I’m always amazed at how many Mainers I run into going about my daily life in Manhattan. Of course, coming from a state with such a tiny population (fewer people in the entire state than most U.S. cities…er, fine, towns) tends to make you extra excited about finding your kin (because we are undoubtedly related somehow…duh). Let’s just say that it’s not that same “small town” kinda feeling when my friends from Bergen County catch each other in a coffee shop downtown.
But it’s even more special when I find myself in the presence of Mainers in the city that I actually know.
Cue: this past weekend, when one of my best friends from Colby (who it just so happens is also a native Mainer) came to visit me in New York. Well, fine, she technically made the trip for her admissions interview at NYU Dental School (pshh), but we conveniently kept forgetting that was the reason she was here.
We have always joked about how fitting it is that even on a campus overrun with the “20-minutes outside of Boston” kids, we ended up finding each other. In fact, we’ve figured out over the years that we used to play each other regularly in travel soccer when we were younger, despite our hometowns being about a half-hour apart.
 |
| Lane from Maine. She's kind of a big deal. |
There’s just something about those good Maine values – family, loyalty, a killer work ethic and refined appreciation for dirty jokes – that created and sustained our friendship over the years.
So, naturally, when she came to visit we had to celebrate….
…By hanging out with other Mainers.
Admittedly, many of my friends here in the city are Mainers of the honorary persuasion, meaning that they are mostly Colby-Bates-Bowdoin kids and….mostly of the first population. But, hey, after spending four frigid Februaries in our fine state I say you’ve earned the prestigious title of Mainer.
So we had to do what Mainers do best: cozy up in a series of bars on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and drink a few beers. Or seven. But who was counting (not me).
 |
| Mmm, biergarten. |
Throughout our glorious Saturday afternoon pub crawl through the West Village (my neighborhood — convenient much?) the conversation kept returning to Colby and Maine. Who wants to road-trip to Homecoming? Who’s in for New Years? Did you hear about that thing that happened on the Hill? Two of our dear friends are currently planning their wedding in Boothbay next fall, while neither of them is actually from there.
 |
| Wait you went to Colby too? Weird. |
Needless to day, after our daytime adventures we woke up Sunday in need of some serious brunch, so we met a close friend in the ‘hood for eggs and Bloody Mary’s.
...A friend who went to my rival high school (boo Dragons!) and then also went to Colby.
We recapped this phenomenon on Sunday night when we met another friend for dinner, my friend’s friend from high school in (you guessed it) Maine. How was it that we had spent the entire weekend in an enormous city surrounded in a cozy bubble of Maine-ness, only to find ourselves recapping it over a glass of wine with the same Mainers that we kicked it off with?
Some would call it luck, others coincidence. Still more might call it acute xenophobia. But we decided it was a sense of place in an otherwise transient city.
I’ll drink to that!
