On the whole, I hate being interviewed. Invariably I say something silly or start coughing or accidentally refer to stanzas as paragraphs. And, yes, for yesterday's video interview, I did forget to wear shoes; but today, thinking back on my hour in front of the camera, I find myself mostly not wincing or trying to imagine how one might PhotoShop them in.

Much of my happiness about this interview came from the interviewer himself. I have known Brad LaBree since he was about eight years old. His parents owned a general store in Harmony, and they were among the first people Tom and I met when we moved here. The LaBrees did my chores, helped me out when my well ran dry, and encouraged my overwrought toddler to run rampant up and down the beer aisle. In the meantime Brad grew up into a funny, sensitive, smart, ironic, crazy-idea, un-Harmony-like kid and eventually moved to Chicago, where he went to Columbia College and became a standup comedian, and where he also joined the staff of the Handshake. And it was in his capacity as one of the magazine's editors that he called me up and asked if he could interview me.

Naturally I said yes, and naturally I was anxious and kind of wishing he would forget or find something more interesting to do. Who believes that children, grown up or not, actually want to spend time with their parents' friends? But Brad persevered and arrived with his camera, and we had a lovely, lovely time together.

One thing that made this interview special was the fact that I was talking to a smart, ambitious, sweet, self-effacing apprentice to his craft who also recognizes, in some deep way, the mysterious elegiac power that Harmony, Maine, holds over his life. Like me, he stands both inside and outside of this town. He sees its gothic terrors and its sentimentalities. He has watched his schoolmates stutter in their tracks, fall victim to alcohol and opiates and poverty. He has transformed himself, shifted himself into a different life, and he knows that he cannot retreat behind the walls of this north-country Brigadoon. But he also knows that some part of him will never leave . . . and should not leave: because the place is his history, his imagination, a key to the world and his art.

Yesterday, as Brad was getting ready to walk out the door, I told him that one of the greatest pleasures of living in the same spot for so long has been watching my friends' children grow up to become my friends. It makes glasses and gray hair worthwhile. It really does.