This article originally appeared in our September 2015 print issue.

There are two questions everyone asks in Washington: What do you do and where are you from?

The first question is generally pretty easy for me: I’m a journalist-turned-consultant. It’s the second one that always trips me up a bit. DC is a place built on people whose identity is not from here. There are the midwesterners who smile too much, the Texans who wear cowboy boots with their suits every day, the southerners who fight over barbeque and football, and the Californians who just want everyone to chill out a little bit.

The fact is, I’d never really considered myself a New Englander until I had to move away to a place that asks me, regularly, to pick a regional identity. Massachusetts never really works on its own, because people always assume Boston—and let me tell you, I am NOT from Boston. I grew up sandwiched between Vermont and Connecticut, and sometimes I’d drive to New Hampshire to buy alcohol on Sundays.

My family moved to Northampton, Massachusetts, when my father took a job at a fledgling (and short-lived) magazine based in the Pioneer Valley. When that folded, he resumed working for publications in New York City; but my mother, understanding what a magical place we had found, refused to move us. Dad was thus banished to many years of commuting via the Springfield train station.

And so I got to grow up as a New Englander, without really ever understanding what that meant. I got to see Ella Fitzgerald sing at Tanglewood when I was very young. Kurt Vonnegut once performed with some members of Phish at an arts fundraiser (no big deal, right?). I was surrounded by writers and artists and thinkers practically all the time. The mountains were bright red and orange in the fall, and the secret watering holes were refreshing in the humidity of summer. A really good therapist was easy to come by, as was the best ice cream you could ever eat.

I was so spoiled by my surroundings that I barely noticed them until I left. I arrived in New York in 2007, shortly after graduating college with no money and no real direction. I worked for Trader Joe’s in Union Square stocking shelves and suppressing rage at customers. I moved on to working as an assistant to a fairly bizarre real estate broker and then to the front desk of a boutique divorce law firm where a steady stream of too-rich crazy paraded through daily.

I desperately tried to take on the identity of “New Yorker,” impossibly cool and uncaring about my constant flow of shitty jobs and unpleasant living situations. But I began covering crime for a daily newspaper there and started to answer the question, “What do you do?” And that became my entire identity.

When I got to Washington, I only knew a few people, but I was mostly a blank slate—a journalist in her early years ready to work in the political sphere. I immediately sort of assumed the persona of a New Yorker exiled to DC, complete with requisite complaints about bagels and a real lack of spirit.

“Yeah, I covered murders in New York,” was a constant refrain and one that inspired a lot of “Ooooh, that’s so intense” from the straight-laced political operatives I met. Somehow, “I’m from New England” didn’t sound quite so hard core.

I hadn’t been as badass as I imagined myself to be. When I was in New York, my home—my actual home in Massachusetts—was a mere train ride away. I went up as often as possible, so I never really had a chance to miss the place. When things got tough, I just escaped to the “Happy Valley.”

But now Congress kept me busy. Home meant flying back and taking time off. In the midst of Washington humidity, budget negotiations, and interviewing senators and congressmen, I craved the quiet afforded to me in my sleepy New England town. It seemed lame to miss it so much.

Then I was having breakfast one morning with a source of mine who worked for a member of the Democratic leadership. He asked where I was from, as everyone in DC inevitably does.

“Well, I moved here from New York,” I explained. “But I grew up in Northampton, Massachusetts. You’ve probably never heard of it.”

“Oh my God, my wife is from near there,” he exclaimed, nearly jumping out of his seat. We proceeded to spend the next hour extolling the virtues of really great sweater weather, the amazing music, the coffee, and the mountains in the fall. God, the mountains in the fall are the best.

These conversations became more frequent—with people from the area and the members of Congress who represent these places. It became a virtue to be from a place people so strongly identified with.

I felt like I knew an awesome secret that only a few of us in town shared.

