Imagining Maine

The philosopher, Edward S. Casey, suggests that: “Places come into us lastingly; once having been in a particular place for any considerable time – or even briefly, if our experience there has been intense – we are forever marked by that place, which lingers in us indefinitely and in a thousand ways, many too subtle for us to name. The inscription is not of edges or outlines, as if the place were some kind of object; it is the whole brute presence of the place. What lingers most powerfully is this presence and, more particularly, how it felt to be in this presence: how it felt to be in the Crazy Mountains that summer, how I sensed the lower east side during January.

“Proust points out that the essence of a place can be compressed into a single sensation, which, being reawakened, can bring the place back to us in its full vivacity. There is an impressionism of place by which the presence of a place remains lodged in our body long after we have left it; this presence is held within the body in a virtual state, ready to be revived when the appropriate impression or sensation arises.”

How do Mainers imagine Maine? How does the rest of America perceive this state? And why, in a country with more than 285 million people, do only a million or so live in Maine? These are pertinent questions, ones our planners, political aspirants, and lawmakers should be asking. Most Mainers, obviously, love their state or they wouldn’t live here. And millions of other Americans would probably reside here if they could find gainful employment.

Indeed, politicians and others have argued recently that if Maine had a better educated (i.e. college educated) labor force it would attract new industry. Others have argued that by cutting taxes, Maine could be more competitive. Still, others have suggested that a better system of roads – especially the construction of a new, high-speed, east-west highway – would make Maine more competitive and more attractive to new industries. All of these are valid arguments. I do not want to take issue with any of these.

What I intend to argue is that Maine’s faltering economy has as much to do with the Mainers and other Americans imagine the state as it does with economies or geography. Simply put, I believe there are many Americans – including those with the capital to start companies and small businesses – that prefer to imagine Maine as something other than a good place to make money. Perhaps they’d rather see it as a good place for artists, musicians, poets, writers, and dreamers. Maybe they’d prefer to see it as the home of rugged individualists – hunters, fishermen, boat builders, loggers, organic farmers, worm diggers, stock car racers. Perhaps they have a more romantic than utilitarian image of Maine. Perhaps many Mainers have a similar image of their state.

All of us have our own ideas of what places really are, and what their futures should be. We don’t all see the same geography. And I rather doubt that the Maine the state’s politicians perceive is the one imagined by many of its residents, or by many other Americans. Images of places are not only powerful, they’re enduring; it takes decades, sometimes generations, to change peoples’ perceptions of places, especially those that are dear to them. For many Americans, Maine has a special mystique, gotten as much from literature, moves and art, as from reality.

Certainly it can be argued that mid-coast Maine has The Jackson Laboratory and MBNA, and there are several cutting edge and high-tech industries in southern Maine; still, much of the north and east is imagined as a resource-based region where rugged individualists scratch a living as best they can. Perhaps this is the way it should be. Maybe “two Maines” are better than one. Perhaps the mettle to survive in the “country” or in “the other state of Maine” is a point of pride. Do Mainers really want to transform Aroostook, Penobscot, Piscataquis, or Washington Counties into Cumberland or York? Maybe a million Mainers, or even 800,000 is quite enough. After all, mid-coast and southern Maine are already plagued by sprawl and traffic congestion.

I’m guessing that most of those folks who have found ways to earn a living in northern or eastern Maine would say they like most things about it (Oh, they’d like to make more money and pay less taxes), and if it got like Portland, Camden, Belfast, or Bar Harbor, it just wouldn’t be the same. Its unique character would be lost. They might not be able to afford to live there anymore, especially if it became a Camden or Bar Harbor.

By its very nature, capitalism creates changing geographies of uneven development. There isn’t a region or country on earth without backwaters. But quite often it is those very places – think of Scotland or Wales, or even Ireland before the already fading “Celtic Tiger” boom – that leave lasting impressions on visitors, and inspire local artists and writers. Think of Frank McCourt’s magnificent memoir “Angela’s Ashes” or Carolyn Chute’s gritty novel “The Beans of Egypt Maine.” Those backwaters, because of the timelessness of their landscapes, because of the uniqueness of their cultures, continue to draw people back, leaving an indelible image on their souls. Who would want to visit Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, or Newfoundland if their landscapes and cultures resembled the Ontario Peninsula, with its automobile plants and industrial suburbs? The lure of northern and eastern Maine is that it is not a southern California, a New Jersey, or a southern Ontario.

Instead of bemoaning the economic stagnation of northern and eastern Maine, we should be celebrating its uniqueness. Despite those thousands of Mainers – like me – who have left home to pursue opportunities elsewhere, there are still thousands of others who lead quiet, productive, satisfying lives in places like Steuben, Whiting, Winn, and Wytopitlock. We can’t always have our cake and eat it too. I have former high school classmates who now live in Florida, the Bahamas, and other states and countries. Are they pining for home? Not hardly. Many of them pity the classmates they left behind, while those remaining pity them for having to leave.

All states, regardless of the size of their economies, experience brain drains. California’s outmigration is huge. College graduates are often bright, ambitious, and curious about other cultures and places. Why hold them back? Ours is a big, fascinating country. Some of them will return home anyway, once they’ve had their fill of those places, once they’ve matured and acquired skills and experiences they can use in Maine. And when they do return, what is it that pleases them so much? That breathtaking landscape still looks pretty much the same. It hasn’t yet been transformed into Orlando, or Anaheim or Silicon Valley. And that unique culture, that indefatigable character and spirit, that is rooted in the rock and soil of Maine, is still very much intact.

Allan Lockyer is professor a coordinator of the geography program at Francis Marion University in Florence, South Carolina. He summers in Gouldsboro.