Alive To This: Essays on Living Fully by 20 Maine Writers
Edited by Kara Douglas & Erin O’Mara (Littoral Books)
I’ve become enamored of the essay form. Most of the writers who contribute to The Working Waterfront are seasoned journalists, with decades of experience. Our six-times-a-year publication means we can’t break “hard” news, but we can explain developments.
I often push our writers to ease up on attribution and tell the reader what they, as veteran observers of the Maine coast, know to be true. To signal this, I sometimes label these pieces as essays.
The works in Alive To This: Essays on Living Fully by 20 Maine Writers are not analytical about our world, necessarily, but are, rather, personal explorations and reflections, and sometimes are revelatory in where they land. It’s a bold move, writing about one’s passions, or fears, or tragedies, or hard-earned growth.
There is a wide range of topics, of voices, and of writing skill. And that’s OK.
The essays seem to have sprung from a writing prompt, as implied in the subtitle. I don’t mean this to be snarky, but some of the pieces read like those produced in an adult ed writing class. I’m more than willing to meet the more amateurly rendered essays halfway; it’s like the “Moth” radio show, in which real stories are told live.
It’s impossible to not be moved by someone opening up this way, and the only way it can fail is when it is overwrought, pretentious, or over-written. There are a few pieces that slide into these sins, but the bulk are honest in their aim.
The many colors of Maine are visible in the essays, and in this collection, we see a Maine that’s changing. A younger generation is well represented, as is the cohort of “New Mainers,” those who have arrived from other countries.
Some of the subjects explored include restoring a barn from the 1830s, a session of hallucinogenic use to unlock the next step in “adulting,” a commitment to running each day, a meditation on and genealogical inquiry of an old apple tree, a recounting of landing in Maine to live, and a visit to an elderly nursing home resident.
The length of each essay nicely matches the depth of the subject. And again, the sharply varied writing voices and tones are refreshing as they explore Maine and living fully in it, much like listening to a record with different artists covering a favorite songwriter.
Carl Little and Dana Wilde, two regular contributors to The Working Waterfront, each have an essay included here, and, if you’ll ignore my bias, I believe they are among the strongest.
The “alive” meaning of the title, thankfully, didn’t conjure “bucket list” stories or tales of “life on the edge.” Instead, the theme that runs through the essays is connection—to others, to place, to a task or challenge, and to a deeper understand of self.
E.B. White’s essays, collected in One Man’s Meat (a favorite of mine), raised a high bar for the form. White looked around at his world and reflected on it, thoughtfully. But even he, a master, went only so far in personal disclosure.
By moving toward the confessional, as appropriate, subsequent generations of writers, like those contributing to Alive To This, can reach a reader in a deep place.
Tom Groening is editor of The Working Waterfront.