The source with whom I had breakfast moved his family back to Massachusetts recently. He’ll post photos on Facebook of his kids watching quaint parades or running through the woods or eating farm-fresh ice cream. I also know they are going to get the kind of childhood I got.

I’m pretty jealous of them, but at least with that comes a sense that I know exactly what I’m missing and exactly where I’m from.

Kate Nocera – journalist
Washington, DC
Website
Twitter

Illustration by Sunra Thompson

The post Notes from an Expat: It Seemed Lame to Miss it So Much appeared first on Take Magazine.

This article originally ran in our October 2015 print edition.

Texans have a name for expats from Massachusetts, and it ain’t Masshole. If you make the pilgrimage from New England to the Lone Star State, you’re a carpetbagger the second you cross the border, and you’ll remain one until you leave for greener pastures. Trust me, I’ve been lugging this baggage around for the past 15 years.

When my wife (then lady friend) and I migrated, I had ideas about Texas. I’d read all of Cormac McCarthy. I listened, drank, and wept to Springsteen’s Ghost of Tom Joad religiously. I once passed the flaming husk of an 18-wheeler on I-10 near Sonora at 3:00 a.m. on the return leg of a 20-day, cross-country drive.

In short, I thought I understood Texas. So we jumped into Crusher, my rusty blue ’88 Chevy Blazer; popped a Friends of Dean Martinez cassette into the deck; and headed southwest, stopping in Memphis to sleep through Y2K eve and TCB at Graceland.

Once in Austin, I looked for adventures. My expat buddy Tim and I attended a rattlesnake rustling competition, an event that yielded a great koozie and a glimpse into the socioeconomic drivers that spur folks to hook big ol’ snakes into a burlap sack for pennies. Really, we were outsiders pretending to be outlaws.

Later, my lady friend and I drove to Palestine (Pal-uhs-TEEN) to watch Robbie Knievel jump a steam train. Because Crusher had out-of-state plates and I was speeding, a trooper pulled us over in Jewett. As he swaggered toward us with his campaign hat, mirrored shades, and mouthful of chaw, we began to sweat bullets.

Obliging the slow twirls of his index finger, I rolled down my window.

“What’re you doin’ so far from Massatoosits, boy?”

“Taking my lady friend to see Robbie Knievel jump a steam train, sir.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so? Just slow it down, and tell ol’ Robbie I said hi.”

Then he drove away.

It was THE BEST.

We made it to Palestine in time to trek across fields and over barbed wire, alongside families with strollers, toward the locomotive pyre where Evel’s son made history as “Detroit Rock City” reverberated over the swale.

As the thrill of living in Texas began to fade, we settled into life in Austin. Sure, the nice self-mutilating tenants at our apartment complex occasionally dangled by their nipples from the mimosa tree in the courtyard. But the novelty wore off quickly; so we went about the tasks of making friends, establishing routines, and finishing our undergraduate degrees.

Here’s a fun fact I learned in my studies: Texas has had eight constitutions. The eighth went into effect during the Reconstruction to protect the state from carpetbaggers (I’m paraphrasing my professor here). Texas is determined to stay true to its maverick identity, even if much of that identity was stolen from Mexico. I suppose that’s a big part of what makes Texas so quintessentially American.

That said, Texas confounds me; despite its many flaws, it’s hard to resist its wily charms. I never thought we’d plant roots, but we’re still here because it feels like home. We’ve earned degrees here. We’ve made our fair share of lifelong friends here. Our family, careers, home. . . they’re all here. But while our little girl is a native Texan and Austinite, it’s likely we won’t raise her here. This state is just too damn red for us. Even so, thanks to the pilgrimage we made at the turn of the century, she’ll always have a place in Texas to unpack her bags and hang her hat.

Top illustration by Rob Kimmel.

The post Notes From An Expat: Pack Your Bags, Son appeared first on Take Magazine.

Like a rogue wave, New England swept upon me suddenly. One moment I was holed up in my Pittsburgh house, writing, and the next I was a sorta-kinda Bostonian.  Or so it seemed.

