On this first day of summer, my daughters and I swam in Caspian Lake, the cold and beautifully clear water where we’ve swum for years. The earliest, this far north in Vermont, that I’ve swam there has been April, a month where the ice sometimes still knocks up against the shore. The latest was a sunny first of October, and that evening I knew I was pregnant with my second child.
Everyone must have their sacred spaces on this earth. Here’s one of mine, singing eternally the melody of the changing sky, water or ice, some measure of wind, and the children – happy, happy, happy, to be there. Yeah.
Juana sang softly an ancient song that had only three notes and yet endless variety of interval. And this was part of the family song too. It was all part. Sometimes it rose to an aching chord that caught the throat, saying this is safety, this is warmth, this is the Whole.
– John Steinbeck, The Pearl
Stony Soil Vermont 