The Midcoast Quotes

“And I think—or hope—that all that matters, returning to that impulse I’ve been trying to identify—the desire to be somehow near-er a tragedy—is what I feel when I’ve achieved some distance from the episode, and the way I feel then is relieved. I’m happy I have what I have. I’m happy I haven’t lost any of it along the way. I could have risked more—and perhaps lived to tell about it and therefore had more to tell—but with all apologies to my younger self, I can’t think of a single instance from my past that I wish had gone another way.”
― Adam White, The Midcoast

“Ed had done well in a way that I never would have expected him to. His imagination had surpassed my own.”
― Adam White, The Midcoast

“When we narrate the past, it helps to place ourselves as close as possible to the center of the action. But the problem is: The vast majority of humans, or maybe just well-to-do Americans, never get all that close to the center of anything.”
― Adam White, The Midcoast

“There used to be something a little more authentic about the lack of amenities,” he said. “That’s probably true.” “Now it feels more like the Cape or the Hamptons. Or other towns in Maine. I guess that’s the way it always happens. Visitors go to the Midcoast because they think they want something rustic and industrial—the way life should be and all that—but really what they want is rustic and industrial plus one good coffee shop, and if they’re staying for longer than a weekend, then they want all that plus two good coffee shops, because the first one gets boring after a while—” “It really does.” “I understand. But then the tourists also want a T-shirt shop that sells gifts to bring home for the in-laws, and then a designer boutique because they weren’t expecting it to get so cool at night and because they’ve talked themselves into spending more money than they’d budgeted for just because they’re on vacation and because it’d be nice to find a knit sweater that matches exactly with their notion of what a well-heeled mariner on the Maine coast might wear on exactly such an evening, and so the town tries to provide all these services until, before you know it, it’s made enough concessions, on behalf of convenience and some imagined version of the town that only exists in brochures—to eventually, not that anyone’s really noticed, because it takes place over years or decades—trade ‘authenticity’ for what feels more like an airbrushed portrait of itself. A caricature. Buildings shaped like factories but containing everything someone from out of town thinks they don’t want but do want, or thinks they do want but don’t want.”
― Adam White, The Midcoast

“But the problem is: The vast majority of humans, or maybe just well-to-do Americans, never get all that close to the center of anything. Instead we get this other life. One I try to be grateful for. I, Maeve, Jane, and Jack feel at home in Damariscotta—even if I always believed that to stay on the Midcoast, or even to return to it, would mean that I’d given up on the pursuit of something greater. Which may well be the case, but at a certain point the hardest thing about so much of your ambition going unfulfilled becomes finding out that you’re basically okay with the way things have gone. And while it could be said that I haven’t been at the center of any story that anyone would find very interesting, it could also be said that I’ve been near enough to a few of them. And I think—or hope—that all that matters, returning to that impulse I’ve been trying to identify—the desire to be somehow near-er a tragedy—is what I feel when I’ve achieved some distance from the episode, and the way I feel then is relieved. I’m happy I have what I have. I’m happy I haven’t lost any of it along the way. I could have risked more—and perhaps lived to tell about it and therefore had more to tell—but with all apologies to my younger self, I can’t think of a single instance from my past that I wish had gone another way. —”
― Adam White, The Midcoast

“guess my question is: Why do I feel the need to distinguish myself at all? Why would I ever wish, if not for a deeper relationship with a tragic event, for a more unusual relationship with a tragic event? At the time of that camping trip, I was in my midtwenties, ostensibly an adult, and yet I experienced what I would call a very puerile reaction to the vice principal’s announcement. Some part of me wished that in fact I had known someone who had been on a plane, or in the Towers, or in the Pentagon. Some part of me wished that the school had interrupted the trip—for me—because I, the friend of the teacher, knew someone who was yet to be accounted for or because my brother (and I don’t even have a brother) had been working in Tower 1 that day. To be clear, a larger part of me knew that this first impulse was morbid and solipsistic, and that I should be relieved to discover that everyone I knew was okay (and I was relieved, definitely), but still—what’s with this first part? Why do I have it? Why does anyone have it? I don’t know, but maybe, or definitely, it has something to do with storytelling. When we narrate the past, it helps to place ourselves as close as possible to the center of the action.”
― Adam White, The Midcoast

“Now it feels more like the Cape or the Hamptons. Or other towns in Maine. I guess that’s the way it always happens. Visitors go to the Midcoast because they think they want something rustic and industrial—the way life should be and all that—but really what they want is rustic and industrial plus one good coffee shop, and if they’re staying for longer than a weekend, then they want all that plus two good coffee shops, because the first one gets boring after a while—” “It really does.” “I understand. But then the tourists also want a T-shirt shop that sells gifts to bring home for the in-laws, and then a designer boutique because they weren’t expecting it to get so cool at night and because they’ve talked themselves into spending more money than they’d budgeted for just because they’re on vacation and because it’d be nice to find a knit sweater that matches exactly with their notion of what a well-heeled mariner on the Maine coast might wear on exactly such an evening, and so the town tries to provide all these services until, before you know it, it’s made enough concessions, on behalf of convenience and some imagined version of the town that only exists in brochures—to eventually, not that anyone’s really noticed, because it takes place over years or decades—trade ‘authenticity’ for what feels more like an airbrushed portrait of itself. A caricature. Buildings shaped like factories but containing everything someone from out of town thinks they don’t want but do want, or thinks they do want but don’t want.” “So Damariscotta should have stayed in its lane,” I said. I meant it as a joke, but Chip seemed to take it seriously. “You know, it probably should have,” he said.”
― Adam White, The Midcoast

“Which may well be the case, but at a certain point the hardest thing about so much of your ambition going unfulfilled becomes finding out that you’re basically okay with the way things have gone.”
― Adam White, The Midcoast

“She remembered being happy. Right? She hoped she had been happy. What she didn’t know was if she had been happy since. But nobody’s happy all the time. It’s no way to go through life. If you’re happy all the time, you don’t appreciate anything. You have to have contrast, to have low moments to bring out the high moments in relief. And if nothing else, Steph had built a life of high contrast. —”
― Adam White, The Midcoast

“The bracelet was a big deal, at least to Ed—on some level, I knew this already—and now, all these years later, I can see why I allowed myself to get it wrong at the time: Ed had done well in a way that I never would have expected him to. His imagination had surpassed my own. He had proven that he could make something out of very little, whatever he had on hand, and when that’s how you make something, some piece of you always goes into it, ends up deep in the fibers.”
― Adam White, The Midcoast

“Maeve and I were struggling to figure out how to leave the student life behind and become adults—and maybe we were a little delayed in that respect, or just cautious in the way most of our peers have been slow to embrace the big institutions of marriage and parenthood—while Ed and Steph were busy hustling their daughter to elementary school, their son to middle school, neither parent more than a step or two ahead of their children on the same developmental curve. I can’t imagine. It’d be like trying to write a guidebook to a city you’ve only just arrived at for the very first time.”
― Adam White, The Midcoast