August 2008

We’ve been living in Hope all summer . . .  Hope, Maine that is -- a rural community a few miles in from the coast, with rolling hills, organic farms and lakes. We rented a cottage on Alfred Lake where the family could roll out of bed and got swimming. I built an 8 x 10 float and anchored it 200 feet off shore as an island of escape, but my two kids found it a magnet, as did all their friends. So much for an afternoon nap on the float.  The lake was a great source of calm and reflection to the soul and the family, as lakes tend to be.

My family and I have also been living in hope over the last few years, as I transition out of my role as the owner and CEO of The Maine Photographic Workshops into a more creative and stress-less life style. I’m coming up on 69 this fall and running a $10 million enterprise was more than I wanted to do with the last 33 years of my life. I spent the first 33 years of my life knocking around the world learning what I did not want to do, but learning how to build an institution (I started The Workshops when I was 33). I’ve spent the last  33 years creating what is now Maine Media Workshops and Rockport College and running them . . .  About ten years ago, I came to the realization that I was not really interested in running a large organization, start one, yes, grow one, certainly, but not run one  . . . . it was running me. In 2003, it was evident that I could not sustain the pressure of keeping this large organization float by myself. I now had a family, two young children and a wife, and a creative life of writing and photography that was crying for attention. Besides, I had proven what I set out to do, build a place that would nurture the careers of creative people, people like me, especially people like me who were transitioning out of one life into another. I’ve been there, done that, have a dozen T-shirts and ball-caps to prove it. So, I, like many of the people who have come to my schools, am in transition, suspended animation, in free fall, like a trapeze performer hanging in mid-air . . . . the future is unclear, but that now preferable to a life of  knowing what’s going to happen every day for the nest 33 years.

Hope is when you have options to what appears to be a confused and disparate situation. Hope is what sustains us as we wander in the wilderness, lost. Hope is trusting that we will eventually find our way out of the woods to better life, and be better for having experienced the period of being lost. Despair is when there is no more hope left.

The story of my re-invention, my rebirth, is (I hope) a Renaissance. Like the Phoenix Raising out of the ashes of its own demise, my future is still unfolding, and will be the subject of future articles on this on-line journal as I share the process. Many of you who have known me, have attended workshops here in Maine or attended classes at The College I founded, have asked what’s been happening. How did this transition begin, and where is this wild horse taking me. In the coming weeks, I’ll share my observations and discoveries of what this process of personal re-invention entails.  This is an exciting time for me, excitement being a state of mind just this side of terror. I can tell you my wife is not pleased with the remodeling of my career, but it was way past time and I am glad to be “in the process.”

Update: March 2009

We’ve going cruising! Yup . . . . the family and I are now planning to move aboard the boat this summer, get off the grid, homeschool the kids, see some of the world, life simply, explore, write, photograph, video tape the cultures we visit and share it all on-line.

We have the boat, Searcher, a 57-foot Bowman ketch. I’ve had it for 14 years now, and know her well. The kids are ready and talk about it all the time. Julie, my wife, is less enthusiastic, but she is willing to give it a try. For me, it’s what I’ve been dreaming about and preparing for all my life. A great family adventure.