer and yoga teacher who lives in the same small Maine milltown in which her forefolks have lived since they finished fighting the Revolutionary War and came North in 1809. 

Tales from Rural Maine: Lemons (or Melons...)

Friday night, at a friend's Tastefully Simple party a middle-aged woman I'd never met before walked up to me and said, "You're AWESOME." Then she seemed to consider my breasts and before I knew what was happening, her hand darted out. She grabbed the front of my top, pulled it out, and very nearly stuck her face in. 


I was a little slow catching up to these events, having not seen it coming, so my first reaction was actually to join her in looking down. I think I thought that maybe there would be something new down there, something unexpected that would make grabbing my top seem like an okay thing to do. But all I saw was what she and everyone nearby saw: my lacy, see-through bra, which still contained the same two really quite ordinary breasts I had packed into it when I got dressed. 


I looked up at the people around me, blushing, I think, and then my new friend let the top snap back in place and walked off. I was left to conclude that putting gin in the sangria, while delicious, can only lead to trouble...And also, as I near 40, I suppose that, while my intoxicated friend's judgement was not the most discerning, I might still chalk it up as a "win" that my breasts were the ones chosen to be accosted from the dozen or so pairs on offer at the party. Why not consider this a compliment? As our Tastefully Simple sales rep says, "When life hands you lemons, get a bucket."  

Yoga with Naomi: Healing hearts

Science and medicine have proven that yoga can help with all sorts of physical conditions, from heart disease to high blood pressure or back pain. But it also helps with injuries that affect our emotional hearts. What I tell my students is that through yoga, we connect to our breath. And through connection to the breath, we access relaxation. And when we access relaxation, we can access our ability to heal, both our physical and our emotional bodies.

One of my students is a shining example of this. Her mother passed away two years ago, and the loss was a huge struggle for her. She suffered from insomnia and anxiety, for starters. She tried therapy, prescriptions, but nothing worked...until she came to yoga. Almost immediately, she began to feel better.

She has been a dedicated student, coming at least once a week for several months. She told me today that she recently overheard her husband telling someone that she was a different person because of yoga. She said yoga helps her to focus, calm down and lose so much of her anxiety, which for the last two years had been, as she says, out of control.

"Yoga has brought so much balance to my life," she told me, and we laugh about this (warmly, gently together) because a structural issue with her foot makes literal physical balancing in yoga nearly impossible for her.

I share her story with you with her permission in the hope that if you are out there and wondering how to feel better--how to sleep better, how to be less anxious, how to feel more balanced and okay--you might be inspired to come and step onto a mat with us. I can't promise you will feel better, but I promise the possibility is there, and for me, each day, that is enough.