Busy Wednesday

My mind is always swirling with things to write about, sadly it seems that 24 hour days are just not long enough. I demand that the days grow longer to better accommodate me. Of course that isn’t going to happen. So for today I will share a clip from a recent piece I did on Maine’s NPR affiliate, MPBN. You get to hear yours truly discussing what it means to be Black in Maine along with several other guests. It was a great conversation and one that I would love to expand on, since 45 minutes really isn’t long enough for such a meaty topic.

Enjoy the piece and catch ya later! Off I go to the land of grant-writing.

How not to have a Black friend

Cross cultural relationships can be a wonderful thing; hell I think they are so wonderful that I married a white guy! Honestly though, there are times when cross cultural relationships can be landmines where one party says or does something that is so outrageous that frankly it endangers the relationship. In honor of Black History Month and a speaking engagement I have tomorrow on Maine’s Public Radio Station (MPBN) where I along with several others will be discussing what it means to be Black in Maine, today’s post feels quite timely.

I have spoken many times about my greatest challenge of living in Maine, my inability to make friends. No, not acquaintances, friends; people that I really feel I can reach out to if I am in need of a fellow human. The sad truth is I have made very few friends in my decade here and that will probably be the reason I eventually leave Maine. Living here is pretty damn lonely.

Admittedly Mainers appear to be very private people who while pleasant enough, just don’t welcome newcomers into their midst. I get it, I really do. Yet what about the others who like me are from away? Well, I find that too many times, well-meaning people inevitably say or do something that reminds me that they have little experience with people of difference and at this stage in my life; I don’t want to be anyone’s Black friend. Sorry. I did that in high school and I am not doing it again.

In the past several months, there have been signs that this blogging/writing thing might have some real growth potential for being something other than my private thought dump. Obviously, I have been excited, hell; writing has always been a dream of mine. Now I admit maybe I have been too eager to share good news with my” friends”, but isn’t that what we do? We share our ups and downs with friends. On more than one occasion, I have been met with responses that frankly left me shaking my head. People who are really sweet and nice who truly believe they are open minded and that they really aren’t bigots have basically told me “I guess being Black is working well for you.” The implication being that I am a talentless hack and the only reason that anyone pays any attention to anything I am saying is because I am Black. The first time it happened, I brushed it off and gave the person the benefit of the doubt but after a few more very similar exchanges, my spidey sense was alerted.

Hold up! Are you implying that the only reason that I have received any opportunities is because I am Black? Are you actually taking out the much talked about race card and using it on me? Do you even know what you are saying?

This may seem like a funny conversation considering that the name of this space is ‘Black Girl in Maine’ but that is what I am. Yet what many people who have only known me a few years don’t know is that prior to the realization that I needed to move to Maine, I was in the process of applying to graduate school to with the goal of earning a Ph.D. in African-American studies. That’s what I studied at the undergraduate level and it was only after physically moving to Maine and after I had applied to several graduate programs in the Boston area and was accepted that I realized that distance wise there was no way I could go to an intense graduate program two states over. So, I went to career choice number two which considering that I had already been working in the non-profit sector and I made lemonade out of lemons. When life throws a roadblock up, you either plan out a new route or go back home and going back wasn’t an option.

My passion for African-American studies has never waned and for me to find myself occasionally serving as one of the voices of Black Maine while odd (after all, I am not from Maine, I just live here) is something that I am happy to do.

However to have it implied that it’s only my Blackness that has helped things along is silly at best and quite insulting at worse. For starters there are 17,000 other Black people in Maine and we are not a monolith and to imply otherwise is to show one’s ignorance. Black folks in Maine are pretty damn diverse; there are Black Mainers with deep roots and history in Maine such as the Talbots. There are the many immigrants and refugees from a variety of African countries who have chosen to make Maine their home and a slew of folks like myself from all over who have chosen to make Maine home. In this moment, my voice may be one of the Black voices heard often but I don’t speak for anyone other than myself at the end of the day.

Talk of race is always hard but the walls of that great “ism” known as racism will never be broken down if we allow ourselves to hold to stereotypes and assumptions. If we allow our eyes to never be opened and go back to our comfortable and familiar space that may actually be offensive to others, we can be assured that nothing will change in our personal world…and if you know me, you probably won’t be on my friend list no matter what you tell yourself.

