COA THE COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Volume 13. Number 2. . Fall 2017 THE QUESTIONS WE ASK COA The College of the Atlantic Magazine Letter from the President 3 News from Campus 4 New Faculty 6 Philip S.J. Moriarty Board Chair 9 THE QUESTIONS WE ASK 10 Faculty The Endurance of Questions John Visvader 12 Question Queen Karen Waldron 13 Stories John Anderson 14 The Space Between Nancy Andrews 15 The Forgotten. The Ignored. Dru Colbert 16 Why Go On? Colin Capers 17 Does it Sound Good? John Cooper 18 Students My Summer with Großmutter Maria Hagen 17 19 Something Good Will Come of This Ursa Beckford '17 24 Nnimmo Bassey Aneesa Khan '17 26 Artwork Melancholia Sean Foley 30 Politics The Champlain Institute 34 The Bow Shop, an excerpt Jack Budd '19 36 Poetry Ite Sullivan '18 42 Alumni Notes 43 Books & Music 48 Community Notes 52 In Memoriam 55 The Education of Congresswoman Chellie Pingree '79 57 This spread: The historic center of Nuremburg, as seen from the Imperial Castle of Nuremburg (see page 19). Photo by Maria Hagen 17. Front cover: Sean Foley, Curses and Oaths, detail, 2017, oil on canvas, 33"x28" The image is part of art faculty member Sean Foley's series Melancholia, an interrogation of depression (see page 30). Writes Sean, "This is basically the Irish flag behind the clover. Depression runs on the Foley, Irish, side of the family. The four leaf clover was from a plant given to me by a dear friend to cheer me up on my birthday. / planted it and it died. But / saved the clover. Years later it became a subject in this painting." COA From the Editor The College of the Atlantic Magazine Volume 13 Number 2 Fall 2017 Editorial What makes us who we are? What drives us? How close can we get to another's Editor Donna Gold consciousness? To their perspective? Editorial Advice Heather Albert-Knopp '99 Rich Borden These questions drove me to incessant reading as a child, to anthropology Lynn Boulger as a college student, and to journalism after college. They also pushed me to Dianne Clendaniel Dru Colbert ask unanswered questions of my immigrant grandparents and my parents. Darron Collins '92 There have been other questions: Can there actually be justice for all? Can Lothar Holzke '16 Jennifer Hughes humans of differing cultures, ideas, and ideals learn to live with each other? Amanda Mogridge Can we coexist with the natural world without destroying it? For years, these Suzanne Morse Matt Shaw '11 questions, and the search behind them, have been enriched by the passion Hannah Stevens '09 of COA students-along with the staff and faculty I have worked beside. Such Editorial Consultant Bill Carpenter commitment, charm, and humor blossoms here! Just read the essays, the Design questions, the devotion present in this issue. Art Director Rebecca Hope Woods But the questions that we have as children, as young people; the questions COA Administration that live within us, cannot ever be placated. They propel our lives; they form President Darron Collins '92 us. For there is a quest, at least one, within each one of us. I am sure of it. And Academic Dean Kenneth Hill while such questions are seldom followed by answers, they must be heeded or Administrative Dean Andrew Griffiths Associate Academic Deans Chris Petersen we wilt inside. Karen Waldron For nearly fourteen years, I have sought to know, to understand, and to Dean of Admission Heather Albert-Knopp '99 Dean of Institutional Lynn Boulger reveal the beauty and mission of this college. I have been taught so much by so Advancement many here, and rewarded beyond any expectation. Now my journey must take Dean of Student Life Sarah Luke a more personal form. As a journalist, as an editor, and as a writer, one of my COA Board of Trustees greatest privileges has been to hear the stories of people's lives, then present Timothy Bass Casey Mallinckrodt these stories-not in my words, but in theirs-helping them to see their own Ronald E. Beard Anthony Mazlish Michael Boland '94 Jay McNally '84 lives. This is work I've done for communities, for individuals, and also for COA. Leslie C. Brewer Philip S.J. Moriarty From people who spent their lives cutting wood and driving buses, to creating Alyne Cistone Lili Pew Barclay Corbus Hamilton Robinson, computer code and building libraries, these stories have fed me; I long for Lindsay Davies Nadia Rosenthal more. Beth Gardiner Abby Rowe ('98) Amy Yeager Geier Marthann Samek And so, since I cannot be two people, I am retiring from this magazine to H. Winston Holt IV Henry L.P. Schmelzer my own work, to enable myself to listen more, and to continue my Personal Jason W. Ingle Laura Z. Stone Diana Kombe '06 Stephen Sullens History efforts, helping families and communities record their stories. Nicholas Lapham William N. Thorndike, Jr. Coincidentally, Rebecca Hope Woods, the college's graphic designer, is Life Trustees also leaving. For nine years she has shepherded the visuals of the magazine. Samuel M. Hamill, Jr. John Reeves Beyond her amazingly swift design capacities and precise proofing skills, she John N. Kelly Henry D. Sharpe, Jr. has inched me on to become a more visual reader. Rebecca is someone who William V.P. Newlin asks the most startling but basic questions, like why are you doing this? What Trustee Emeriti David Hackett Fischer Philip B. Kunhardt III '77 are you trying to achieve? William G. Foulke, Jr. Phyllis Anina Moriarty This letter is almost too difficult to write. I will miss COA and this magazine, George B.E. Hambleton Helen Porter Elizabeth Hodder Cathy L. Ramsdell '78 which was launched quite casually one morning when Steve Katona, president Sherry F. Huber John Wilmerding at the time, said something to the effect of, I'd like you to start a magazine. What a gift! What a challenge! Just as COA is not like any other college, this The faculty, students, trustees, staff, and alumni of magazine had to be imbued with human ecology, with interdisciplinarity, and College of the Atlantic envision a world where people value creativity, intellectual achievement, and with the overall humanity evident in the questions, the quests, that you will diversity of nature and human cultures. With respect find from students, faculty, staff, and alumni throughout this issue. I have and compassion, individuals construct meaningful lives for themselves, gain appreciation of the learned so much from this effort-from you, the readers, from this very special relationships among all forms of life, and safeguard community, from its struggles and its triumphs. COA will always be a cherished the heritage of future generations. part of my life, along with COA, the magazine. I can't wait to read and admire COA is published biannually for the College of the what the new editor and designer create. Atlantic community. Please send ideas, letters, and submissions (short stories, poetry, and revisits to human ecology essays) to: COA Magazine, College of the Atlantic, 105 Eden St, Bar Harbor, ME 04609, or magazine@coa.edu. WWW.COA.EDU Dam Gold PRINTED WITH Donna Gold, editor MIX CERTIFIED Paper from responsible sources WIND FSC www.fsc.org FSC® C021556 POWER From the President Darron greets families and alumni on Thorndike Library's porch during COA's Alumni and Family Weekend welcome reception. Photo by June Soo Shin '21. If you've read the facing page, you know that this is questions constantly, and the one I've been unable to Donna Gold's last issue as COA editor. We will miss her shake involves skepticism and belief. At COA we place dearly! I will miss her dearly. For fourteen years, Donna tremendous value on questioning and ask students to be has bottled the essence of College of the Atlantic in the wary when they feel steeped in certainty. The question I pages of this magazine. Her editorial direction has spoken would add to the others outlined on page 11 is, Do we live to alumni, donors, friends, and prospective students in our lives in a continuous state of doubt or is there room to our distinctive accent, leaving a diverse readership with truly believe? an intimate understanding of a very special place. I'd need a lot more space than I have here to explain One way she's made this publication reflect the ethos where I currently stand on that koan. Donna's a stickler of the college is by building the stories and histories on word count. around a theme or a question. At COA we love questions. On a more practical note, I've also asked what's next Human ecology is all about picking up a question as you for the magazine following Donna's departure. After