Portrait of a Couple: “Holly & Shelley

About Holly and Shelley

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Winding down the dirt road to the Wabi-Sabi homestead, you will drive past the pigs, the chickens, and a kaleidoscope of other animals. At the end of the path from a plain white block building, two smiling farmers, Holly and Shelley, tanned and strong. These courageous women are carving out a life off the grid, nestled in the backwoods not far from Whiting, Maine, the easternmost point of the United States and deep in conservative red country, or what they sometimes wryly and affectionately call the last stop on the crazy bus. Their sanctuary is a 26-acre wooded homestead powered not by wires or Wi-Fi, but rather by dreams and pure tenacity. Shelley says, “When we first moved here, literally, I had to drive three and a half miles down the road to get water every day and bring it back. That’s how we drank, cooked, and showered. We bathed that way, too.” Now they have a concrete foundation anchoring their home to the land, a septic tank, and a water well. They put up the walls and plan to do the rest of the work themselves, beam by beam. Each of them holds a full-time job while building their farm to feed both themselves and their animals, with a goal of eventually supplying local restaurants. Holly is a surgical nurse in an operating room. Shelley juggles full-time work at an environmental non-profit and four nights a week at a restaurant during the summer season. The farm is their love story. They met online via the app OkCupid. Shelley transitioned at age 39, left her marriage, and although terrified, was finally ready to consider dating. In true lesbian fashion, four months later, they were living together in Kennebunk, Maine, and within a year, they were scouting for land to buy that resonated with both of them. Now in their very own Eden, they have 11 pigs, 60 rabbits, 130 chickens, 4 ducks, 2 dogs, 1 beehive, with occasional visits from coyotes and bears. Shelley says, “When I transitioned, I knew I’d lose everything. I’d lose my family, my friends, my job. I’d be alone. To have met Holly less than a year after I transitioned, it made me feel normal again. It’s sometimes scary living up here in the middle of nowhere in such a conservative area, but people have been amazing.” Shelley’s life was threatened while working in the restaurant one day, and she immediately moved back to Kennebunk. It was that scary. “Some guy flirted with me at the bar and then found out later that I was transgender. That was a big threat to him, and he had somebody come in and threaten me.” Shelley fled for her life. But what happened next was both shocking and moving. The close-knit community rose up. The people who had come to know her became her protectors. Holly recalls, “These old Vietnam vet guys took us under their wing. One old man with an NRA sticker on his car would drive up here a couple of times a week to check and make sure Shelley was okay.” Holly and Shelley had been seen, not as strangers or outcasts, but as people, as neighbors, as human beings.

This work is on view in One World: Photographs of a Shared Planet.