Note: I apologize if my tone comes across as harsh, but I don’t apologize for how I feel. No one likes to feel that they are being othered or seen as less than.

The gift of inconvenience

Chances are if you live in New England, this weekend’s storm aka Nemo has put the brakes on any and all plans that you may have had for this weekend. If you are like most people including yours truly, the idea of having your plans interrupted because of an inconveniently timed storm tends to create a bit of angst and annoyance. I mean who the hell does this damn storm think it is? Did Nemo not know that I had plans?

I am a recovering type A personality and despite my valiant attempts at recovering, the truth is that I still struggle greatly when inconvenienced. The funny thing though is that life for many of us is a series of untimed and unplanned inconveniences. Which is why it’s almost comical how many of us and again I include myself get so annoyed when inconvenienced.

Life rarely goes as planned for any of us, even on the outside looking in; most people who appear to have it all are struggling with something that they didn’t plan for. It could be finances, illness, relationships, whatever… I think of a friend of mine who on the outside has it all, but whenever I start feeling a private pity party when I look at her life compared to mine. I remember that she has suffered from horrific loss, the kind that many never recover from. Yet she took what was a tragic inconvenience and moved on.

Inconvenience though is at times a gift, because it forces us to take stock of situations and realize what matters most in our lives. Sometimes inconvenience forces us to just sit still and be which can be one of the most uncomfortable feelings in our fast paced always on world. In many ways yoga has made me more tolerant of inconveniences of all kinds. In the end, there are simply some things that I have no say about, all I can do is adjust my attitude to meet the situation and surrender to the moment.

Weather is one of those things that after a decade in Maine I have decided is simply not worth stressing about. Now let me be clear, I am a bit concerned about all the snow on my roof and if the plow guy doesn’t come back, we will be living in the snow for quite a while trying to clear out our driveway. Yet fretting about an event that I have no hand in changing or directing only adds to my own angst. So, I sit here getting ready to watch E.T. with my kiddo and thinking that this is a great weekend for baking. We will all be back in the fast lane of life soon enough, until then stay safe in you are in New England. If you aren’t in New England, send us some warming thoughts…

If Nemo has pissed you off, take a deep breath and know that before you know it, warm weather will be here.

View from the porch of the car. That was after the porch was shoveled so I could stand on it.

Bandanas and Blackness at the Gym….A Very Bad Mix

When you write a blog called Black Girl in Maine, I guess it’s no surprise that at a certain point, people remember you when shady racial incidents go down in the state of Maine. A local reader of both my columns and this space contacted me today to ask if I had heard about what had happened to a local Black woman. I had not but curiosity got the best of me and I did some sleuthing (shout out to the Man Unit aka the real J-school grad and journalist who has taught me a few tricks of his trade).

What I found left me speechless and pissed off and with a story that needs to be shared. This local woman lives in Maine’s largest city, Portland and she is a member of certain nationwide chain of gyms who claims as one of their many selling points to be a “Judgment Free Zone where members can relax, get in shape, and have fun without being subjected to the hard-core, look-at-me attitude that exists in too many gyms.”

One would imagine that with a philosophy like that one could go to the gym and get their sweat on in peace but apparently when you are a Black woman at the gym wearing a bandana on your head, you are suspect. See, this local woman was approached by the gym staff and told that her choice of headgear violated the club’s policy on headgear specifically “no headgear other than ball caps” this gal was wearing a bandana to keep the sweat out of her eyes. Now while I don’t belong to any gym, once upon a time in my former life, I did and I specifically remembering using a scarf on my head. I don’t do baseball caps…ever. But I digress, the story gets better, this woman (who has asked that at the moment I not share her name publicly though if you are in Maine, chances are you already know who this is) the staff informed her when she questioned that policy that “in some areas bandanas insight gang affiliations.”

Yep, this black woman who at the time was the only fly in the buttermilk at the gym was told that she could not wear a bandana (which was white) to keep sweat off of her face because she might be trying to throw up gang signs on the treadmill. First off, this is Maine, like the whitest damn state in America or is it the second whitest this year? We tussle every year with Vermont for the top spot. Getting back to the point though, this woman visually surveyed the space and saw others wearing headgear other than hats but no one was telling them, that they might be inciting the next war between the “lobsters” and the “shrimps”.