would a stone, turning it over in your hands to bathe it briefly considering a half-year pause, we've decided that in the light of different angles and varying perspectives. there's just too much going on: faculty hires, a building Where is this stone from? What is it made of? How did it project, students arriving, alumni off shaping how the get here? How might I use it? It makes sense that Donna's world works. The magazine is a glue that holds our past last magazine would be a question about questions. together with our future and we don't want those things I'm teaching this fall. Seven faculty members, COA to come undone. alumnus and trustee Jay McNally '86, and I are working So, we are excited to welcome Dan Mahoney as guest with first-year students in a class called the Human editor for our Spring 2018 issue. Dan is a poet and a Ecology Core Course. I didn't take on the responsibility writing instructor at COA. He has also recently revived lightly: could I balance what I I needed to do as president the Bateau literary journal, bringing it to the college. It will with the demands of teaching? Halfway through the term, be thrilling to see where he takes us. I am convinced it is a perfect use of my time. I have a home crew of thirteen students, but will get to know every single first-year because the home crews rotate through the instructors. There's a student from the West Bank, from Iran, from Peru, from The County (Maine's Aroostook County), and from nine other states in the United States. Their diversity in origin matches their diversity in interests. We wrestle with Darron Collins '92, PhD COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 3 NEWS FROM CAMPUS APRIL AUGUST Kimberly López Castellanos '18 Christina Baker Kline, author of receives a prestigious Udall Orphan Train, discusses her latest Scholarship for her work merging novel, A Piece of the World, on the climate justice activism and relationship between the artist communications strategies. Andrew Wyeth and Christina, the Photo by Ana María Zabala Gómez '20. subject of his painting Christina's BREAD & PUPPET THEATER A student-led Diversity Initiative World, with art faculty member Dru COMES TO COA opens community discussions to Colbert. strengthen diversity on campus. COA hosts the memorial celebration MAY for David Rockefeller. Violinist Augustin Martz '17 SEPTEMBER performs concerts downtown at St. Saviour's Episcopal Church and The academic year opens with the Jesup Library, and on campus certified nurse-midwife Aoife in Gates, the Blum Gallery, on the O'Brien '05 speaking to most North Lawn, and the pier. of COA's 350 students from 45 countries and 41 states. Senior project presentations COA CLASS OF 2017 examine HIV/AIDS, midwifery in With the help of local restaurant Guatemala, the 17th century writer Havana and Michael Boland '94, Aphra Behn, seeds, electric vehicles, the Share the Harvest Farm Dinner tiny houses, whales at the South at Beech Hill Farm brings $7,371 Pole, and more. to Share the Harvest's mission of extending fresh, organic, and local Page Hill '17 creates a pollinator produce to low-income Mount Desert garden behind the Davis Center as Islanders. her senior project. "COA is committed to making JUNE education open and accessible," including accepting undocumented and DACA applicants and SELLAM CIRCUS Seventy-eight students from "maintaining the privacy of all SCHOOL CAMP 25 states and 15 nations student records," writes Darron receive diplomas and flowers at Collins '92, in an open letter to the commencement. Poet and essayist community. Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib offers humor and optimism as speaker. OCTOBER Darron Collins '92, COA president, signs the "we are still in" statement, Gear up with the new online store pledging to sustain and expand from Allied Whale thanks to Siobhan efforts to mitigate climate change. Rickert '17. Tees, hats, bottles and His letter is published in the more support turtle, seal, and whale Hechinger Report. stranding responses. Find the Allied Whale store at coa.edu. BAR ISLAND SWIMMERS PLUNGE INTO THE NEW YEAR JULY Family and Alumni Weekend hosts a screening of Burning Paradise, Talks abound throughout the the award-winning movie on the summer, ranging from Lucas St. Clair, president of the private nonprofit indigenous ecology of southern Mexico by Greg Rainoff '82. that donated the 87,563 acres of the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Acadia National Park rangers and Monument, to Muslim scholar and COA students collaborate for the poet Reza Jalali, to trustee emeritus David Hackett Fisher on his spooky Nature of Halloween, a night of fun and finding at the Dorr upcoming book on African Museum of Natural History with cultures in America. insect treats, genuine bones, and POP-UP ART AT nocturnal creatures. OTTER CREEK HALL 4 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE NEWS Greenest College. Again. Ratings Season: Sierra, Princeton Review, Washington Monthly, US News & World Report For the second year in a row, College of the Atlantic was rated the greenest college in North America by both Sierra, the Sierra Club's magazine, and Princeton Review's annual Best 381 Colleges. Sierra's ranking is based on a lengthy, comprehensive annual survey, reviewing the environmental commitment of 227 colleges and universities. "In the new millennium, concerns framework, which has students who 'foster an environment open to for the environment must be partaking in the entire process discussion.' Conversations extend wedded to social justice and central of work, both on campus and in outside classrooms all of the time; to everything we do," said Darron the community, from policy to COA 'is a college and a community Collins '92, COA president, in preparation to implementation. that demands cognizance, response to the Sierra notice. "Our "At COA we measure our success compassion, and trust." students will lead the way in this by how much students learn and by effort, and the more they are directly how successful they are at applying involved with the hard work of that learning out in the world," said "Conversations extend creating sustainable campuses and Darron. "If we were 100 percent off- outside classrooms all of communities, the more they will gain the-grid and carbon negative, but the time." the skills and confidence to create students didn't learn a thing in the -Princeton Review the future we all deserve." process, it would not do us much In celebrating COA's status, Sierra good." mentioned COA's commitment "to In addition to celebrating COA When US News & World Report diverting 90 percent of campus as the greenest college, Princeton came out with its rankings, COA was waste by 2025, [and] its Hatchery, Review ranked COA as #2 in the again placed among the top one an incubator for sustainability- category "LGBTQ-friendly," #8 in hundred colleges, in the top twenty oriented student enterprises such both "professors get high marks" and "best value schools," and as the as [Re]Produce (see page 8). "most active student government," liberal arts college with the sixth Other students are engaged in an #10 in "most liberal students," #11 highest percentage of international initiative to provide local farms in best campus food, and #14 in students. and businesses with solar power "students study the most." Finally, COA was ranked in the financing consultations. Classes meet In a narrative quoting COA top twenty of liberal arts schools at adjacent Acadia National Park, on students, the publication notes, by Washington Monthly, which asks, two organic farms, and twenty-five "Students don't just take classes,' essentially, What do colleges and nautical miles south of campus at an they immerse themselves in their alumni do for their country? island research station dedicated to experiences and in 'an intimate, the study of marine mammals." friendly community' of doers and Sierra's full ranking and each school's COA's sustainability efforts are critical thinkers. Students can't completed questionnaire can be outlined in a student-created energy say enough about their professors, found at sierraclub.org/coolschools COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 5 NEWS Susan Letcher botanist In the spring of 2000, just about a week after she where one question leads to the next." Still, she preferred graduated from Carleton College, Susan Letcher, COA's working with flora over fauna. "Cutting a branch is not like new botanist, stood atop Mount Katahdin with her sister severing