Come Awake

Every year I am amazed at how our property turns from desolation to overgrowth seemingly overnight. Vermont Spring seems to be on fast forward as though the earth beneath our feet understands that its warm days are limited and it ought to hasten the process for the well being of those tasked with tending it. In late winter, the earlier whispers of SAD grow to shrill and defiant roars, and there is a conspicuous fog of relief when warmer winds blow. It must be that this is why we are so enthralled with the crocus’ that break ground often through the snow. They afford tiny, colorful reminders that we too should seize the fresh start. Indeed, there is a coming awake that happens universally in the spring.

We all have our own way of climbing out of our winter skins and coming to our senses. My hens begin to lay again, my neighbors plan barbeques and spread thick layers of aromatic mulch, and my kids spend hours on their trampoline. In my world, when trout season begins I feel revitalized. Our current river levels all but ensure my fly rod and I would be swept swiftly downstream as my waders fill with water and sink me like a stone. But, the very process of organizing my gear, renewing my license and picking out new flies the way most women shop for shoes, makes me hopeful that there will be sunny days spent in the river and warm afternoons spent at the Alchemist.

The digital revolution and our tendencies toward emailing, facebooking, texting and tweeting have resulted in a false sense of comfort among tightly packed villages that do shallow, distant relationships well. In this era of 24/7 connectivity are we sure we are spending adequate time connecting back to the natural world and to our humanity? Not only has this trend given way to new verbs, but it has bred a new generation and offered a sickle like tool to an existing one with which we can hack at human relationships. These paradigms allow us to disengage from more solid associations and more grounding forces that were meant to tether us back to each other and to the earth. It reduces our ability to cultivate intimacy, a key component to the emerging trend toward mindfulness.

Our work weeks have become so ambiguous with technology that the boundaries necessary to create the time and space we need to participate in the awakening have become virtually (pun intended) unrecognizable. Our accessibility and response times have become unrealistic now that everyone can answer an email on their phone. When did we decide that manners do not apply to technology? When was the last time you walked away mid-sentence while someone was speaking to you? Likely never. Ever not answer a text mid -conversation or have someone do it to you? Same thing. We are forgetting how to be part of the environment; and, the natural world does not wait for us and our creations. It moves at its innate pace bringing seasons to a close whether we notice or not.

From the closing line of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off which suggests that “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it” to the Tao Te Ching which cautions, “Amidst the worldly comings and goings, observe how endings become beginnings” we are reminded to be a part of our world and to not abdicate our innate ability to notice.

Twenty Below What?

This week’s cuticle cracking temperatures make me grateful to live in a place too harsh for the masses and thus better equip me to handle the bitter cold. A native Vermonter once remarked to me “if it weren’t for the two weeks a year below zero, everyone would live here”. Tucked in the corner of one of my favorite coffee shops, I am surrounded by the artwork of Pete Sutherland whose work it seems could be based on favorite snapshots from a life well lived. Scenes of music and camping, old women baking, and pillow fights make me think the artist and I might get along as we seem to share an affinity for uncomplicated and contented moments. I do not typically appreciate art the way the trained eye knows to do, but I know what makes me feel. For me, good art makes us feel something familiar and incommunicable through a medium other than itself. It becomes the only method of delivering yourself to you in any given moment. The images around me make me feel home and safe and as though my grandmother must be somewhere close by with an aromatic pot of red sauce simmering.

The ‘why bother’ latte I have ordered is the perfect mix of non fat milk, decaf espresso and a hint of maple, and is topped with a perfect foamy leaf design. A father and son plant their cross country skis in a snow bank just outside the door and expel breaths we can all see as they transition from outside to in. It looks cold outside and my hands still carry a mild sting from the exposure of this morning’s barn chores. Still, inside it is nothing but ten different flavors of warm. Energetic talk of entertaining tweets from local personalities, dairy conferences, and the decisions we make as teenagers fill the shop’s atmosphere. There are high fives exchanged between friends who clearly agree on something, and the quiet but discernable talk of women much older than myself still trying to make sense of the lives they have lived and of what lies ahead. As one patron leaves he yells back to the barista, “It’s supposed to hit 20 below tonight, you know”. The barista wishes him well and instructs him to “stay warm”. If he were truly to have heeded the good advice, we would never have walked out the door.

