Kate Flora: I was going to write today about authors sharing some of the best, and worst, writing advice they’ve ever gotten. But something about the impending snowstorm got me thinking about Maine winters of long ago and about the way that growing up in the country and on a farm has had a lingering influence on my life and how I think, especially about land and food.
For much of my adult life, I’ve lived in a suburban community where I can see the lights of my neighbor’s houses at night. That wasn’t the case growing up. We lived in an 1811 farmhouse on a hilltop overlooking Sennebec Pond, with fields stretching out like wings beside us and thick, green forest rising up a hill across the road. We couldn’t see a neighbor to the north, and a barn kept us from seeing lights from our nearest hilltop neighbor to the south. We could see lights in the houses across the pond, more in summer when people were at their camps. But they were distant lights.