the limb of an animal," she says. Lucy, beginning a hike from Maine to Georgia on the For Susan, coming to COA meant leaving a tenure-track Appalachian Trail. A classical pianist and composer, Susan position at the State University of New York's Purchase had taken a double major in biology and music. The time College. Beyond her longing for the island, the nature to choose was upon her. She pondered these paths as she of the college has lured her: "the way students track walked the trail. Barefoot. their own path through human ecology as leaders and "We'd always hiked barefoot, running around thinkers," as well as the expectation of plenty of time mountains in Acadia National Park," says Susan, who outdoors doing field-based teaching. grew up on Mount Desert Island, graduating from MDI And yet, Susan's research hasn't been in Maine, but High School in 1995. "Barefoot, there's a deeper sense of in the tropics, studying the regrowth of forests in Costa connection-you experience the forest floor, the granite." Rica after such disturbances as the slashing of great It's a connection she's carried into her work as a botanist, swaths of trees for cattle ranches. She has studied more exploring the granular diversity of numerous forests. than thirty sites, noting the plants that return, how they But first there was the hike. When the sisters got to the relate to each other, their evolutionary history. Beyond end of the trail in Georgia, says Susan, "spring was just seeking to understand the environmental forces involved coming to the woods, the idea of leaving, of driving home in assembling communities, Susan hopes to apply that on a highway when flowers were blooming on the forest knowledge to restoration. floor, of going back to a mostly indoor life-I couldn't do "Plants are so amazing," adds Susan. "Pretty much any it." They returned to Maine, yes, but on foot. Soon after, weird thing that you can think of, plants are doing. Their Susan began working toward her doctorate in ecology and whole body surface is a receptor for the environment." evolutionary biology at the University of Connecticut. They also communicate, she says. "If an herbivore starts Plants have always fascinated her. "They're so different chewing on a plant, volatile compounds are triggered from us, and yet they have to resolve the same basic and sent to other plants, and they'll start changing their issues of how to make a living on earth-but without chemical composition, preparing for attack." the power of movement or a central nervous system- Susan hopes to take students to Costa Rica next year. things we animals take for granted." Hikes and garden But she also plans to bring them around MDI. Fascinated work launched Susan's interest in plants; an internship by diversity, she's been examining the immense array at the MDI Biological Laboratory deepened her analytical of lichens, mosses, and liverworts on the island. First abilities. "I loved the scientific process, figuring out how though, she has another task, caring for her infant, born to ask the right questions, developing lines of inquiry mid-October. 6 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE NEWS Netta van Vliet anthropologist When Netta van Vliet applied for COA's visiting position University of Jerusalem. It was a year fraught with political in anthropology nearly four years ago, she was primarily drama, "events that likely influenced my direction," she following a directive from her advisor to search for jobs. says. Netta was at the peace rally where Prime Minister She had remained at Duke University after receiving her Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. On another day, she held PhD, and was teaching there, had friends, a home. She off joining some classmates on a crowded bus-and heard was quite content. the blast as it exploded one block away. Later, she became Then Netta came to COA-and fell in love. "It's a involved in demonstrations against the Israeli occupation stunningly beautiful campus," she says. Beyond that, she of the West Bank. The next year she transferred to Lewis noticed COA's sense of democracy in action, "how people & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. in structurally different positions interact," those working While Netta has also conducted research in and eating in Take-a-Break, for example. "There was Guatemala, her focus remains on Israel and the Middle something about the quirkiness of everyone I met, and East. Her work centers on issues of difference-not only the place," she continues. "I was intrigued that someone of class and ethnicity, but also sexual difference and its in the arts, and someone else in the sciences, and an relation to other categories of difference, generated in historian were all at the same table." part by the questions posed by various political contexts. But like so many who come to COA, it was her How do people decide how to respond to violence? What encounters with students that made the strongest is non-violence in a context that is already violent? When impression. "I didn't realize how much I could enjoy do people think it is right to violate the law in order to teaching until I started here. Before, I didn't envision achieve justice? What are the genealogies of thought myself teaching at a liberal arts college." But COA was through which ideas of nonviolence, justice, and law take different. "The kinds of questions students ask really push shape? And, ultimately, what does it mean to be human? me." When offered the visiting position, Netta accepted. These questions often do not have easy answers, but When it was renewed, she accepted it again-twice. they demand a response, says Netta, whose own work And when a full-time faculty appointment came up, she is interdisciplinary, drawing on the fields of postcolonial applied for that. "Teaching here reminds me why I'm doing studies, literature, psychoanalysis, and feminist theory. what I'm doing." "Finding a good question can be at least as valuable as Netta's background is multinational. Her mother is finding answers," she says. Israeli, her father Dutch. Born in Canada, she soon moved The questions keep coming. The responses, in part, to the United States. After spending time in Central can be found in such classes as Possession and the America and Israel following high school, she completed Human, Transnational Feminist Theory, Waste, and The her first year of undergraduate studies at the Hebrew Human Non-Human Interface. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 7 NEWS 'S'N Profiting from Waste Summer in the Park Solar in Ghana Grace Burchard '17 and Anita van Hands-on experience is fundamental Thanks to a $10,000 Projects for Dam '19 (left to right in photo) made to a COA education. So is time spent Peace grant and the efforts of Sara news when they won a $5,000 cash in Acadia National Park. A new Acadia Löwgren '20, a primary school in prize from the University of Maine Scholars program does both, funding east Ghana now has ten solar panels Business Challenge for their start-up, a summer internship in Acadia and four new computers, offering [Re]Produce, last May. The concept National Park for two to three COA affordable, reliable, and sustainable of [Re]Produce is to turn farm students. energy, plus information technology surplus into frozen food, increasing Noah Rosenberg '18 worked instruction. farm profits, reducing food waste, in communications in the park's Sara, who hails from Sweden, and enabling Mainers to buy local Schoodic region over the summer. connected with Sakyikrom United produce year-round. Gemma Venuti '18 focused on Primary School or SUPS in Ghana's Forty-five contestants vied for invasive plants management, Eastern Region when she co-led a the prize, which also includes $5,000 measuring, plotting, and removing group from her high school, United of in-kind services, all donated by invasive plants with the park's World College Red Cross Nordic, to Business Lending Solutions. The exotic plants management crew. The help fix its roof. While there, she entrepreneurial pair are on a roll, work, said Gemma, "was fantastic. learned that school leaders longed having tied for first place at the 2016 Fieldwork is what I want to do. Now, for energy that would be sustainable Maine Food Systems Innovation when I apply to jobs, I can confidently and reliable. Challenge at Bowdoin College. say, I'm able to do these things, and if As one teacher explained, SUPS "With this win, we got a lot closer you hire me I can do them for you." students