interesting to think about, because 14 years in Maine has been a strange and unpredictable experience - near complete personal and musical isolation, only one or two friends to speak of, maybe 5 gigs and a complete reversal of professional fortune (as a musican I have gone, as I like to say and to paraphrase Groucho Marx, from obscurity to a complete non-entity). Maine is cold, hostile, shallow and afraid of anything that is slightly different; almost anti-semitic, in a genteel (gentile?) way, viewing the odd Jew or two who makes any attempt at achieving a public persona into more of a curiousity that belongs behind some kind of bars.
and yet, the kids love it here, and my son , who has Aspergers and who would likely have not survived true city life, graduated high school and is working. So, with nothing else to do I've written 3 books, done two major historical reissue projects, and taught myself guitar (also started composing again, but that represented a block that took over 10 years to break). And I will add that I found this place, which is the one element that has kept me from complete withdrawal. Also, finally found a band, though, of course, finding a place for that band to work is another story. And yet I've retained a sense of assurance of my own abilities, enforced by nothing in Maine but my few contacts with the jazz work of NYC (as in Rudd, Shipp, Sandke, Ribot, et al).
now I have to figure a way to get the hell out of here.