“This bed is on fire with passionate love” begins the 1993 James song “Laid” with all the subtlety of a cannonade before the words quickly veer into PG-13 territory.
The song is a litany in injuries at the hands of a crazed (“My therapist said not to see you no more”) – and one is led to believe – spurned (“She said you’re like a disease without any cure”) lover. It is the tale of psychosis (“She said I’m so obsessed that I’m becoming a bore”) and personality disorder (“Messed around with gender roles”).
It is the story of Maine.
To be ambivalent about home is to be a Mainer. Outside of Texans it is hard to imagine a people whose identity is more tied to their state than Mainers. And yet, nowhere does the state of one’s state give the people so much heartburn. I’m always mildly surprised that every four years a handful of people step forward and actually volunteer to be governor. As far as I can tell the entire job consists of running around for four years putting fingers in dikes.
To some Mainers the root of the state’s problems can be traced to one phenomenon: other people coming here. Non-Mainers clog the roads and bid up property values (“Moved out of the house, so you moved next door”). They want to remake this wild utopia into Boston, New York or Kampala (“I locked you out, you cut a hole in the wall”). They are clumsy with the native culture and end up crushing it with their own (“I found you sleeping next to me, I thought I was alone”). Yet, much of the economy is dependent on the very same phenomenon of other people coming here (“You’re driving me crazy, when are you coming home?”).
It seems the entire state spends the off-season waiting for the tourists – half because their livelihood depends upon them coming and half so they have something to complain about. Even as Old Orchard Beach strives to become a four-season resort town, nothing strikes fear into a Mainer’s heart like the prospect of a Massachusetts family pulling up stakes and plopping them down on the lot next door.
In other parts of the country homeowners like to see their property values increase, in Maine such a phenomenon is treated as a perversion of the natural order of things – an insidious import lugged over the border in the trunk of some yuppie’s Volvo. Lost on many of the hand wringers in the fact that increasing property values do not increase property taxes – increasing municipal, county and state budgets do.
Mainers love the country and hate the city. They also don’t seem to understand that others may have the same prejudice. Many love the country because the land is cheap and the living is simple – then are astonished when developers buy up the cheap land and market the simple life. We don’t want the town planner to tell us what we can do with our plot but something must be done about what the neighbor wants to do with theirs. Before long, Scarborough looks like South Portland and Buxton looks like Scarborough and Limington, well Limington’s still got a ways to go.
What Mainer’s fail to recognize is the secret to saving the country is loving the city.
All the rage in 2007 was the much-ballyhooed Brookings-GrowSmart report “Charting Maine’s Future.” One of its major themes was that Maine must embrace its urbanized service centers by supporting investment in public infrastructure and transportation. Regional planning codes need to be drafted that encourage development where it exists to relieve the pressure and deter it where it doesn’t exist. Tighten density between developments and cluster new development instead of allowing it to sprawl. But none of that will happen if Mainers who live in the ‘burbs continue the delusion they live in the country – because no honest Mainer would ever admit to living in the ‘burbs.
That’s just crazy talk.