Waiting for the Daffodils and Losing My Mind

It will be three years ago this month that I moved to Maine, and it seems the longer I live here, the greater the challenge. While the body is amused--what with the kayaking and the snowshoeing and the skiing and the horseback riding and the fishing and the sailing and the rock climbing and the hiking and the biking--the brain is another story.

Simply put, there is little to do here to engage the mind. This is no small concern; having lost my mother to Alzheimer's, I worry about my brain cells literally dying from disuse. So, each morning I check several online job boards for writers, editors and media professionals of all sorts. In the three years I've lived here there has never been one writing job advertised in the state of Maine. What's a writer to do? I read, take photographs, do crosswords, play word games online with distant friends -- and write this blog.

Although staying sharp mentally in Maine is a challenge, it's hard to imagine going back to the real world. There's no traffic here. You can always find a parking space. There's no crime: no gangs, rapes, murders, home invasions or carjackings. You can sleep soundly at night without a baseball bat under your bed. There are no home alarm systems; in fact, many of our neighbors lack keys to their front doors.

But as I write this on the first day of March it is snowing, with 10 inches expected by nightfall, whereas my friends in Maryland have daffodils and are already weeding their gardens. Just saying.