We are in the heart of summer. We choose our week at the lake to coincide with the Fourth of July, not so much because of the fireworks but because of the other heat. As much as you can count on weather in Vermont (20% max)- that particular week can usually be counted on to…
Category: Family
Peeling
In looking toward holidays or vacations my tendency is to become Rockwellian. I prepare with zeal for the ideal. Months ahead of the vacation walking down long isles in stores I toss small boxes of sparklers, hard packs of playing cards, twelve packs of lime seltzer, chunky bars of chocolate and fancy gin into my…
Barbara
Summer arrived officially with the Solstice although we had been enjoying the warmer temperatures for several weeks. After two years of pretty blank calendar pages I was finally getting out and playing live music, doing book readings, etc. I’d played in my jazz duo, String of Sheeps, for International Make Music Day. It felt amazing…
Watching Main Street Go By
Last Saturday evening Paul and I stepped out of our car into the early evening light in downtown Montpelier, the capital city of Vermont. As it always does after a long winter, the summer air felt soft and smelled sweet as we crossed the street to our favorite Nepalese restaurant. We were seated in the…
Stone Walls
The spring before my father died, Josh and I took him back to his family farm site in Worcester for Father’s Day. Nothing left of the house and barns but the cellar holes. My dad was in his mid-eighties and the weather was as well. We could only drive so close to the farm and…
Ancestral Memory
The mud has been unusually deep this year: does that seem a bit metaphoric? It is, but it is also the truth. Vermont, statistically, has more dirt roads than paved. My hand always goes up to keep my dirt road, but it is a long season. At some point, perhaps when we are all so…
Opportunity Arrives In Disguise
I’m the person that doesn’t read the manuals. It isn’t that I don’t understand the value in doing so: I just don’t do it. I’d like to tell you that the reason is because I enjoy the process of figuring things out for myself, but the truth is that I hate reading manuals more than…
Only One Way to Speak
My father died Saturday. I find myself beginning to write, “passed on” and then stopping. At first I think it is because it is easier for me to hear, rather than the word “died,” but in thinking about it more, I believe people use that phrase because it is easier for others to hear. One…