I’ve now been aboard the Sunbeam for nearly eight months. I’ve met so many people in this job, and one of the most common questions I receive is: have you worked on the water before? I often wish I could answer yes and dive into conversation about an experience that so many coastal Mainers share. But in truth, the answer is a resounding no. I didn’t just work on the land—as a farmer for the better part of a decade, it feels more accurate to say that I worked in it. I tell them all that I was a terrestrial animal, that I’ve traded turf for surf. In many ways, working on the Sunbeam is entirely unlike anything I’ve done before. Instead of growing food, I am preparing it. The biggest occupational hazard is no longer throwing out my back or getting my hand crushed in a tractor implement, it’s eating too many cookies.
But there are similarities with farming, too, though they are somewhat abstract. Both jobs root (or anchor, choose your metaphor) you deeply in a place, and reward close attention to it. When I worked on a farm in central Maine, my boss taught me to be attuned to changes in the landscape. When shadbush starts to bloom, the cabbage butterflies will be close behind, and it’s time to cover the brassicas. The fishermen I’ve met can talk about pieces of seafloor with as much familiarity as farmers can of their fields. When Mike and Storey decide, based on wind, tide, and swell, which route to take through the maze of small islands on our way to Isle au Haut, I can’t help but marvel at the depth of experience and knowledge that allows them to make what must be a complex assessment seem effortless.
Your gift to the Maine Seacoast Mission makes you part of all we do.
Being connected to a place makes you more conscious of your position in history, as well, aware of both what has changed and what has remained the same. I would feel this way on the farm each spring as I picked rocks out of the fields, adding them to piles that had been started many generations ago. I feel it on the boat when older folks come aboard and share their memories of previous Sunbeams. It’s a privilege to participate in a long tradition, to feel time like a taut line running through you to all the people who have done this work and lived in this place before you and, one hopes, to all those who will come after you.
Another thing that farming and working on the water have in common is that they are easy to romanticize, but the reality is often far from glamorous. For all people who work in natural resource economies, and for us on the Sunbeam who work to support them and their communities, beauty coexists with drudgery, and the future looks uncertain, with many forces stacked in opposition. But I feel so lucky to have a job where I get to experience such beauty at all. It’s an honor to show up for the islands with fresh food and hot coffee as they navigate the challenges of the moment and chart their course for the future.
