Sometimes, on a beautiful warm night like tonight in Maine, I sit here listening to the crickets, smelling the lilacs and the balsam, and looking out over the field, which is still lit by the last remnants of our long twilight. I remember summers past and winters yet to come as I admire the twinkling fireflies that look like fairy lights and think of all the many things that make up our Maine life, and I wonder to myself, "How can I get out of this hellhole before next January?"
I hate Maine. I'm basically here because we were looking for a place to live in VT or NH, took a wrong turn in Brattleboro, went north and decided that we'd explore Rt2. We followed it to Rumford, where the air didn't smell like paper mill only because it was Sunday and the geek found a job listing in the Bangor newspaper that some fool had left in a restaurant booth.
He started with phones at a phone company that was so small that the owner's wife, who knew nothing about phone systems, helped out while breastfeeding an infant and toilet training a toddler with a little portable potty that she brought with her. Talk about multi-tasking. Didn't faze the geek, though. He just kept his head down and made sure his butt set didn't hit her in the anywhere. (Butt sets are those big phone handsets that phone guys have hanging from their belts. Whatever did you think they were?)
That job lasted long enough for the geek to get enough experience and training to apply for a state job, which he's had ever since. While he was learning the ropes - or I guess I should say the wires - of the phone and computer biz, we were also training to be foster parents, something we did for 11 years. Fifteen kids passed through our home, and three stayed through adoption. It's one of the reasons I love Maine. Maine gave us our children.
Okay, I know I said I hate Maine. I do. But I also love Maine. The people are wicked nice. The foothills of the mountains, where we live, are beautiful. If we had stayed in southern New England, we never would have been able to afford the amount of land we have here. (Of course, thanks to Maine's tax system, we can't afford the land we have here anymore either, but we could afford it when we bought it until our taxes doubled in three years. I hate Maine.)
If we ever hit Powerball or I sell enough books (which would be more likely if I'd write more books), we would be out of here so fast, that we'd leave contrails. I don't know where we'd go, but it'd be warmer in the winter, have fewer bugs, less wind, less snow, fewer carcinogens in the air and less mercury in the water, fewer Republican congress critters and more community for secular unschoolers. Of course, the only drawback would be that we'd have to leave some good friends, good neighbors and good memories of the happy times we've had here in Maine.
Well, maybe we'd come back for a couple of months in the summer, but we're definitely not spending any more than July and August here. Then again, fall is the best time of the year in Maine, after the bugs die and the summer complaints have all gone back to Boston or wherever they came from and before the hunters arrive to shoot at our horses and Black Labs and anything else that has four legs. (This is the only reason we take in the lawn furniture in late October.)
If we don't hit Powerball, we'll have to wait to leave until Geekdaddy retires. However, due to our late start at parenthood, we'll still have a teenager who will probably yowl her head off if we tell her we're moving away from her friends, so we may have to wait a few years until she's launched. But right after that, no question about it, we're out of here. I just can't see living in a place I hate, even if I do love it.