Therapy, sessions to help sort out personal problems weighing a person down in life.
To sort through what we all carry, the take away from experiences in life’s relationships with others.
A simpler life in a rural state like Maine can make for less baggage.
When you hang your hat in Maine, your today is not wrapped up in living to impress others. When you have eleven people per square mile in Aroostook County, which is the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island, you don’t have many neighbors to envy period. To study, covet, wish for something they have that you don’t.
In Maine there are no Jones to keep up with because we are taught early on to think for yourself, find your own path.
Keep your eyes on your own paper. The story we write as the life journey unfolds has basic tenements. Family, church, community, hard work and self improvement for quality of life. Less money needed for basic housing helps in the 46th lowest state for foreclosure, short sale, repossession of Maine properties too.
Living in Maine, you and I are always just a gallon or two of precious gas from hundreds of outdoor recreational outlets. Recharging, renewal, “therapy locations”. The best way to find the size, shape, number of pieces of baggage we carry is spending time in a natural, unspoiled by man Maine outdoor setting. Uncluttered, fresh thinking happens when you remove the noise, buzz, dissention of a crowded, elbow to elbow city like existence filled with annoying distractions. With jack hammer noisy surroundings where you can’t even hear yourself think.
The 4th lowest Maine crime state statistic removes another layer of daily worries urban dwellers carry too. Mainer’s don’t live in fear of personal safety. No gangs, no deadbolts, no tasers. Keys left in the ignition. Hitchhikers picked up because you know their parents. Went to school with their older brother. There is a sense of connection, community in a smaller rural lower populated state like Maine. We need each other.
Back to that Maine house outdoor porch blog post headline. Growing up there were no 55 minutes of weekly therapy sessions to teach coping skills from a paid impartial professional. Our older, wiser grandparents, aunts, uncles were local, helped our parents in our personal education. We spent time on that open Maine home porch as kids listening to family stories. That gave us a historical perspective to build on. We felt part of a special group, surrounded by folks we shared with, could count on for the ups and downs of daily life. We were not alone to struggle with grief and our family reunions were not just during funeral calling hours.
Maine home open porchs of no use if you don’t spend time there.
Morning coffee as the sunrises, the birds sing and you admire the lupine, flocks, cone flowers from your perch in a porch swing makes your heart receptive. For perspective, healing, and filling it with hope and dreams for your life ahead. No matter what trials or setbacks the roadway behind you is cluttered with.
We are taught growing up to bring our joys and cares to the Lord daily. To pray without ceasing. Besides being on our knees in church as a regular mainstay of our personal, mental and spiritual health, the “therapy sessions” continue on that open porch. Through the day. In a Maine winter, the players coming inside to a southern exposure glassed version of the same room.
Growing up as a small child who has just picked fresh peas, beans, corn from the garden with a grandparent, your Mom or your Dad, you are back on that open Maine home porch. Sitting with a grandparent preparing the vegetables for the nightly supper. But during your labor, you listen, you talk, you share. Problems don’t build up, questions inside your heart and head don’t get left unaddressed, unanswered. Healthy two way communication on that open Maine house porch happens.
After supper and dishes are done, back on that open Maine house porch as crickets take their cue, the sun retires, the moon checks in right on schedule.
You are aware of the seasons passing when you are outdoors on a Maine house porch. Instead of planted in front of a television or computer screen and detached from others, the world around you inside the home.
Cool freshly squeezed lemonade, hand turned ice cold home made ice cream. A juicy slice of succulent watermelon. Or age old family recipe cookies, squares, hot out of the oven pie made of fruit you picked just taste better on that open Maine front porch. And sometimes its just you, solitary use of the open porch. Naps on the glider, porch swing happen as you mark your place, close a good book. Fold up the Sunday newspaper and close your eyes. Nod off hearing the hummingbirds industriously tapping the hollyhocks or sugary red fluid in the hanging feeder. The purring family cat curled up in your lap or on your stomach.
Yes, the world would be a better place, you would have a healthier mental outlook if we had, used those open Maine house porches. If you need a Maine home with or without that open porch and plenty of land, I know of a good Maine real estate broker to help with the new setting. To begin your therapy to seek the peace and joy that may not fill your heart and head now where you live.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com