Starting over
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PublishedJanuary 24, 2019
Mohamud Abdullahi, Portland: Losing and finding myself on a basketball court
I moved to America at the age of 9. Though I hadn’t experienced much in my short years, my native Africa was all I’d known. Though some might say there isn’t much for a 9-year-old to start over from, at the time it felt as though I’d gone from one world to another. I had […]
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PublishedJanuary 17, 2019
Madeleine Martin, Hallowell: Where’s the ‘joie de vivre’ in Bangor?
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PublishedJanuary 17, 2019
Ron Ward, Falmouth: Make a new plan, Stan
The soft knock on my bedroom door came in the late summer of 1968. “Your father is gone,” said my mother from the other side of the door. “Gone where?” “He didn’t say,” she said as she turned and walked away to her car to leave for work. She was a woman not given to […]
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PublishedJanuary 17, 2019
Bonnie Sammons, Belgrade: The next step was back to the start
“We’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.” Joni Mitchell’s iconic anthem “Woodstock” played softly in the distance from the farmhouse. Time passed pleasantly under the August sun. My daughter Cara and I lugged heavy stones to build a makeshift wall for a flower garden. We chatted about our respective teaching jobs. It was […]
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PublishedJanuary 17, 2019
Michael Crockett, Buxton: Stepping out of the cold
I awoke to the usual door lock disengaging, freeing my door for the last time. I was excited, nervous and maybe even a little scared. Today was the end of a very important lesson that I gave 15 years of my life to. Within minutes I would take that lesson and leave the life I […]
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PublishedJanuary 17, 2019
Thomas Spear, Arrowsic: Starting over is a way of life
I stuck fairly close to the small New England town where I lived through college and a job nearby with the phone company. I liked the job, but after a year I decided that I did not want to spend the rest of my life there, and, on a whim, joined the Peace Corps and […]
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PublishedJanuary 17, 2019
Kathleen Sullivan, Freeport: The end of the road is a new beginning
“Now you’re one of those people, the ones who live at the end of the road,” my new neighbor quipped when I dropped something off at his house, an old cape with gawking black windows and all the paint gone from the clapboards, secreted at the end of another dirt road that backs up on […]
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PublishedJanuary 10, 2019
Joao Antonio Nsesikilandamoko, Portland: Don’t look back
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PublishedJanuary 10, 2019
Joan Perry, Falmouth: Move comes with good omens
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PublishedJanuary 10, 2019
Mike Dawes, Fairfield: Learning the loops