Sarah Smiley - Got Here as Soon as I Could: Discovering the Way Life Should Be

Got Here As Soon As I Could

Praise for Sarah Smiley

Often funny and always humane, an unexpected voice in a world long defined by ironclad rules and abhorrence of emotion. New York Times Magazine

Forthright and honest, funny and smart. New York Times

An Erma Bombeck. Publishers Weekly

You cant help but be moved.Carol Leifer, former writer for Seinfeld

[An] honest nature, quick wit, and endearing personality. Military Spouse magazine

Got Here As Soon As I Could

Discovering the Way Life Should Be

Sarah Smiley

Published by Down East Books

An imprint of Globe Pequot

Trade Division of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

www.rowman.com

Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB, United Kingdom

Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK

Copyright 2016 by Sarah Smiley

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

ISBN 978-1-60893-576-5 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-60893-577-2 (ebook)

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Preface

The Way Life Should Be

My first eight years of motherhood can be summed up like this: I drove little people through stop-and-go traffic, from one end of a busy city to another, for planned activities and sports.

We were living in Florida, where my husband was a Navy flight instructor, and if Id had a daily to-do list on my refrigerator, it would have included just one item: Fill up all the time. My objective was to be busy. The rat race of motherhood, fueled by parenting magazines and self-help books, had convinced me that my young boys needed to be busy to be happy. If they werent signed up for organized sports by the time they were 3, I had failed. If they were bored, it was my fault. If they had a single moment of unstructured time, I was a bad mother.

We had a 6-foot privacy fence in our backyard, and sometimes I allowed my children to play out therebut only if I was nearby and supervising their activity. This made me feel, for a moment, that my kids were having a childhood with some semblance to the kind I had, where you found your friends when you found their bikes lying on the ground in someone elses lawn.

The reality, however, was that my children were imprisoned. They were imprisoned by my ideas of what makes a good mother and my notions about how many things in the big, scary world could harm them.

Then one day, the military moved us to Maine.

Nothing that you read above applies in Maine. It simply cannot. Maine is filled with miles of lakes and forests that refuse to contain its children. Maine doesnt have traffic, nor does it have what most people consider a big city. Here, children still walk to and from baseball practice. They ride bikes. They kayak with their friends and explore untouched islands. They dont see their parents until dinnertime. They actually play pick-up games at the parkwithout adults.

At first, I felt like I was in a time warp. It was as if all the nostalgia of the 1950s, long ago gone from the rest of the country, had settled here. Life was untouched; childhood continued, as it had, for generations.

You feel this the moment you cross the bridge from New Hampshire to Maine. The night sky gets darker, the stars brighter, and the air, somehow, lighter. Just past the bridge, there is a sign: MaineThe way life should be.

Eight years ago, I passed that sign with a car full of suitcases and children, having no idea how the state was about to change us. In Maine, my children were set free to have the kind of childhood I had always wanted for them.

This book is filled with newspaper columns I wrote during our first seven years in Maine. Taken together, they show how we first overcame the shock of this new culture (my oldest son went from a school with 14 kindergarten classes to a school with just 2) and then how we embraced it. Within these columns, I hope you will see glimpses of your own childhood or your childrens. If youre a new parent, maybe youll see a life youve dreamed of for your family.

But wait! Dont despair if you dont live in Maine.

Its true that Maines environment makes over-parenting difficult. But at one point in our history, neighborhoods all over our country operated like Maines dowith sidewalks, parks, and parents who are willing to let go and trust. There is a reason Maine is Vacationland and why thousands of families send their children to camps here in the summer. However, Maines ethos neednt only be a respite from the worlds fast pace and privacy-fence jungle. Maines ethos used to be Americas, too. And it can be again.

Sarah Smiley

Bangor, Maine

Foreword

By Senator Angus King

How can you not love a book that includes this: Ive yet to find an unattractive side to Maine?

But although Maine is the settingand frequent protagonistof the stories, the real star is life itself, with its humor, frustration (ask Sarah about the Padres mug), ups and downs, and abiding love for family and place. Its literally impossible to read these little portraits without smiling (okay, spare me the puns), nodding in recognition of a familiar situation, and frequently laughing out loud at some deft description of one of lifes challenges or unexpected rewards.

Although light and fun, these stories are also stealthily seriouswith messages about patience, forgiveness, growing, engagement, learning, yearning, and, yes, love. Sarahs obvious love for those often obstreperous boys and her sometimes hapless husband infuses the book with the gentle glow that makes it so memorable. (Why is it, by the way, that husbands are always hapless in accounts like this? I know to a certainty that if and when Mary writes on this topic, Ill get exactly the same treatmentalas, Im afraid, deservedly so.)

Sarahs special skill is presenting the commonplace in a fresh lightinviting us to see the familiar through new eyes, eyes that are usually crinkled in a smile. Ive unconsciously known for years, for example, that zucchini is inherently evil and bent upon world domination, but it wasnt until I read Sarahs account of her battles with this most persistent of plants that I realized the full extent of its malevolence. (One of my favorite stories for out-of-staters is how in Maine we only lock our cars in September. Why September? they ask. Because if we dont, somebody will fill them up with zucchini.)

Finally, a note on the writing itself. Its wonderful. Heres a small example coming at the end of a paean to summer in Maine, which, as Sarah points out, is so precious because it is hard earned in the winter before

When winter comes, we will all forget the flies and mosquitos of summer. Sunburns will fade and also be forgotten. Well only remember moments like this, floating in a kayak, watching the sunset and listening to a boy talk about life.