I had never once considered relocating to “God’s country,” as my then Pittsburgh auto mechanic referred to New England, and I had no idea, some thirty-three years ago, how profoundly the place would rewrite my worldview.

Looking back, I imagine the initiating moment as a scene in a B-level film.

FADE IN: Another gray autumn afternoon in western Pennsylvania, where I have been a magazine writer for some years. I’m tapping away on a portable computer. The phone rings. It’s a New York editor with a startling proposition: Would I like to be People magazine’s bureau chief in Boston? “What?! I’ve never even been to Boston,” I blurt. “Then go visit,” she says. “This weekend.” FADE TO BLACK.

Days later, I landed at Logan and cabbed it to Newbury Street. A brutish fellow and his bulbous pet rat were amusing passersby at an intersection. Fluttering pennants promoted exhibitions and events around town. “Whoa!,” I said to myself. How could anyone possibly resist Boston?

I didn’t. For nearly eight years it served as an ideal base for my ascendant career as a journalist. Eventually I moved on, to posts in Los Angeles and New York City (where I mainly covered the entertainment industry), but only because my employer, Time Inc., asked me to go.

When I flew out of Boston for the last time, mid-summer of 1990, the glitter of L.A. beckoned. It was an exciting moment, but I recognized too that New England’s subtle and decidedly unglamorous charms, the very language of the place, had left an indelible mark. I had a clearer view of what really mattered: things that endure.

Now, I live in ever-changing South Florida. I still write. And yes, as I had expected, I miss most everything about New England — the landscape, the crispness of its autumn air, the people.

Photograph by Henry Amistadi

It was just the other day, actually, that the mail brought a signed book from newly minted author and brewmaster extraordinaire Jim Koch. Jim just wanted to say thanks for helping put his now-ubiquitous Samuel Adams beer “on the map,” as he scribbled on the title page of his autobiography. Koch is illustrative of the extraordinary New Englanders about whom I often wrote during my tenure there: wickedly brilliant, real, quirky, modest.

That was particularly true of the literary set. I have long believed that the region’s core identity is framed by its abundance of remarkable writers, nurtured across generations. Fortunately, as a magazine journalist, I had extraordinary access to these talents.

Stephen King once allowed me to hang in his Bangor office as he wrote (two books simultaneously — of course!). William Shirer, the famed World War II historian, took me to his favorite lunch hangout. William Kotzwinkle, who novelized E.T. – the Extraterrestrial, demonstrated proper technique for howling beneath a full moon. Annie Dillard, the Pulitzer Prize-winning essayist, walked me through the woods to her writing shed in Wellfleet. And on and on. Only Sue Miller, the bestselling novelist, refused me the privilege of visiting her work space, in Cambridge.

Once, I had been scheduled to interview Norman Mailer in his Provincetown home. Something went suddenly amiss, however, and the meeting was scrubbed — a huge relief to me. That was a figure who intimidated.

These days, people likely know me best for my editorial stints in Los Angeles and New York.  When they learn I once lived in Boston, they sometimes ask, “How do you compare those cities?”

You can’t. Maybe you shouldn’t. But I try. In most of New England, I found, folks respectfully decline to make a fuss over anything, not even their internationally celebrated authors. In L.A., people make a fuss over everything, including second-rate sitcom writers. And in New York, there’s little use making a fuss because no one will give a damn.

I would venture a guess that there were more “celebrities” in my L.A. neighborhood than reside in all of Greater Boston (even now). Fortunately, and while it may be a well-kept secret, most Angelenos, deep in their vain little hearts, understand that fame is fizz. It’s just that they love fizz.

In New England, on the other hand, whatever matters — lighthouses, the Red Sox, the architecture, and of course the writers — has formidable staying power, in the style of a novel that gathers import as it rolls along.

In hindsight, what I think now, and what I am grateful for, is that New England is fundamentally, artfully, everlastingly about what’s writ small, yet lingers.