Living in harsh climates means braving the temperatures, packing the 4x4 with ski gear and spending a day with hand warmers stuck inside already top of the line gloves. It demands that you resist the urge to say no to a snowshoe hike because it is too cold out. It requires going with the dogs in the knee deep snow when they need to go outside. On some days, during those legendary two weeks that keep the masses from building in our open space, it is in fact too cold to go outside. But on those days, if you can keep your mind quiet and your spirit still, you will find warmth in ways you’ll never see blow in on the summer winds. With my column almost finished, a stranger asks if he can share my table. I look up from my laptop and in a voice I hardly recognize say “I’d love it”. Perhaps, our harshest temperatures bring out the best in us all.

With its delicate leaf now reduced to a slight foam residue that resembles the remnants of a bubble bath, the last sip of my latte is still as sweet. Tipping back the bowl of a mug I ordered makes it necessary to lift the brim of my baseball cap as I enthusiastically finish it off. A warm picture indeed.

Rural Route Today November Column: Honest Abe

As is the case with us all, I have been guilty of chasing the fairy tale and waking up in the pumpkin, but, I also make a remarkable pumpkin pie. As Thanksgiving looms in the near future with Christmas right behind, it is wise to reflect on our many blessings those obvious and those not so. This weekend on a Christmas shopping trip in New York, I grew deeply appreciative of three unsung blessings in my life –wrinkles, time and dirt.

In Buddy the Elf-like wonderment, I traversed the Westchester County Mall taking in the spectacle of the shops and of the moms in knee-high, 5 inch heeled boots pushing Burberry clad babies in strollers through a vast expanse of consumerism. It was not long before I was stopped by Abe, the kiosk skin care salesman who no doubt saw my pasty, 40-something, Vermont skin coming and thought he had struck gold. As he examined my face he told me my problem was that I smile too much, and as he smothered my face in Dead Sea salt infused oils, he repeatedly asked me to refrain from smiling. When his application by force was complete, he gushed over how youthful the left side of my face now looked and then built a strong case for me to purchase his $400 regimen. I politely declined his offer and turned both sides of my face, now separated by generations apparently, away. He grabbed the pamphlet I had been holding out of my hand and dismissed me.

Walking away, I smiled defiantly thankful for this consequence of aging. Years of smiling does, in fact, deepen the wrinkles around our eyes and how fortunate we are for that outward proof that we’ve been happy. As the day passed, I enjoyed the shops and the irony in learning that purchasing a Tory Burch wallet makes it less likely that you will have anything to put into it for awhile. I appreciated the opportunity to complete Christmas shopping in one place and in one day, were one to have the stamina. But, I missed the humanity of Vermont. There was a frenetic tempo to it all that was unfamiliar and uncomfortable. I am thankful that the pace in Vermont allows time for pleasantries, and for discussions about the weather, for limited business hours during deer season, and for holding doors open for strangers to pass through.

The next morning I gathered my things and headed to the hotel parking garage. There among the New York plates and sparkling SUV’s was my mud covered Jeep with its new studded snow tires. In that moment, I was silently overwhelmed with gratitude that it would be taking me home to the dirt road that was responsible for its appearance. It is something to enjoy the Christmas shopping fervor, but it is quite another to quietly reflect on and give thanks for those things that cost nothing and that tether us back to this earth and to each other. Happy Thanksgiving!

Tearing down Walls

As a rule, I like change. I enjoy moving and all that it entails. I like making new friends, having unfamiliar vistas, and feeling anything but complacent. A few years ago, we bought a post and beam farmhouse. Generally speaking, post and beam construction means that no interior walls are load bearing and any and all conventional interior walls can come down without incident. This is good, because while I welcome and encourage change, I am less captivated by detail. I delight in the garden destruction that is necessary in fall, but am far less enthusiastic about the design and replanting demanded by spring. I am, as I have admitted in the past, a bit of a ‘bull in a china shop’, not out of clumsiness but as a result of enjoying the process of making a mess. I do, however, clean up my messes…eventually. As an aside, when change is mixed with spontaneity, I am flat out enraptured.

Some years ago my daughter asked for, and received, a sledgehammer for Christmas. My husband and I both found the request endearing and the idea of owning a family sledgehammer selfishly inspiring. While she was instructed never to use it on her sister, we have many times since put it through a wall to instigate a remodeling project. Recently the sledgehammer found itself embedded in a wall to the north of our mudroom. In our neck of the woods, a mudroom is a necessity. Your only option to not having a mudroom in this climate is to have a mud house. Mudrooms have tile floors, shoe racks or trunks, and hooks aplenty! They are virtually indestructible and their existence keeps the rest of the house orderly and free of sludge. Our idea was to connect the mudroom to both the kitchen and the living room to capture infidels who entered the house through the living room door as opposed to coming in through the mudroom. Dirty shoes, snowy clothes, wet beach towels and assorted backpacks frequently litter the living room floor because, after all, the mudroom is seemingly too far away. Not anymore. Now whichever door you enter through the mudroom, with all of its convenient storage and coat hanging options, beckons. No excuses.