To approach a Black woman and tell her that her choice of headgear might incite gang activity is to play into some of the basest stereotypes that exist about Black people in general. I am pretty certain I have never heard of a gang war breaking out at any gym. Furthermore, without even seeing this woman in her gym attire, I am pretty certain that she didn’t look like a gang member but when we only see the color of one’s skin and not the character of one’s content, it is easy to give in to stereotypes.

In the end this woman will be leaving this judgment free zone gym but clearly the staff of the Portland, Maine location might want to consider some sensitivity and diversity training since apparently the manager wouldn’t even make eye contact with this woman when she complained.

Just another day in America of living while Black…but hey, Happy Black History Month.

My Maine Life

It’s a lazy and snowy Saturday here in my corner of the world. Saturdays in BGIM land are for visits to the Farmer’s Market, where we shop for food and treats for the week ahead. On a whim, I whipped out my phone and took a few pictures, enjoy!

I am the fly in the buttermilk…

I sometimes feel that as an African-American woman choosing to live in a rather homogenous (okay, very white) state is a brave choice. In my decade in Maine I have had many well-meaning friends and family members ask when I will be leaving; that’s a good question. To be honest I don’t know. When I landed here in 2002, my plans were to leave as soon as my son turned 18 and I was no longer bound by joint custody arrangements. The problem with plans however is that life happens and often life doesn’t care squat for our plans. It has taken me a long time to learn this and in my case when the dust settled from life happening, I was left with the reality that I no longer had a “home” to go back to. For me wherever I lay my head and plant my feet is my home.

Living in Maine has been a learning experience for me, because it has meant pushing myself to the edge of my comfort zone. Look. I am from Chicago; I am a Black girl with a splash of Mexican so coming to grips with choosing to plant my feet in Maine was an adjustment.

The longer I live here, the more it becomes home, it fits my current stage of life but…. there are times when it is hard. I was reminded of that on Election Day when the Man Unit asked me did I have identification. Mind you I have been a registered Maine voter since we moved here in 2002 and I have never had any problems at the polls so there was really no reason to expect that I would have any this time. Yet knowing about voter suppression tactics across the country I was taking no chances and made sure I had plenty of identification and for good measure I decided to snazzy myself up and act like the almost forty year old that I am.

In the end I had no issues at the polls, in fact, it turns out I knew several of the poll workers from my professional work and color me red, but there was even a woman of color working the polls.

I share this because on Election Night, I was on twitter talking with a fellow Maine blogger, SoapboxNoise, and it turns out that our preparations for voting were exactly the same. So much so that she has written a great post about voting while Black in Maine. Sadly we did have one reported instance of attempted voter suppression, where a poll worker felt something was wrong when two Somali woman attempted to register to vote. Thankfully Gervis and his “feeling” backed down.

After the results of the election came in and I could breathe again, I probably would have been happy to put this election season behind me. But last night I got a message from a local mom who is raising a child of color. Her child was called a nigger by another child; the day after the election…in a state that voted for Obama and made same sex marriage legal in 2012. A child called another child a nigger…think about that.

It would be really easy to say that Maine is the problem, after all this is a pretty white state but this is bigger than any one state. See, the first time I was called a nigger, I was a teenager in Chicago and a little white kid pointed to her Mama and said “Look Mama, a nigger.” Chicago does not lack for Black people despite the fact that it can be segregated in many ways. Yet some of the worse racial incidents in my life all occurred in my beloved Chicago including the tine when a police officer stopped the Man Unit and I when we were still very much newlyweds and intimated that I was a prostitute. After all why else would a white man be in a car with a black woman at nighttime unless she was a sex worker?

Yet despite these instances I continue to believe in the goodness of most humans and trust that one day my great grand-kids will hear stories like this. Much like the ones my father has shared with me about picking cotton and poll taxes and they simply won’t compute because the times have changed. In the meantime, that change will take time and I will continue to be the fly in the buttermilk.

Zumba and sex, getting scandalous in Maine!