are among the poorest in to making this dream a reality," Noah created videos and wrote Ghana. Few homes have electricity, says Grace. Adds Anita, "People are stories about Schoodic history, let alone computers. But now, with becoming more aware of food justice scientists, and park personnel energy and computers at the school, issues, and food waste is on top of for his internship, extending his students can hope to gain computer that list." interdisciplinary education. He literacy and thus also consider higher Having worked with COA's recalls a day spent "with a group of education. Additionally, enrollment Sustainable Business Hatchery to educators, worm diggers, clammers, will likely increase, allowing SUPS develop prototypes and a business and park scientists, talking about to join the state food program that plan, the pair is now refining the plan intertidal uses. I really understood provides a daily lunch for students. as they seek appropriate processing the importance of being open to Projects for Peace was created in facilities in Portland, Maine. In the what you don't know and listening 2007 by philanthropist Kathryn W. meantime, they're attending the to people. I might not have been Davis. To celebrate her hundredth Clinton Global Initiative University able to understand these different birthday, she committed one million and other gatherings to increase perspectives had I just been a dollars to fund one hundred student their understanding of hunger, food biologist." projects in the hopes of increasing security, and strategies that consider A grant from the Endeavor peace through grassroots actions. the triple bottom line. Foundation funds the program, The projects continue. Says Sara, "This is about taking our passions which began with seed money from "Investing in schools benefits an into the real world," concludes Grace. the Davis Conservation Foundation. entire community." 8 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE DONOR PROFILE COA's New Board Chair Philip S.J. Moriarty: Keeping the Magic Flowing by Donna Gold "I'm a matchmaker," says Philip S.J. Moriarty, who this summer became the chair of College of the Atlantic's board of trustees. Having begun his career in admissions at Yale University, his alma mater, Phil moved to human resources at the noted advertising company J. Walter Thompson before launching the Chicago executive search consulting firm of Moriarty/Fox in 1974. Connecting people, assessing strengths, understanding risks-and helping others do the same-has been Phil's life. So when COA was searching for a new president, nearly seven years ago, Phil chaired the committee that ultimately hired Darron Collins '92. Phil is still proud of his involvement in what he calls this "terrific" choice. Academic communities are encouragement, along with that of former board chairs Sam Hamill and Bill something of a home to Phil, whose Foulke, Phil became a trustee in 2005. father served as the Yale swimming The match evokes Phil's own college career. When it came time for him to and diving coach for forty-four choose a major, he was interested in too many subjects to focus on a typical years, "always learning, always course of studies. Instead, Phil chose Yale's new offering, an interdisciplinary probing," despite never attending major in American Studies. "It captured me because it was multi-disciplinary, college. In addition to serving as an including economics and history and art and political science and literature." ambassador through sport, the elder "COA is an extension of my passion," says Phil. "I am intrigued by its Phil Moriarty coached the US team newness, the opportunity to continue to learn, and the educational model of in the 1960 Rome Olympics. Later he human ecology-self-directed, interdisciplinary, and practical." Enumerating published ten volumes of poetry. As the college's specialness, Phil emphasizes its mission and geography, and "the the eldest son, Phil was the first in remarkable people that work here-the great faculty, devoted staff, dedicated his family to enroll in college. leaders-and my generous and thoughtful colleagues" on the board of Phil came to know COA in the trustees, as well as the "participatory approach to governance." early 1980s when Robert Ramsey, And then there's the students, "their tremendous potential. I'm always in his former supervisor in Yale's awe when I hear them speak so eloquently, without any trepidation, on point, admissions office, came to Maine articulately-and to trustees. How intimidating can that be? I couldn't have to consult with then-president Lou done it at that stage in my life. You know they're going to find the right path Rabineau on how best to move and be successful as they carry COA's mission into the world." Phil pauses. the young college forward. Phil "There's something else too, I've often referred to COA as the little college that remembers being intrigued by how could and does. It really does." imaginative, creative, and pertinent As chair, Phil follows Will Thorndike, who led the board from 2012 to 2017. COA was. Years later, his friend "He was terrific," says Phil. "Valued by his fellow trustees, a great partner for and summer Northeast Harbor Darron, and a wonderful salesperson for the college to the world beyond neighbor, the late trustee Alice campus." Eno, reintroduced him. With her As to Phil's goals, they're simple: "Keep the magic going." COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 9 THE Questions WE ASK We know that COA is a mission-driven institution. That mission is not just words on paper. It flourishes in the hearts and minds of every member of the COA community. We care. We inquire. We persist. 10 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE What creates a dream? What does it mean to be Do you love yourself? Samuel Evans '21 human and alive? Sara Anderson '21 Khorshid Nesarizadeh '21 What keeps me engaged How do we choose our as a positive influence? How do you create a world commitments when every arena Toby Stephenson '98, staff that simultaneously builds in society is under attack? environmental, social, and Etta Kralovec, former faculty What are the connections economic abundance? between nature and human Jay Friedlander, faculty How can I express myself creativity? authentically and strive to Bill Carpenter, faculty Can we sustain the ecological understand others so we can best needs of soil, plant, animal, and connect? How are we bodies together, human within the bounds of Jacqueline Ramos Bullard '07 surviving towards death? available on-farm resources, or Izik Dery '17 will external inputs be required? How can we create a more CJ Walke, staff meaningful economy, one that How does the college develop is just and sustainable, and also If the rainforests are the a sustainable financial model, recognizes that work is more balancing the budget while green lungs of our planet, than earning money-it's a space and the ocean is its blue heart, maintaining the idealistic to fully express our humanity. how much of your heart do Davis Taylor, faculty qualities and goals upon you want to protect? which we were founded? Melissa Chan '18 How dare the representative Andy Griffiths, staff of a leading nation affirm that What does it mean to listen climate change doesn't exist and How do I use my life to help and to learn? also provoke the political climate reduce the amount of suffering Jodi Baker, faculty to initiate nuclear war? felt by others while still Mariana Cadena Robles '17 maintaining my own health, Does who we are now reflect given my disabilities? the premise upon which we How might we create the Elizabeth O'Leary '03 were founded? language, institutions, and power Marie Stivers, staff structures for a culture in which How can I help? peace would not be obscured but Amanda Mogridge, staff What is the next right action? be experienced as a constant and Morgan Hildebrecht '17 vibrant presence? What do you want to Gray Cox, faculty contribute to this world? How can we rethink our world Sahra Gibson '17 and ways of being by examining What is the relationship between in detail other places and times microbes, our body's ecosystem, How do we turn what is inside that reveal how others have made and that of microbes and humans out and bring what is outside their way in the world? on the planet, and how do we within as effortlessly as water Todd Little-Siebold, faculty learn to understand that? flowing in a self-sustaining CJ Kinton '84 circle of transformation? What makes COA what it is? Deborah