Admittedly, North Country farm living is not for the faint of heart, weak of spirit, or neat freaks. There are animals, muddy shoes, snow that blows inside and dirty jobs to keep one busy from sun up to sun down. That being said, everything needs a home, even shoes and coats, and I appreciate a clean and uncluttered floor. I have many nights told my children that I cannot kiss them goodnight in their beds unless I have a clear unobstructed path from their doors to their beds. I have stepped on too many Jax in my life, and while a good night kiss is imperative, it should not be cause for a puncture wound.

There is a time and place for order and for chaos. Order keeps the chaos manageable and balances impulsivity making it safe to be so. I am running out of walls to bash my sledgehammer through, yet I am marveling at the consequential look of my surroundings. Ironically, it is novel and fresh; and yet, it is unmistakably home. Tucked amongst the oversized tapestry pillows of my living room couch and looking straight through to the kitchen, I am grateful for open and airy spaces and wonder how long it will take the impulsive carpenters who made it so to put up baseboards and trim. Details…

Remains of the Day and Rebirth

As an evolving writer, I subscribe to numerous internet sources of encouragement. Strangers fling topics via Twitter in an attempt to thwart writer’s block and instigate imagination. Despondently, I offer that I can’t work this way. Having an unknown entity tweet about “ice cream” and then offer the inspired directive of “Now go write!” just doesn’t send waves of profound thought through my mind.

On this occasion I am too cerebral and too tired to create anything from something unrelated to me. This is not to say that I do not enjoy stumbling upon random, unrelated thoughts of my own to weave together into something cogent.

Tonight as I watch the sunset turn my outside view into subtle hues of cayenne, olive, and heather, I am feeling the slightest chill on my bare shoulders and accepting that the fading summer invites the resurrection of ritualistic bath time – a fall and winter benchmark. So tonight, we explore the Remains of the Day and Rebirth...because we can and why not?

Years ago I remember a particularly late night struggling through a college paper, fighting for inspiration and for the ability to stay awake and finish it. We find encouragement in the oddest places, and in that moment I self-soothed by assuring myself that ‘nothing in life will ever be that hard’ again. What I wouldn’t give now to regain the simplicity of those days. Though, as I tell my children on the occasions of their insistence that they are correct in a given situation, “I was as smart as I ever was at the time”.

Equally equipped and burdened with the souvenir of experience, I now recognize that complexity and pandemonium are talismans that graciously accompany age and family. The key to the city is knowing how to breathe it all in at the end of the day and feel appreciative and renewed. I worked with an older gentleman many years ago, who by all appearances had a less than charmed life, but you could no more than hand that man a pen and he would look you in the eye and say, not a colloquial ‘Thank you’, but “I’m appreciative”. And I believe that in every instance he was. Somewhere in his life he learned the value of gratitude; that everything, down to the pen he was handed by another, could be taken away and he was not going to miss an occasion to express his gratefulness for what he did have.

Some days we know enough to give thanks for grass, and sunlight, and for turtles that take their time crossing the road in front of our cars forcing us to stop and just watch their journey. Other days we ache for bedtime to shove one day out of the way and shepherd in the next. Years ago, around the Thanksgiving table, we all shared the treasured things for which we were thankful. When the gratitude soliloquies came around to my youngest daughter, then about 3, she said “I am thankful for doors”. We all laughed but have since humbly valued the promise of our many doors to keep out critters and keep in heat! Every Thanksgiving since, we have never failed to acknowledge our gratitude for doors as homage to the recognition of the uncomplicated. Not so simple a thought after all.

My landscape has vanished behind the veil of night, the prolific mosquitoes are beginning to give up their pursuit, and the cool air forces me to slip a blanket over my shoulders. I am grateful for the sweet summer that is now passing before my eyes. New England is awe-inspiring. Effervescent summers and radiant falls offer a reprieve that gives its inhabitants the potency they will need to prepare and thrive in the winter ahead. One more day passes and drags with it an opportunity for acknowledgement of our abundance - one less chance to see a silver lining. Life is many things, but mostly … it is short.