It’s that time of year when many people reflect on the preceding months and resolve to live life more fully in the new year.
But what does it mean to live life more fully? The answer is as varied as the people thinking about it. With no one-size-fits-all roadmap, it can be helpful to consider the approaches of others who have shared their experiences.

“Alive to This: Essays on Living Fully by 20 Maine Writers,” edited by Kara Douglas & Erin O’Mara. Littoral Books, $20
We have such a guide in “Alive to This: Essays on Living Fully by 20 Maine Writers,” a gem of a collection on living life fully through perceptive lenses of diverse contributors.
Essayists in “Alive to This,” which is edited by Kara Douglas & Erin O’Mara, reflect on living life fully in nature, in daily activities, and in the context of aging, illness and death. They do so in often deeply personal ways that are vulnerable and infused with grace.
The natural beauty of Maine plays a prominent role. Dana Wilde rejoices in the “ecstatic month-long quaking of nature” that happens each June: a time of rebirth that “can strike like planetary madness.” For Carl Little, swimming in a remote pond renews his “soul and spirit,” an experience even more meaningful as he introduces his grandchildren to the same pond.
Kara Douglas mournfully watched mounting snow and wind from a nor’easter cause a huge limb from “the Baldwin, our oldest and most revered apple tree” break off and crash to the ground. For Douglas, trees are “witness, patient, (and) unmoving” as the world accelerates around them. Reflecting on the trees and the passage of time, Douglas wonders: When the witness falls, “who holds this ground?” Finding inspiration in the Baldwin she considers that “Perhaps it’s my turn to bear witness.”
The apple appears again when Kate Kennedy’s extended research into two unusually large apples on a crab apple tree is interrupted by the sudden death of her granddaughter, a time when “Meaning fell away.” Ultimately unable to identify the apples, Kennedy plans to grow new trees from them, deciding that no matter what kind of fruit they are “they’ll be amazing, their own form of magic,” just like her granddaughter.
Others undertook specific activities in their quest to live life fully. Ben Jacks writes of psychoanalysis that left him feeling “exceedingly alive,” while j.j. bolton discovers multiple layers of meaning in taking chain saw safety lessons. Annaliese Jakimides “can’t imagine a life without dancing.”
Rejecting the “adulting handbook” that prescribes what adults are “supposed” to do, Erin O’Mara chose travel as a source of fulfillment. “The thing about going to a place where everything is different, and nobody knows you… is that… You get to be a new you.” O’Mara even took a trip within a trip, experiencing plant-based psychedelics in the jungles of Ecuador.
Kathleen Sullivan writes about living life fully during the aging process, where we daily face that “glass accuser” in the mirror. To Sullivan things like Botox, overworking, big cars and gigantic houses are what “we (are) offering to Death to keep her at bay”— and yet they may produce the opposite result for individuals and humankind.
The inherent unpredictability of life can be a motivator to live life more fully, the theme of Joan Silverman’s essay about a wonderful physician who provided her cancer treatment. The story abruptly shifts when her treating oncologist is herself diagnosed with cancer and subsequently dies. “Who could have known that the young oncologist who saved my life would die a little over a year after my treatment, and that I would be alive and well, four years later?”
Vitality is the theme of Mary Cushman’s essay as she marvels at her 6-year-old grand-niece performing in a musical. Unlike children, “when we’re old, we know what a struggle it can be to maintain our vitality” because of “the slings and arrows we’ve endured” and the toll they take. Nevertheless, Cushman sees stories of revitalization in others and believes “we can find in them a bit of bravery needed to dance until the last note ourselves.”
“Alive to This” contains a rich palette of ideas that unveil new ways to think about living life more fully, and it’s a brilliant companion for moving forward in the new year. The collection is another impressive contribution from Littoral Press featuring the work of Maine authors, and in some cases artists, on vital issues of the day. The books are beautifully designed and resonate with wisdom and fresh approaches that ignite new ways of thinking.
Dave Canarie is an attorney and faculty member at USM. He lives in South Portland.
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