Wunderman '89 Jill Barlow-Kelly, staff What is human ecology? COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 11 The Endurance of Questions John Visvader, faculty member in philosophy Ever since childhood I've felt that there was a certain freedom in knowing things. Being alive was like being in a strange city without knowing your way around. Everything seemed amazing and mysterious at the same time. Having a map gave one the freedom to find one's way about, to make the place your own, to know where it was worth going and how to get there. I spent a lot of time finding out how radios, clocks, and automobiles worked by taking them apart and putting them back together. There seemed no end to the whys and hows of things. But finding a familiarity with practical things still left unanswered the great orienting questions of childhood: Who am I? What am I? What is this place I'm in? As I got older these kinds of questions became more specific but their answers remained elusive: What is the basis of human nature? How does consciousness fit into a material world? What is the nature and origin of the universe? The questions, put in this form, could be pursued academically, and so my schooling was split between psychology on the one hand and physics and cosmology on the other. The pursuit of these questions by means of these disciplines seemed to approach the answers only asymptotically-approaching closer and closer but never quite making contact. It seemed that the kind of explanation that worked for clocks didn't do much for the bigger questions. Midway through college, I discovered that both religion and philosophy were comfortable with unanswerable questions, though religion concentrated on finding ultimate answers while philosophy thought the questions were more important. Some philosophers felt that each generation, as a condition of their humanity, had to deal with the same or similar questions but work out answers appropriate to their time and circumstances. There were enduring questions but not enduring answers. In terms of the original analogy of the city, there were good and bad maps of each city but no master map that would get you where you needed to go wherever you happened to be. Nonetheless, mapmaking remains a necessary and noble pursuit. This view does not imply a radical relativism but rather expresses a deep pluralistic contextualism. I've found this approach to these kinds of questions both humbling and in an important sense-freeing. 12 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Question Queen Karen Waldron, faculty member in literature and theory Several years ago, a student called me the Question Queen. I realized that most of what I do in class is pose questions: questions of my own, questions in response to student questions, questions in response to student comments, questions in response to my own comments. With words or without. Questions are the life force. We all have different questions and much of my work involves helping students find their questions, often hidden within, because that's how I learned. I'm sure I was one of those children who constantly asked Why? My questions were cosmic, not practical, though I was always outside, learning the shapes of trees, the feel of dirt, the patterns of bird song. When I had my first flat tire my dad had to teach me to question the earthly realm, not just abide there. In school during the sixties, I had come to focus on the nature of the universe, existence, faith, pain, and suffering. My Why is the sky blue? questions had rapidly developed into ones about racism, pollution, and war. In college I discovered the root of these in questions about time and consciousness. How should I abide, embodied, in a broken world? Was there any earthly place for healing? My culminating project at Hampshire College was all about the tension between poetry and philosophy in T.S. Eliot's work. I read it all, but especially Four Quartets. From Burnt Norton: From The Dry Salvages: Time present and time past But to apprehend Are both perhaps present in time future, The point of intersection of the timeless And time future contained in time past. With time, is an occupation for the saint- No occupation either, but something given From Little Gidding: And taken, in a lifetime's death in love, We shall not cease from exploration Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender. And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Time. Place. Consciousness. Embodiment. The Four Quartets are each named for places. Maybe that is how we abide. Places shape and teach us their own particulars while time and consciousness are vehicles of our questions. The poem expresses the place; the place inspires the poem. The wells of wisdom in each seem infinite. Where and how do we apprehend the point of intersection of the timeless with time? I read Jung; I read theology; I read philosophy. I went to graduate school not only to read more novels and poetry and theory, but also to keep asking questions of them. Literature manifests a consciousness of truth in time that probes the deepest levels of the mind and questions what it means to be alive-embodied in a particular place, at a particular time. Discovering the mind of the novel and then rereading that novel at different times and in different places becomes as rich an experience as knowing a person: endlessly fascinating, both finite and infinite. As Jorge Luis Borges was so apt at narrating, the human consciousness can imagine infinity, can feel infinite, but we live and die in time. Every one of our students is a human consciousness living in a finite body. Consciousness, like the universe, is endless. My questions help me to live there while my body sends down roots to place and acknowledges time. T.S. ELIOT T.S. ELIOT T.S. ELIOT T.S. ELIOT BURNT EAST THE DRY LITTLE NORTON COKER SALVAGES GIDDING FABER AND FABER AND FABER AND FABER AND FABER FABER FABER FABER COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 13 The BBC's Civilisation: Part 5 of 13-The Hero as Artist with Sir Kenneth Clark (1969). https://youtu.be/h5fjKgI1ljM What Are the Stories We Tell Ourselves? John Anderson, faculty member in ecology and natural history I have always wanted to be a teacher. I remember one of my earliest COA advisees saying that the thing she liked best about her second four years at COA was "watching John learn how to teach." I am not very good at it, but I am still trying. I sometimes think that there can be no higher high than when a class really zings, when you realize that you have gone ten minutes over and nobody seems to want to leave. Of course, there is also the lowest of lows-classes that crash and burn and send me away cursing myself and obsessing over lost opportunities and my complete inability to make a point or keep to a thread of argument. I suspect that the one can't help but having the other, and if I ever feel that I have really "learned how to teach" it is time to quit. I love research and cannot imagine not doing it, but research alone isn't enough. Part of that is that I lack discipline. If I am honest, I agree with John Steinbeck and his best friend, the ecologist Ed Ricketts: I go because I am curious, and my curiosity is perhaps overly wide for modern science. I am just as interested in why there was once a Bay of Gulls on maps of Mount Desert Island as I am in the feeding range of the herring gull, but I also want to know why the United States went into Vietnam, when the first humans reached Australia, and what Alexander the Great thought of the Romans. This sort of variance suggests the mind of a dilettante, a charge that I should perhaps plead guilty to, but I justify it with my obsession with stories. I think it no accident that one of the earliest things we say to each other is Tell me a story. Stories are us, we are made of them, and as they change so do we. Here is a story of what drives me: In the days when color television was very new, and we had only one friend who had a color TV, Sir Kenneth Clark hosted a wonderful series on Western civilization. Every Thursday we went along to the Manns to watch Sir Kenneth walk us through the glories of three thousand years of art and architecture. At the very end of the series he looked straight into the camera and read Yeats' great prophetic poem, The Second Coming. Then he told us what he himself believed-a lovely short speech that began, "I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology." Then he turned and walked away, and the camera backed off and backed off, and I saw that he was walking through a great library and was going to put the book back on its shelf. I realized then (I was probably only eight at the time) that what I wanted to do was to read every book in that library. I want it still. 