Comments on: New England Winter

By: julie

julie — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:51:32 +0000

Ah! I do believe you have helped me begin to satisfy one of my curiosities, Heather! I saw a Free flag while we were in Vermont, but no one seemed really willing to explain exactly what it meant. And believe me, I asked!

By: Heather

Heather — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:48:50 +0000

I was recently looking through the WWOOF USA book for farms in New England and found it interesting that many of the “off the grid” places are in Maine, NH and Vermont. Duarte and I agree that if we were to settle in the US long-term, we’d probably choose one of those states for the freedom and privacy compared to neighboring “Taxachusetts.” There’s a libertarian movement called the Free State Project that aims to settle 20,000+ like-minded individuals in New Hampshire, which is quite appealing in the wake of the Patriot Act.

By: Writing about places we’ve just passed through: Perils, problems, power, & privilege. « Cuaderno Inedito

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:48:01 +0000

[...] Sara. I talked for a bit about what we’d seen and heard in New Hampshire and Vermont, and the ideas I was beginning to formulate as a result. It seemed that there was an active, passionate “back to the land” [...]

By: Marie

Marie — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:20:05 +0000

A lovely observation, Julie. This makes me think of northern Michigan, where both of my parents are from. Having moved around so much this place, where my extended family lived (and I visited numerous times), is really where I feel my personal culture is rooted. It’s the closest thing I have to a home town. And although I was a teenager in Atlanta, I always felt a bit foreign there.
Even now I’m still taken aback a little when foreigners talk about “Americans” or “the American accent”. I think, “Which one do they mean?”.

By: julie

julie — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 02:21:56 +0000

Keith-

I think most people who are able to travel outside their own countries fall victim to this kind of thinking, so don’t feel alone. For sure, there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of places in the US where you can feel foreign as an American. Just ask my husband about Rifle, Colorado sometime.

By: Keith

Keith — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:39:11 +0000

I really like your last point, that America is not some single, vanilla entity. I find I’m often the victim of this type of thinking. The rest of the world looks so much more exciting.

There are many places in the USA in which you can feel foreign.

By: Hal Amen

Hal Amen — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 03:01:19 +0000

Pittsfield! I think I miss VT.

And Sarah, Portland is an awesome town (and much more affordable than Taos!).

By: Sarah Menkedick

Sarah Menkedick — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:10:17 +0000

Really liked this, Julie. Especially living outside of the US it’s easy to think of it as just this monolithic bulk of a country, but like anywhere, it’s diverse. Jorge and I were talking about where we’d live if we moved there and we were like, “Portland, Maine!” then “Taos, New Mexico!” then “New Orleans!” I’ve only been to one of those places, but the images conjured up by each one were so, so different.