Craig LeisherNo longer a stranger: a moose in the Maine woods.
Moving our family from the New Jersey suburbs to the woods of Maine for a year was a big step. It took planning, perseverance and a willingness to deal with biting insects, no dishwasher, no coffeemaker, no microwave and doing laundry at the laundromat. (Thankfully, the laundromat doubles as the pub.)
But why spend just a year in the woods? Why not longer, or for those less tolerant of black flies, why not just July and August?
It was a Goldilocks issue: one year was just right. Having lived in a number of places overseas, we’ve found that the local learning curve begins to flatten out after the first year. Routines develop, and local trips shift to autopilot after around 12 months.
A year is enough time to start to get below the surface that a tourist sees and begin to understand life as a local person or, in our case, a local moose, sees it. It is long enough to get to know a place and the people, but not so long that friends in New Jersey drift away.
Knowing we have just a year means we do not put off local activities for some other time. Instead, we attended the Memorial Day parade in a neighboring town, joined the local cribbage tournament and helped with the annual Appalachian Trail repairs. We say yes to almost every local activity we hear about.
A year gives us all four seasons, each with different pleasures. Summer in the Maine woods is water time: swimming, canoeing and fishing. The fall is legendary for good reason: the colors are spectacular. The winter is long, but it is my favorite Maine season because the woods are open and the snow makes access to remote spots easier. The spring is 101 shades of green, migrating birds and a garden that rarely needs watering because of the rains.
New England’s four seasons are like acts in a play, and if one or more is missed, the play, while enjoyable, makes less sense. The scene changes are also part of the attraction, with winter beginning and ending slowly but spring jumping to center stage in a few days as the trees leaf out.
One year is long enough to step out of a professional groove and find a new one, as my wife has been doing.
A year gives one a taste of life in an area. It is our try-it-before-we-buy-it approach to deciding where we might someday want to retire. Any shorter, and the people connections stay superficial. Any longer, and it becomes so comfortable that the momentum to stay grows and the prospect of another move looks ever more daunting.
One year is also enough to hit my wife’s home-schooling pain threshold. The nearest school is an hour’s drive away, so we are home-schooling. In our household, home-schooling is not compatible with long-term sanity. Three boys at three different levels getting three different lessons at the “everything” table in the cabin has been the hardest part of the year in the woods.
Our cabin in the woods is spectacular, with its views of the lake and forest outside and 40-inch white-pine planks and rare American-chestnut cabinets inside. We are surrounded by 300 acres of private land that borders the Appalachian Trail. It’s beautiful but isolated, and being so isolated can have professional costs.
Our satellite Internet has a time lag that drives work colleagues crazy while using a VoIP service. Video calls are out of the question. Our cellphone drops calls frequently, even with an expensive booster. Face time with colleagues requires longer trips and greater expense than living in New Jersey, so during our year in the woods I have rarely traveled. My boss at the Nature Conservancy is supportive, to a point. And that point is 12 months.
A year is also enough time to see our lives back in New Jersey with fresh eyes. We have inserted a Maine woods chapter between New Jersey chapters in our life book, and we hope the addition keeps us from settling into a groove that imperceptibly deepens into a rut.
Perhaps most important, our oldest son pinky-promised his best friend that we would be back in a year. And as every kid knows, pinky promises are unbreakable.
Susannah Hopkins LeisherA snapping turtle in the road leading from the family’s rented Maine cabin.