14 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE The Space Between Nancy Andrews, faculty member in performance art and video production One thing that drives me as an artist is a need to make things: films, drawings, objects, assemblages, music, animation- forms vary-as a practice to keep me grounded in my realm of sanity. The process and engagement with making delivers me into what Mircea Eliade calls ritual time-a time that releases me from the world of the everyday into the world of mystery and transformation. Often my work with images, ideas, and materials is more intuitive and instinctual than intellectual or purposeful. Once the work has developed, I can make more sense of what it means. It is like dreaming-I create dreams while asleep and then examine them and gain understanding while awake. I am not saying that I go into some sort of trance in the woods. I research, read, learn, investigate, collaborate, and all of that is fodder in the process of making art. The questions that engage me center around the grey areas between binaries, like death and life; human animals and non- human animals; artificial and real. I am fascinated by the nature of reality and perception. I gravitate to big questions: What's it all about? and What does it mean to be a human animal? and What gives my life meaning? TAB. XXVIII. Nancy Andrews, sketch on Anatomy by John Fotherby, 1729-30. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 15 The Forgotten. The Ignored. Dru Colbert, faculty member in arts and design What does not get looked at or acknowledged? What is willfully ignored? How does the disregarded align with notions of the aesthetic? A great deal of the world is overlooked, most of the time, in microenvironments such as under bluestem prairie grass, or varying degrees. If not, it would be difficult to concentrate in the town of Otter Creek, Maine. on anything amidst enormous sensory distraction. But what In my current artistic practice, I have been collecting is chosen as something to ignore? evidence of humans in the form of discarded or lost things, Stories speak of the nature of humans. What stories have while also documenting plant life along the dead-end not been collected? What stories are not being told? What is road where I live. These gatherings range from flattened ignored in individual lives, in psyches, in cultures? beer cans and cigarette butts to botanical specimens and I deal with these questions in my work as an educator, collected sounds. Each object becomes a touchstone of the in work I do with cultural institutions such as museums, very particular story that brought it there. and in the idiosyncratic work that I make as an artist. I The discards of humans are as much a part of the have sought to bring forth stories of people and events that ecological makeup of a place as plants, animals, and were previously hidden or submerged, whether they are part geological material, telling tales of often overlooked lives of our national story or tiny events that have unfolded in and stories. Dru Colbert, 2017, found object assemblage, digital print. As a part of her current studio work, faculty member Dru Colbert is exploring relationships between aesthetically disparate realms by pressing the seemingly worthless refuse of human-ness into botanical specimen arrangements. 16 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Why Go On? Colin Capers '95, MPhil '09, lecturer in writing, literature, and film Why go on? I know to some this sounds like a desperate question, at best a cynical and at worst a despairing query to resort to. But it's a fundamental question-fundamental for contemporary Western thought but more than that, primal, rooted in the preverbal. It is Hamlet's question, more concisely stated and without the simplistic duality. The question need not be a dark one; fear of death and taboos against the embrace of one's own mortality need not taint our perspective. I see cinema and literature as realms in which we may collectively investigate other ways of framing human thought and experience-on this and all questions that intrigue us. The foundational inquiry of all disciplines can be read as variations on why go on and its attendant questions: How go on? Why begin? How begin? Why end? How end? These questions inform any creative act (and I, for one, would hope for a world in which all acts are creative). Of course there are those, from Primo Levi to Kurt Vonnegut, who offer compelling evidence across the spectrum of despair to optimism that there is no why at all, or at least no use in asking it-not to mention the Buddhists who would also question the spectrum I just invoked. I tend to be wary of the questions' implications of meaningfulness, but as long as we are wary we may proceed. These questions inevitably lead me to Samuel Beckett, whose characters, from Murphy who "would never lose sight of the fact that he was a creature without initiative" to the unnamed voice of Fizzles 4 who "gave up before birth." They are also at the heart of my interest in his work. His radical, ongoing reduction is what first spurred me to become suspicious of narrative. Stories can become traps when we fail to recognize that they are contrivances, procrustean beds to which we subject all that lies beyond our ability (or desire) to comprehend. Jonathan Heron and Nicholas Johnson, in a Journal Valtman's of Beckett Studies discussion of genetic literary criticism (which reviews the history and variants of a given text, attempting to reconstruct the author's process), ask "How Caricature of Samuel Beckett holding a book, by Edmund S. Valtman does an actor hope to produce a fulfilled performance (1969). Courtesy of the US Library of Congress. without full consciousness of an accurate source text?" I think this is the dilemma which faces the human ecologist: in a world with so many variables, how do we choose a course of action? But the belief that we have an "accurate source text"-a clear, true, unchanging map for how to proceed-blinds us to the pesky, unsightly, human bits that may make that text "inaccurate." And if we are uncertain as to how, the question why naturally follows. Ultimately, questions of going on fascinate me for two reasons. Firstly, everyone has a different answer, and in encouraging individual discovery of and engagement with these answers, we encourage a richer range of human knowledge and experience. And secondly, the asking-why go on-every day in itself affirms the possibility of an answer. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 17 Photo by Rob Levin. Do I have a quest? Yeah: Does it sound good? John Cooper, faculty member in music I sit at the piano, my baby grand, downstairs. All my great ideas come from sitting at the piano. I find a melody, a motif, a chord. Some musical subject emerges. Mostly it's just emotion-I'll play a melody and it'll bring a smile, a memory, sometimes a tear. It could also be a rhythm. Being a jazzer, I think of rhythm as a melody without the notes, rhythm adds gait, pattern, pause. I'm not trying to tell a literal story, it takes a life of its own. The hardest thing is not coming up with too many ideas. When I get that basic idea, I try to remain true to it. I go upstairs where I have a keyboard and computer. Everything builds. I can't take the jazz out of my compositions because I've listened to, analyzed, and played it all my life-or the Beatles, or the Beach Boys, or Steely Dan, or Coltrane, or Shostakovich, or Prokofiev, or Sibelius. In composition, there are vertical and horizontal aspects. Once I have an A theme, a B or C theme comes in as a contrast. Legato to staccato, major to minor, smooth to angular. That's the horizontal. I draw in the listener. There's the melody-it's in the flute now. Vertical is the chord, the harmony, the minor and major sounds. What I have now is the melody and bass line, and enough harmony to determine what the composition is going to be. That takes about a week. And with that there's the flexibility to go anywhere. With a large work it takes another month to bring it to fruition. If you want to move forward, you've got to try new things. Working on the synthesizer, and the many sounds it delivers, gives the timbre but not the balance. On a computer, the flute can be as loud as a trumpet. So up to the day of that first rehearsal, there's that anxiety, wondering whether my clarinets were going to cut through, and so on. Or maybe I'm struggling with a transition. And you have to know when to stop. I can sit at the computer and add counter lines, harmonics. At some point I'm just doing it for effect. You can get so hung up with creating music that is so harmonically rich-all those instruments to write for-that the melody gets lost. You've got to be careful that what you add doesn't take away from the piece. Sometimes you have to say, Enough. Every time is a little different, that's what's fun, exhilarating-and scary. You're opening yourself up: Is that what this person is really about? 