Living in Maine is definitely an experience at times, after all the total population of this entire state is less than the population of the city I was born and raised in. Maine in many ways is one big sleepy little town, where the degrees of separation are maybe three at best. While we aren’t completely in the sticks of society, most of Maine is still a place where you can’t find a meal after 10pm and bars close up way too damn early. It’s a place where despite being pretty unchurched, there is still an invisible and perhaps even puritanical code that governs most of the residents.

Which is why when the story broke several months ago of a possible prostitution ring in the small and well known town of Kennebunk (no, the Bushes are from Kennebunkport which is next door to Kennebunk) it caught everyone’s attention.

According to local media reports, Alexis Wright had set up a Zumba studio on Main Street in downtown Kennebunk, but according to police reports it was a front for prostitution. Which according to my babysitter who had actually been hired by Ms. Wright to teach hula hooping classes, it was the strangest Zumba/fitness studio she had ever seen; since in the couple of weeks she worked there, hardly anyone ever came to class. (Told y’all the degrees of separation aren’t six in this state).

Now Alexis wasn’t just running the ring, she was actually the talent too. Turns out she had a business partner, a fella by the name of Mark Strong who just happens to be among many things a private investigator. Allegedly they kept meticulous records of all the clients and also videotaped them too, apparently without their knowledge. Charges have been filed against Wright and Strong and Wright in addition to facing prostitution charges is looking at tax evasion (Capone people… gotta pay the tax man) as well as charges from fraudulently taking public benefits such as food stamps and Medicaid. Now obviously taping people without their consent is a no-no, I mean what was the plan? Blackmail? Even dumber was taking government benefits, I mean considering Alexis was the only worker and according to media reports they earned $150,000 over a two year period, how much money did she need?

The big thing though is that the list of alleged “johns” is going to be released and supposedly some pretty important folks in Maine are on this list and everyone is in an uproar. In Kennebunk, the schools are on alert, after all some poor kid may soon learn his daddy wasn’t too bright. Media here is going crazy with this story, for starters on the surface Alexis Wright looks like the girl next door albeit the sexy girl door. Then you add in her partner Wright, a well-known and respected businessman and people lose their minds, after all how do people like this end up involved with this sort of unsavory business? Sorry to tell ya, if there is one business that is probably recession proof, I am guessing it’s the sex business. People are going to fuck.

Now I have been told I am not quite “getting” the story by more than one Mainer on social media sites like Twitter. What is there to get? Yes, what they did was illegal and frankly while I think it sucks that 150 guys will probably be outed and their families will have to deal with the fallout. As long as we live in a society that is uptight about such issues, these things will happen.

Unless Strong forced Wright to do this which in that case is an entirely different issue and one I would have issues with, a woman choosing this path generally knows the risks she is taking. As for the johns, well they knew the risk too, they chose to contact this woman and engage in an illegal act.

Even if this list does turn up prominent men, I am not sure why this is worthy of all the attention this case is garnering especially now that the story has made the national news. Prominent men seeking the companion of sex workers isn’t new…Elliot Spitzer anyone? If anything this story tells me that Mainers are just like other people and sometimes that means doing things they ought not to do.

That said if you live in Maine and think there is more to this case than I am getting, please, enlighten me. I admit I think that healthy adult women should be free to choose sex work if that is what they want, however I don’t make the laws. In the end for the children and partners of the “johns” I am not sure if it really matters whether these men paid for sex or if they had chosen to save money and just have an affair, in the end it’s a violation of trust. Whether one’s partner steps out with a sex worker or Sally from the front desk, it’s humiliating and it hurts.

BGIM does Common Ground…the fair that is

I don’t know how it happened but my life has suddenly become very busy, for some people, they thrive on busy. Unfortunately I am not one of those people, busy and I are not friends, too much busy is just not good for me. Lately the pace of my professional life combined with the storms of life including finding out this week that I need $9000 worth of dental work (guess my teeth will indeed be optional!) have pretty much knocked me on my ass. So I decided that the entire family would play hooky from school and work on Friday and hit the Common Ground Fair.

