Moving Back to Maine: How Location Shaped My Creativity and Mindset

The Return to Roots

When I moved back to Maine after years in Boston, I didn’t expect location to reshape my creativity so much. Cities fuel you with constant energy — but they also drain you dry. Maine is different. Maine slows you down, whether you want it to or not. It re-teaches patience. Creativity here feels slower, more rooted, more intentional.

Coming back as an adult instead of a child adds a layer of reclaiming. Gratitude. I see things now I never noticed before. My commute? Less than 15 minutes — to an island where one-eighth is nature preserve. Wild. In Boston, the ocean wasn’t even an option. I had a balcony with pots and plants, sure, but it was still concrete wrapped around me like a cage. Here, I wake up every morning to hummingbirds darting through the flower beds like tiny dancers.

It makes me realize how much I took for granted. How much I missed. And now? It feels like time to push the past off my shoulders and move forward. You can’t grow if you’re still dragging the old you behind.

Nature as Muse

Daily life here is tides, forests, shifting seasons, wild animals showing up uninvited. The birds singing at 6AM, the way light bends over the ocean at 7PM — they’re not just scenery. They’re rhythm. They remind me that life moves in cycles.

And creativity sparks in those cycles. A walk through Yarmouth trails. Sitting with my dog in the garden. Watching cucumber vines coil themselves like ballerinas.

The other morning I noticed how those vines wrap around the structure I built for them. Thin, delicate, but strong. It instantly became fashion in my head: a skirt made of boning and silk strips, tattered yet elegant. Or maybe a backdrop design in Illustrator, something geometric but organic. Nature turns into ideas before I can even stop it.

Community vs. Isolation

Boston gave me speed. Networking. Access to things I couldn’t have dreamed of before. But Maine gives me depth. Quiet. Space. Both matter. Both feed creativity differently.

That said — let’s be real. Not everything about coming back feels romantic. Boston was messy for me. Chaotic. It carried the weight of who I thought I had to be, all the high aspirations of younger me, the kid who grew up here and thought they needed to escape to succeed.

Now, it’s different. I’ve started to reach out again, trying to branch out beyond my little circle of family and my basement apartment. Slowly. Carefully. But I’ve also realized isolation isn’t always bad. Sometimes it’s healing. Sometimes it’s where the best ideas are born.

Creative Mindset Shifts

• I approach design more organically now — colors, textures, palettes rooted in what’s around me.

• My writing feels slower, but richer. Pauses make the words stronger.

• My fashion perspective shifted: timeless silhouettes now feel more powerful than fast-changing trends. Just like Maine, they last through the seasons.

Moving back wasn’t regression. It wasn’t me giving up. It was recalibration. A reset button I didn’t know I needed.

Sometimes creativity doesn’t need more. It needs less.