18 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Senior Projects My Summer with Großmutter THE QUESTION: How was an entire country convinced that deporting people based on their religion, sexual orientation, political beliefs, or physical ability was acceptable or even necessary? THE RESPONSE: My Summer with Großmutter: I Didn't Understand What Happened Then; That's Why I Remember by Maria Hagen '17 with Annemarie Hagen In 2016, Maria Hagen '17 spent the summer living in Nuremberg, Germany with her grandparents, her Großmutter and Großvater, "as a way for me to answer questions about the time during and after World War II in Germany," the country where Maria was born, but not raised. Maria's grandmother was born in 1935, a year after Adolf Hitler became Germany's president, in addition to his role as chancellor. Maria wanted to know about a child's life under Hitler, but also how a nation in ruins from war grew to be the most powerful country in Europe. How did people respond to the harsh conditions of destruction and poverty? How did they rebuild? "Understanding this seems to me to be the only way to stop a similar movement in the future," Maria writes. The following excerpts are from her senior project essay. A relative's home in Neuhaus, Germany where Maria's grandmother evacuated to in 1942 with her mother and twin sister, escaping the Allied bombing of Munich. All photos courtesy of Maria Hagen '17. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 19 PARADES "Once, just once, did we go to a parade. Mutti, my mother, wanted to see Mussolini, il Duce," recalls Maria's Großmutter, Annemarie. She and her twin sister, Ruth, were living in Munich at the time. Mutti, says Großmutter, "probably wanted a reminder of her life in Milan, a happy time, except for the death of her first baby days after its birth. Mutti took us to a store owned by a friend and we stood in the window. We could just see Mussolini and Hitler go by, saluting. And then they were gone and we went home. That was the extent of our political education." Großmutter pauses, pouring coffee, then continues, "The Hagen side of the family was completely different. Großvater was constantly surrounded by politics. His aunt brought a stool to every parade so that she could see over the crowds. And she was not the only one who did that." WAR Having watched a movie with her grandparents that glorified young Turkish patriots, Maria relates her distress over "this pride in military power, so abundant in the United States. I am angry at the need for power, for killing, and disrespect for lives that aren't American." Großmutter looks at Maria and replies, "Americans have never had a war at home. They don't remember what it is like to sit in a bomb shelter and watch the latch jump higher and higher with each explosion while the old lady next to you keeps saying der nächste Schlag wird den Kindern die Lungen rausreißen, the next blast will tear the lungs out of the children." In 1942, with Allied bombs threatening Munich, Annemarie and Ruth, just seven years old, fled to Neuhaus, a village north of the city, with their mother, leaving everything behind. Their father was not with them. He was on the front, fighting for Hitler. "I was shot at once by an American Tiefflieger, a strafer, a low-flying aircraft with guns," Großmutter tells Maria. "I was on my way home from school. I had my Schulranzen, my school bag, on my back. I was walking along the field. I was almost home. He flew so low I could see the little cap on his head. And he fired at me. I threw myself into the ditch. He shot at a child with a school bag." EXPECTATIONS Top: Annemarie Hagen, or Großmutter, in Nuremberg, Germany, 2016. The twins were suddenly former city girls with nothing Bottom: Annemarie Hagen in the 1960s. to their names, dependent on their country relatives for everything. And their family had ignored the expectations of what a German girl should be under the Nazi regime; rules disseminated in newspapers, in cartoons, on placards, and advertisements: 20 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Deutsche Mädchen tragen Zöpfe. German girls wear braids. Notes Maria, "The twins had missed the announcement and stood out with their short brown A 5 253 507 407 bobs. When the war ended their hair was finally long T36 T35 114 508 enough to braid, but by that time all the other girls wore 500 500 G 500 500 W-Brot Brot Brot W-Brot W-Brot bobs." LEA Deutsche Mädchen weinen nicht. German girls don't cry. Scot 134 Brot Brot 135 Brot Brot "And they tried, but they had lost everything and they BU@ BU 125g BuG Bue 22 R Butter missed their father. Everything was strange and they 250 250g Fett never fit in." S 11 C S BLUEPRINTS 11 Fleifch Fleifch Fleifch Z11 Z11 Fleisch Fleisch Fleisch Continues Maria, "The house was big, but by the end 503 27 26 25 403 405 7 11 5 of the war, when refugees from the east were put up Fleifch 125 Z11 Z 11 Fleisch 125 FLEISCH 502 404 in the house as well, twelve people shared the one Fleilch 125 Z11 Fleisch 125 toilet on the second floor. Eight people shared the one 501 22 101 16111 downstairs. There was no toilet paper, so Mutti tore up old architecture magazines to use instead. Annemarie Food stamps from the 1940s, allowing for 1,200 calories per day. This amount could cause an average man to lose about two pounds a week. would sit on the toilet trying to piece together the pages so she could examine the blueprints. The paper was thick and heavy, and the articles and prints so fascinating. But as soon as she had two pieces together someone would knock. Locking the door was strictly forbidden." "At night, sometimes, you could see the moon over the HIER WOHNTE HIER WOHNTE field when you stood on the toilet lid," says Großmutter HENRIETTE DR. IGNATZ STEINHARDT with wonder in her voice. "I would wake up Ruth and STEINHARD GEB. WERTHEIM we would balance there, gazing at the moon. Everyone JG. 1869 JG. 1882 thought we were crazy." GEDEMUTIGT / ENTRECHTET DEPORTIERT 1942 TOT 2.1.1933 IZB ICA ERMORDET ESSAYS "Großmutter found out much later that Neuhaus, with its Protestant population, voted entirely for the Nazi party HIER WOHNTE HIER WOHNTE in the 1930s." writes Maria. "The next village over, which PAULINE DOROTHEA was Catholic and Jewish, was less predictable than the STEINHARDT STEINHARDT Protestant towns. They were more likely to understand JG. 1905 JG. 1912 what was happening, and what the Nazi Party meant for FLUCHT 1934 FLUCHT 1934 them. ITALIEN ITALIEN "In school, der Nazi Gruß, the Nazi salute, was held 1936 PALASTINA 1936 BALÄSTINA for hours," recalls Maria's Aunt Ruth. "You thought it was over and then you just had to keep holding your arm up." Adds Maria, "Schoolchildren were presented with Stolpersteine, commemorative brass plates, literally "stumbling stones," information about their Jewish peers, all of it false. They a work in progress created by the artist Gunter Demnig, to be placed in wrote essays about it, repeating back to their teachers the the sidewalk outside the last address of choice of the victims of National Socialism. To date there are more than six hundred such markers in lies and prejudices they were taught." Germany, and many more throughout Europe. The artist cites the Talmud Later, Maria finds similar essays in a Nuremburg saying, "a person is only forgotten when his or her name is forgotten." museum. "There is one essay, a single sentence in unsteady cursive, proclaiming that Jews are dirty and stink. It was written by a six-year-old. I almost throw up. I understand why Großmutter does not attend these exhibitions." COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 21 UNCLE JOHANNES Großmutter's Uncle Johannes was a minister, but because he had a Jewish mother, he could not get a good position in a church. Writes Maria, "He found