Maine is a rural state and fairs are a part of life here as I recently posted but in my decade here I had never been to Common Ground. Common Ground is like the anti-fair type of fair. For starters it’s put on by MOGFA which is the oldest and largest state organic association in the country. So this fair is pretty special. All foods must be organic and ideally made in Maine, bottled water is not sold, and instead there are water stations to refill your water bottles that presumably you brought from home or bought on the way up.

Over the years I had heard a great deal about the Common Ground fair and really wasn’t sure what to expect but I will say it started with a really long car ride. A hair over 3 hours to be exact. Now regular readers know I have a driving phobia, but driving phobias fall in to the family better known as agoraphobia, so 3 hours in a car for me is like hell. Yet a need to get away from the laptop and connections meant I swallowed the long ride a little better than I might have normally done until we almost got lost and ended up on some really winding roads in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere.

I admit it probably sounds funny to hear someone who lives in Maine describing parts of Maine as the middle of nowhere but trust me on this. I live in walking distance of vital necessities like Starbucks and the Amtrak train. Our travels took us to a part of Maine, where I didn’t even see gas stations. Instead the closer we got to the little town where the fair was headed; we passed through a town that looked like it was plucked straight from the 1950’s. Needless to say taking my Black ass out the car to snap a photo was not on my list of must do’s.

However when we finally arrived to the MOGFA grounds and the fair, it was so breathtaking that I knew it was worth the ride. To enter the fair we parked and took a 10 minute walk through the woods. Oh my! As we walked through this almost magical looking forest, I literally felt the tension melt away. Did they sprinkle magic dust on the path? I don’t know but whatever it was, it sure felt good to this weary gal.

Area we walked through to enter the fair

In my decade in Maine, I would say that anytime that I have attended a fair, while I have never “not” had a good time, I am always on my guard since the typical fair brings out its share of people who frankly can be a little rough around the edges. The kind of folks who have no problem being pleasant enough to my family and I, but at the same time I can see them letting a n-bomb drop out of their mouth. At which point it would be on like my bowels after a plate of collard greens, but I digress.

Seriously, the Common Ground fair is like a mixture of enlightened yuppies, hippies, organic farmers and a few of us who have no category. Every white person I saw with dreadlocks hit me with the nod like we were members of the same tribe (I haven’t had dreads in years, but hey I take it in the spirit it was given), people seemed mellow and the again the vibe was chill.

Let’s talk food, oh my! After a rough start with a slice of pizza that most likely had vegan cheese and a crust that was just wrong on every level and a maple donut that really could have used some sugar (sugar isn’t made in Maine) we finally got our food choices right. Let’s see, we ate a little of everything and if it wasn’t for that 3 hour drive back home, we might have eaten more. Most interesting thing we discovered was a cheesecake cone thing, take a cheesecake and put it in a waffle cone. It was tasty but a tad too rich for me. Only beef I had about the food was that it was costly, granted I know why but the next time we attend I will make my budget for the fair a tad higher. The only item I really felt was over the top price wise was coffee, $3 for 12 ounces of coffee with no lid on a cool fall day is insane. I don’t care what you say.

On the other side of food is the farmers market, again had we not had a 3 hour journey back home and a budget I would have went wild, but sadly my budget constrained me. So all I did buy was some maple sugar that I am dying to try on my oatmeal soon and a bottle of elderberry syrup and a watermelon. (Yep, watermelon grows in Maine)

One of the many kid’s activities

Mini me working on her prayer flag

From an activity standpoint, we barely touched the surface instead spending most of our time in the kid’s area, since with a community mural wall; make your own prayer flags and a host of other activities the 7 year old was in hog heaven. I did though escape and do a walk around and peeped some blacksmithing and a few cool discussions. I even had a chance to see a blogger whose work I have followed up close for years as Soule Mama was present and representing her publication Taproot. Amanda looked to be in the knitting zone and talking her up just didn’t feel right, I mean I can only imagine how many other 30 something year old Mamas probably talk to her. Instead I bought my copy of Taproot, made small talk for a minute with Taproot’s publisher, scored a pencil for the 7 year old and went about my business.

My brand spanky new copy of Taproot

Anyway, a day away in nature was just what the doctor ordered, life is still pouring buckets on my head, but I forgot how good it can be to play hooky from life though my 7 year old was a tad concerned that we were breaking the rules. Rules are meant to be broken, sometimes life is meant to be lived. So yeah, if you have heard about the Common Ground fair and wondered if it was worth all the hub-bub, let me say yes, it is. A fair that is light on consumption and heavy on celebrating is worth the hub bub.

