This week my walk took me to the bank to cash my paycheck. Though it is not a walk “in” nature it still allowed me ample time to think things over. With a 13-instrument jazz/funk band playing in my I-pod I set out for Bangor savings. Although I have been travelling high street for years I rarely walk it and with headphones. I decided I would let my eyes be my judges and look at the same walk in a new perspective.
On my walk I thought about Berry’s essay Economies. I thought about how he believes that plants and animals can, “live within the Great Economy entirely by nature, whereas humans, though entirely dependent upon it, must live in it partly by artifice.” (p.58) As I walk I realized it is true these buildings are manipulations of nature as well as the Gardens (although dying or preparing for winter) were cultivated to look pleasing to the eye. I look around at the trees, the bushes, peoples yards, tufts of forests nestled between neighborhoods and I couldn’t help but think how I’m going to miss this town when I move away. Here, at least it seems, people live more with nature than even southern parts of Maine or well many places. I couldn’t imagine looking out my window and being unable to see the trees or nature in as natural beauty as we can actually see it.
Where does all of this lead? It leads to something I have always noticed here, the strong division between the college and the town. Economically they are intertwined, come summer time when college is out this town is pretty dead (with the exception of tourists over 65!). But the people are two very separate communities. As much as this town is involved with the college, it is the least college-orientated town I’ve seen. So I asked myself the same questions as Berry did in his last essay, “Is community necessary…can “community values” be preserved simply for their own sake? Can people be neighbors, for example, if they do not need each other or help each other?” (p.180) I say unfortunately yes. It is what this town has become a division of communities.
I realize this has turned into a bit of a rant but it is something that has always bugged me about this town. I love it here. I like being able to walk to a store and buy anything I need. And although I went to high school not far from here and have lived in Maine for the last decade it seems that when I go into these stores I’m still looked at as a college student, a UMF’er. There aren’t deals within the Farmington community that promote to college students. There are no “college” nights at the bars, there isn’t even a local restaurant frequented by college students. But anyway this is what happens when my thoughts and eyes roam to the buildings around town, I get slightly off topic.
My last thought, well of any significance, was that I would have loved to have lived and gone to school at UMF before it was commercialized. From talking to old alumni who have gone to school here it seems that the town had been much more of a community before modernization really took over. And reading Berry really did feel like he wrote it recently, not almost 30 years ago. A particularly strong examples is presented on p. 186 when he states that, “The way that a national economy pres on its internal colonies, is by the destruction of community—that is, by the destruction of the principle of local self-sufficiency not only in the local economy by also in the local culture…change from goods once cheap or free to expensive goods having to be bought.
I agree that Farmington is very eye appealing. My husband and I bring our greyhound down to Prescott field to run around and one of us almost always ends up saying, "I'm going to miss this part of town." I personally will only miss the outdoors and how pretty this town is. I hate living in Farmington, but I do love being able to let me dog run around free, swim in the river in the summer time, and walk on the trails.
ReplyDeleteI myself have often wondered what the UMF campus area looked like a decade or more ago. Since my freshman year at UMF, it seems like the construction of new buildings, extensions, and modifications have been happening constantly. During my summer experience, I do remember that there was actually no construction being done on campus (that I knew of, anyway). Besides that time, though, I think there has been some sort of construction going on at the campus. It seems to me that all of these new buildings are causing UMF to lose some of its charm/character.
I think that people can be neighbors without "needing" one another. Where I grew up, everyone knew every one in the neighborhood. We would hold yard sales during the same days, had auctions, barbecues at the Fire Hall, and we were nice to one another. Our life, comfort, and happiness did not depend on one another; we all could have lived perfectly well without being "neighbors," yet we were all still "neighborly." This is one of the reasons I dislike Maine. I've lived in four different towns in Maine so far and have attended three different schools. In all of the areas I've lived, people were not very "neighborly." I greet people often when walking down the street and when I do not I smile at them. When I do this, most people either act like they do not see me, look away, or look suspicious. When I go grocery shopping, I very rarely get a "Hello" or "How are you today?" and when I do it is not sincere. Perhaps this has something to do with the lack of "community" in the state, or maybe it's just me!