a job working with the Jewish population in a small town instead. The only way to help them was to get them out, so Johannes arranged for them to get fake passports, organizing ways for them to sneak out of the country. It was dangerous work, especially in a small town. "Johannes finally received a ministry position in a small village, but under surveillance from the Nazis. The farmers in the village all knew what he had done, and they often brought him new people when they showed up in town: "'Pfarrer, Pfarrer, hier ist wieder einer.' Father, Father, here's another one. "One night, when Johannes and his wife had already moved their child's bed away from the window so she would be safe if someone decided to throw rocks through the glass, Johannes heard something outside. He went downstairs to see what was going on. Outside he saw his neighbors standing at the edge of the property. "One of them came and told Johannes: 'We are keeping watch, halten Wache, in case they try to take you away.'" In Munich, alongside others who stood in resistance to the Nazi regime, there is a plaque honoring Johannes' memory. HUNGER "People bought food with stamps," Maria writes. "Each tiny square reserved a certain number grams of meat, butter, bread, or flour for each person. Men were awarded the most amount of food per month while the rations for the elderly were often so small it was not enough to live on. Rations for a normal person amounted to 1,200 calories per day. If you lost the form with all the stamps, then Pech, there was no other way to obtain food. For people living on farms it was often easier to get by than in the cities where there was no way to grow a little food on the side. "On Saturdays, if the girls swept the town square, they got a free bun from the bakery run by their uncle. They were tough buns, called Gummiklößle, rubber buns, but when food is scarce, anything is good enough. "Sometimes the girls begged for fresh fruit. The family sent the children to the other houses Annemarie Hagen and her twin sister, Ruth, in Nuremberg, Germany, 2016. 22 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE to ask for an apple or two. After all, people are more likely to REMEMBER give hungry children food. Annemarie would talk while Ruth Großmutter says it's up to us. stood just slightly behind her. Annemarie hated having to My generation. The young people. ask neighbors for fresh fruit. It's up to us to remember. Annemarie's mother made some money as a seamstress, continues Maria. "Sometimes her customers paid in eggs, Two years ago she took me to a protest. or a liter of milk. Sometimes that milk had a bluish tint, At seventy-nine, she stood for refugees in the cold. giving it away as skim. Then Mutti was upset. Once she She remembered, sewed for three days for one customer who gave her ten eggs. three grandchildren stood with her. Annemarie thought it was an amazing amount of food and could not fathom Mutti's anger. Remembering is the debt we owe the dead. "We never had anything fancy to eat, like carp, goose, or duck. But sometimes we had a pigeon. Our grandmother Germany over all, Hitler said, and rose. would stuff it to try and make the bird look bigger, but even America first, Trump said today, and rose. then, with five people, a single pigeon isn't much meat." And I went into the Holocaust Museum in Washington and so they scavenged. "We gathered every edible plant, brewed remembered. every herb into tea. Grains were roasted to make coffee His words were an insult to the people whose memories and substitutes." stories are kept here. "I marvel at Großmutter," Maria adds. "Here we are, His supporters' presence, jarring and hypocritical. sitting in the sun with our feet up, sipping coffee and eating fresh Streuselkuchen that she baked this morning, piled high The next day I marched, with whipped cream. The contrast leaves me breathless, but one pink hat in the crowd, she just pours herself more coffee and offers me noch ein Großmutter's words heavy on my shoulders. Stückchen Kuchen." "Remember," she says. Maria Hagen '17 and Großmutter in the summer of 2016. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 23 Something Good Will Come of This THE QUESTION: Who are the opiate addicts of Maine? THE RESPONSE: Something Good Will Come of This, a documentary film by Ursa Beckford '17 "My whole town became addicted-people who drove the firetruck, the selectmen of my town. Last year alone, I attended seven family gatherings for overdose deaths, from southern Maine to Downeast, people that I can actually look back on and smile, knowing it was a good time."-Mike Bills, from Something Good Will Come of This Having focused on conflict resolution and film at COA, Ursa Then Ursa met Mike, an articulate and candid man now Beckford '17 sought to create a documentary on Maine's in his thirties who had spent years addicted to opiates. "The opiate crisis for his senior project. Something Good Will Come two of us got together for coffee," says Ursa. "He told me his of This is a striking, compassionate portrait of Mike Bills, a story. It was a profound tale of loss and redemption. From recovering addict. Through him we obtain a glimpse into the that moment on, I knew I wanted to make a film that would journey from legal prescriptions to heroin addiction that has capture Mike's story of addiction, providing hope about the overtaken not only Maine, but the entire nation. drug crisis that is devastating families and communities Ursa had been planning to create a film about the across the country." Restorative Justice Project of Belfast, Maine, an organization The film has no narration, no music. It portrays Mike that seeks justice, rehabilitation, and reconciliation with through his own words, along with those of his mother the injured parties and the greater community. The project and a few others. Mike tells how his addiction began while also works with a reentry center to provide therapeutic playing soccer as a student at Maine Maritime Academy. programing, educational opportunities, community service, After he suffered a concussion, he was prescribed three and other approaches to recovery for addicts. very strong narcotic painkillers. The high was like nothing 24 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Opposite: Mike Bills walks along the Searsport, Maine shore, not far from his home. Above: In the two years since Mike has been drug-free, he has become a skilled finish carpenter and a father. Says Mike, "Ever since I've had Finn, I've started to change my whole entire life to fit him. There's nothing else, there's no other priorities in my life, except him now." The film will be available on Vimeo and YouTube. he had experienced before. Speaking in a near-monotone, day in 2016, more than double the statistic from five years Mike relates the thefts from family, friends, and strangers before. to feed his addiction, and speaks of a felony conviction that "That just blows my mind," continues Mike. "When other led to his imprisonment while his grandfather, the man he states and other countries are proving that therapeutic most looked up to, was dying. Juxtaposed with recollections communities-giving a convict, a felon, an addict, purpose from Mike's mother, who vowed never to give up on him, to do better, giving them training, giving them their we hear how Mike spent three days on life support in a responsibility back, letting them get their life back on their Bangor emergency room, having been pronounced dead own, they're earning it-works." of an overdose, then revived. Most importantly, the film Rather than criminalization, Mike adds, "if we humanize chronicles Mike's recovery through the reentry center and addicts, if we give them their own voice, we can solve the the Restorative Justice Project. He now seeks to help young crisis." people avoid self-destruction. Thanks to Mike, notes Ursa, "you don't simply get to His voice intensifying just a bit, Mike says, "Do you know a recovering addict. You get to know a person. There's realize that right now, there are only ten detox beds in the a line near the end of the film that I think illustrates this. whole State of Maine? Do you realize right now there are While discussing how he's doing now, Mike says, 'Today my only thirty male community-status reentry beds?" This, days are really good. Every addict has setbacks, just like when Maine suffered more than one drug overdose death a everybody I guess." - -Donna Gold COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 25 (IIII (IIII (IIII (IIII