The Spousal Unit aka the mule

The fam

P.S: My other food complaint was that there was no soda, can I just say the amazing fries would have been even better with an ice cold Coke instead of the sugarless limeaid I had…yeah, I know.

P.S.S I wasn’t even the only Black Girl at the fair, guess Maine is diversifying.

Yep, Maine is a really white place and it does matter

When you are a black woman who lives in a place like Maine, who writes on issues of diversity and even blogs under the heading Black Girl in Maine, it seems whenever a racial issue comes up, people will find you.

Yesterday, one of the larger papers in the state published this article “Why is Maine so white? And why does it matter?” While I am not regular reader of the Bangor Daily News, several readers of mine tipped me off about this piece and asked my thoughts on it. In some ways this piece is slightly reminiscent of a piece that Portland Press Herald columnist Bill Nemitz did a few months ago where yours truly was quoted.

However in this increasingly global world and marketplace in a state like Maine, it’s a question that is never going to quite go away.

Maine

Vermont

New Hampshire

West Virginia

Iowa

Wyoming

Montana

Idaho

Kentucky

North Dakota

These 10 states are the least diverse in the United States, but if one looks at this list closely, one might notice another similarity between all of these states; they are also among some of the most rural in the United States.

I am not an academic and despite my original plans to pursue my doctoral degree, I don’t pretend to be one. However I do hold an undergraduate degree in African-American studies, so I do know a little about Black Americans. During the Great Migration that occurred between 1910-1930, most Black Americans left the rural south and landed in northern and Midwestern cities, places like Chicago and New York that offered a lot more opportunity than the rural south ever could offer. A Second Great Migration occurred between 1940-1970 where Blacks expanded to places like California and various western cities. In other words when Blacks left the rural south, they went to places with growth potential and far better infrastructure, hell in my own family, folks left Arkansas and settled in places like Chicago and St. Louis.

On the flip side when immigrants came to our shores, many of them also landed in large urban areas where the opportunities for growth were far greater. As a result of folks moving into cities over the decades, most cities have infrastructures that are far more familiar to most people of color.

In places like Maine, there simply isn’t a great deal of industry; our number one industry is tourism. Sorry, but who actually moves here to work in the tourism industry? Unless you are the actual owner of a business that caters to tourists, you aren’t exactly going to get rich. Maine as the northernmost state in the continental United States is also hindered by a lousy transportation system. Outside of a select few cities and towns, public transit is non-existent and in the era of expensive gas, driving all around the state is expensive. Never mind the fact that for all practical purposes, there is only one true interstate in the state, Interstate95 that runs north and south, traveling to the eastern and western parts of the states requires indirect pathways and frankly is time intensive. As a result, what real industries exist?

In the era of the declining wage, states like Maine are at a distinct disadvantage, wages here are even more depressed. Reality in Maine is that many people including college educated people juggle multiple jobs to make ends meet. At this stage in my life, none of my peers back home are juggling jobs.

Maine for all of her natural gifts, frankly doesn’t offer a great deal for a young up and comer hence why we tend to lose the young native born Mainers. Never mind that without a diverse array of industries to bolster public infrastructure, the cost of maintaining a crumbling infrastructure is born on the backs of all of us in the form of high taxes in a state with low wages. My property taxes just jumped 18%.

Aside from cheap seafood, and gorgeous summers, Maine doesn’t exactly call out for anyone to move here. Frankly had it not been for my son and ex-husband, I wouldn’t be here. Sure, low crime is nice, as is four seasons, but I can’t pay my bills with those things. Maine can be a harsh place to live economically.

The thing is when you look at most of the so-called whitest states; many have similar challenges at some level, which keep them white. Who wants to move to places where life is going to be harder and not necessarily due to the color of one’s skin? That said, I do think being a predominantly white state is a hindrance because as the world shrinks and becomes more global and diverse, states like Maine are not leading the charge. Very few global companies really want to relocate to homogenous states with lousy infrastructure.

