I'm writing this post from a wee plastic chair in a small-town laundromat called Sunshine. The walls are adorned with canvases proclaiming motivational maxims and laundry puns. LAUNDRY - LOADS OF FUN. (See what they did there?) On top of each washer, a Christmas display of fake snow, Santa figures and mistletoe has been lovingly curated and remains, on January 22nd. There are ladies here on social outings, snubbing People magazine for a gossip and laughter. The fragrance is boiled talcum powder and summer meadows, the way only mums and other real adults can make freshly-washed clothes smell. And I was worried my joy had peaked in Montpelier!
On Saturday, I left Vermont and crossed into New Hampshire, one of my favourite states. It's just so beautiful! A quick detour led me to Jackson, one of the most gorgeous, quaint little towns I've ever seen. I'd previously stayed here in the Fall so seeing it in the snow was another level of beauty. I am, however, disgruntled that I've now encountered around 80 road signs warning me to STAY ALERT FOR MOOSE! MOOSE CROSSING! BRAKE FOR MOOSE! MOOSE NEXT 5 MILES! It's all lies. Moose count, despite keenest hopes: 0. New Hampshire, I love you, but you've let me down.
On Saturday night, I stayed in an adorable inn in Eaton, New Hampshire, on the outskirts of the White Mountain National Forest. The Inn at Crystal Lake was cosy, homely and characterful - a quintessential New England inn. The owner, Tim, was kind enough to tolerate me overstaying my welcome the next day as I took root on the sofa to do some work and forced myself to politely eat the free cookies on offer...
You'll note that the inn also subscribes to the New England '112 days of Christmas' policy. I certainly wasn't complaining and it provided an ideal overnight stop midway between Montpelier and my next destination - Portland, Maine.
Portland is Maine's largest and most-populous city and is the birthplace of Stephen King. That's all vaguely interesting but for me - and this may shock you - it's all about the food. I tried my first lobster at Luke's Lobster on the pier, as recommended by my Airbnb host, Nancy, a former food critic. Her Airbnb apartment was an absolute beauty!
I took the waitress' recommendation and ordered a whole lobster, with hot butter and fries. Thank goodness the lobster came with an instruction manual! I'm glad I tried it and I wasn't repulsed but I just felt utterly barbaric the entire time. It was a gorgeous restaurant in an unbeatable location but it was a one-off experience.
The Bayside American Cafe is a local treasure famous for their eggs benedict. So I went there for eggs benedict. 10/10. I also trekked through the snow to The Holy Donut, AKA Mecca. Now, when Kerrin (see previous post) heard I would be in Portland, the first thing she said was, "the potato donuts at The Holy Donut are to die for." Lord knows I love a potato and I'm not shy of a donut but... a potato donut? I'm not sure how to characterise a potato donut having now had one. Fine. Two. It was less doughy and dense than a regular donut and was, instead, really fluffy and really crispy. And now I'm drooling in a laundromat. Seriously, they are the greatest donuts I have ever tasted.
I'm not an entirely uncultured gannet though - I did visit Portland Head Lighthouse on a freezing afternoon and it was pretty sensational. The pictures do it greater justice than my words could.
As well as potato donuts, it transpires that Kerrin is also a pretty good recommender of people! Dawn Potter is a widely-published writer of poetry and prose, who directs the Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching, held each summer at Robert Frost's home in Franconia, New Hampshire. (I know, jealousy is an ugly quality but come on!) She also runs writing workshops for rural Maine teenagers at Monson Arts, a writers' and artists' residency and centre for the arts.
Like me, Dawn is an advocate for empowering young people by harnessing their "wildness" and also ensuring their local dialect and geographic identity is present in their writer's voice. Dawn currently works with a group of teenagers who are bussed into Monson Arts from rural, Northeastern Maine which, as she explained, is not a privileged area and can be quite an isolating place to live. The kids she is working with come from a range of schools and are a mixed group in terms of age, gender and enthusiasm. Nonetheless, the group have bonded and grown in confidence, something Dawn attributes, in part, to the centre itself. She firmly believes that even the best creative writing happening in a classroom is still happening 'for school'. Having a separate, dedicated writing space that is both purposeful and safe is clearly having a significant impact on the young people in the programme.
A particular activity Dawn spoke of that piqued my interest is having students copy out a poem as it is slowly read aloud to them, punctuation and line breaks included. Now, "copy" is often a bit of a dirty word in teaching practice as there are those who consider it to be meritless rote. Dawn has her students write out a poem in order for them to borrow the poet's identity before asking them to create their own. In her book, she writes about how, by doing this, "we come as close as we ever will to living inside another mind as it actively creates a poem." My scepticism lessened as she explained the visual power a poem has. By carefully considering and discussing the line structure and punctuation, a student is given first-hand experience of constructing a piece of writing from start to finish. That evening I gave it a go myself:
My review of Dawn's approach: As well as taking care with neatness and handwriting, I found that, by the end of copying out the poem, my mind had hardly reached the point where I afforded any meaning to the lines. Rather, my focus had been almost entirely on the accuracy of the line placement, odd capitalisation (Oh Emily, you rogue) and punctuation. I'm now pretty convinced that I love the approach of separating the meaning of a poem from the visual accuracy.
This 'borrowing' approach also applies when it comes to the even harder part - getting kids to share their writing (AKA an English teacher's Everest.) Dawn does performance training with her students, but all the coaching and practice is done with a famous poem first, so that the fear of sharing one's own work doesn't come into play until they are furnished with strategies to deal with their nerves. For the second time this trip, yoga was mentioned! Dawn plans to have students take part in some basic yoga practices (breathing and posture rather than downward dog!) The relationship between mind and body is absolutely something I intend to consider more explicitly in my own teaching strategies.
Thank you to Dawn for her insights and for sharing some of her students' fantastic work with me!
Next up: Spending the day at The Telling Room.