Photograph by Henry Amistadi

Photographs by Henry Amistadi

The post Notes from an Expat: Cable Neuhaus appeared first on Take Magazine.

My grandparents were dairy farmers, and my parents are dairy farmers, so I guess that makes me a dairy farmer too. Or at least I was. I grew up on a farm of about 200 cows in Southern Maine; although, my dad would correct that to 175 and specify that the family farm is in Gorham, Maine. My dad is specific because the people he talks to care where Gorham, Maine is and, specifically, how many cows we have.

Eben at the family farm in Gorham, ME.

After a year of living in San Francisco, I notice that the people I talk to don’t require that kind of specificity.  After I say the words “dairy farm” and “200 cows”, I am met with excited interjections like “wow!” or “oh my god, really?” After these outbursts, I am typically asked the following questions:

“Have you ever milked a cow?”

“Did you have a favorite cow?”

“So, your parents are farmers?”

And, in that order, I dutifully answer with an extended version of “yes, many times”, “also, yes – her name is Dolly” and “yes, my parents are dairy farmers through and through”. Perhaps my father would answer these questions with more care and attention, but our approach to these kinds of things is different.

My father inherited our farm from his father, after his brother, who was supposed to inherit the farm, died suddenly in 1981. When the time came for the farm to pass on to the next generation, the burden and opportunity was thrust upon my father. My father took sole responsibility after his father passed in 1994. His life was shaped by growing up on the farm, then further shaped by his lived experience operating it day-to-day. In small rural communities like ours in that time period, this practice was common.

My personal development was premised on a different set of circumstances, and it is for this reason that I live in San Francisco instead of the small town of Gorham, Maine.

My story didn’t involve inheriting a farm, which was a deliberate choice on behalf of my parents. From a young age, they wanted to teach me the value of growing up on a farm – the physical labor, care for animals, and sense of community. Yet, they also knew that in the 21st century, small dairy farming might not be the kind of profession that ensures a productive livelihood or time for raising a family and being able to enjoy leisure and relaxation. For these reasons, they encouraged me and my siblings to develop ourselves outside of farming, specifically through education, doing their best to support our choices.

Benson Family Farm, 2016

When I was young, I decided the farm wasn’t for me, so I picked up a skateboard, downloaded Limewire and immersed myself in New England hardcore music, skateboarding, cult movies, and anything else that would make me feel less like a farmer. I developed drastically different interests than my parents and Maine-farm peers, and found meaning outside of the farm in my schooling and hobbies. I dreamt of moving away.

In October 2015, after 4 years of college in western Massachusetts, I set out for San Francisco in hopes of discovering my place, away from the home made for me in Maine. I hoped that by leaving New England, I could develop and learn about myself, and perhaps discover why some other young people felt what I felt – the need to escape and leave the place they were born. I dropped everything and applied to work at Thrasher Magazine, immersing myself in my lifelong interest in skateboarding and its subculture.

When I speak to people who seem excited and curious about the fact that I was raised on a dairy farm, I almost always stop and think of how such a huge part of my life can be summed up by those three predictable questions about milking cows and which one’s my favorite. I think of how far I am from home and how distant it feels, yet I still reminisce about the summers spent throwing hay, milking cows, and feeding calves. Being able to answer those questions for a stranger in a strange place actually makes these memories feel closer.

I am a dairy farmer from Maine. I’m a dairy farmer in that my father and mother were dairy farmers, and they raised me to be a dairy farmer, even though in raising me they also insisted I discover and explore life outside of dairy farming. Ironically, living every day in a far away city operates more as a reminder of that part of myself than if I chose to stay.

Eben Benson | Photo by Patricia Blanton

Eben Benson is a New England expat living in San Francisco, California. For skate videos, memes, and flawless SF mountain views , follow Eben on Instagram. 

The post Notes from an Expat: Life Beyond the Family Farm appeared first on Take Magazine.