The word diversity has been thrown around so much in the past two decades, that for many people it’s almost impossible to have an honest discussion about what it means to live in a diverse and global society in the 21^st century without invoking knee jerk responses and anger. Yet in a world where the bill collector is no longer Sue Ann Jenkins two states over but Patel across the ocean, to not strive for diversity can impact in ways far greater than just visual diversity.

So yeah, it does matter that Maine is so white because that whiteness may very well be a hindrance to the economic diversity that a small rural state like Maine needs to grow and thrive.

PS: Can we stop that terrible rumor that Black folks don’t move to Maine because it’s cold…Maine is frickin Florida compared to living in the Great Lakes in the middle of January.

PSS: Also can we stop that rumor that minorities move to Maine for the welfare benefits, I work in the social service sector and by and large I have met very few people that come here to get something. Seriously, waiting lists for subsidized housing is running 3 years in Southern Maine, no one is moving here for the free housing! Trust me on that.

BGIM does the fair

Despite the name of this blog, I am not a country girl by any stretch of the imagination. I just happen to be a Black Girl who landed in Maine by circumstances outside of my control and a strong believer that when life hands you a large bag of lemons, you make the best damn lemonade you can. I mention this because recently I have had newer readers ask about my life in Maine, some who weren’t aware that I am not a native, just a transplant who planned to leave a few years ago, but Maine is a little like the Hotel California, you check in, you don’t check out.

That said, in my attempt to make the best damn lemonade that I can in Maine, I found that actually embracing the stuff that makes rural life rural has actually helped me learn to like Maine. Maine is a predominantly rural state with a lot of white folks and despite the media images of the Bush compound, lighthouses, lobsters and Stephen King, daily life here for the average person involves little of those things. More like hard work in a state that is extremely expensive and the wages suck. Maine is a great place for the well-heeled, less so for the average stiff…why do you think so many folks like to come here to vacation?

Oddly enough one of the things I enjoy about living here are fairs…you know, county fairs. Look, I grew up in Chicago, 3^rd largest city in the US aka the Second City since we have a complex that we aren’t New York. Do you think I went to fairs as a kid? Hell no. Going to a fair in Illinois would have required getting in the car and driving hours to one of those parts of Illinois where folks with a permanent tan stand out like a Black Girl in Maine except unlike Mainers who seem to live and let live, folks in the rural parts of Illinois aren’t so chill. So yeah, I never went to a fair as a kid/teen or adult living in Illinois.

Hence my love of all things fair related now. A fair is the one occasion where no one makes excuses for eating fried goo on a stick that will kill you. Have you noticed that unless you intentionally attend a fair that caters to those who only want to eat healthy, that most fairs don’t even have healthy offerings? Fried potatoes, fried dough, shit, I am a Black girl with southern roots thanks to my Pops, my love of fried anything is coded in my DNA. It’s just that my love of living long generally makes me say no, but when I go to a fair, it’s on.

So yesterday despite being a tad sick and crabby, we hit up our local county fair and as always it didn’t let me down. Farm girls in daisy dukes and work boots, dudes in Carharts who really do work hard. Horses pulling cinder blocks, folks openly smoking cigarettes (no hiding out for these folks), and the people watching was superb. The food was greasy and good and after all these years, I have learned not to overdo it. Lest you think I am making fun of folks, I am not, I actually enjoy watching people take pride in their work, people who unlike me don’t sit at a desk but who by the time I wake up have already logged in a half day of work. In a world where growing numbers of us are disconnected from nature and our food supply, going to a county fair actually makes you put a face on the silent people who keep us fed in this country. Lot of folks like to joke about the foods you see at fairs and yeah with shit like fried butter or as I heard from someone yesterday who went to the New York state fair, fried lasagna, it’s easy to laugh. However aside from food and cheesy vendors, the idea of a fair is to showcase the animals, equipment, etc. associated with agriculture. I mean shit, when you look at it like that, it means the county fairs are to farmers what blog conferences are to bloggers…some are good, and some are mediocre.

So yeah, I went to the fair and while I don’t have a snazzy camera, I did take a few pictures with my phone, so enjoy. By the way, if you have the ability, check out a fair if you’ve never been. If it’s been a while, go back.