I call the mechanic back about my car who says it’s all good news, a replaced muffler, and the car looks fine.
Finally. Something repaired in the chain of a dying range, a done-in washing machine, my own washed-out and piss-poor attitude.
In one of the few sunny days I’ve seen recently, I’m standing on my back porch, listening to water dripping. We talk a little about the shitstorm of this decade so far, the election roaring up in nearby New Hampshire. He mentions he doesn’t know my political leanings, and I laugh. I’ve been writing him checks for years now, and I’m certain it’s no surprise who I didn’t vote for. But he bends our conversation a little further, kicking the standard gloom-and-doom away and remarks that we might as salvage some happiness in this life.
On this rainy midwinter day, I convince my youngest to drive north to a library in search of a Claire Dederer book. Here’s a few lines from the last chapter of Monsters.
Love is anarchy. Love is chaos. We don’t love the deserving; we love flawed and imperfect human beings, in an emotional logic that belongs to an entirely different weather system than the chilly climate of reason….
Stony Soil Vermont 
Thanks for that Love is anarchy quote. So that’s what’s going on! 😜
Exactly!!
Congratulations on getting your repairs done. I don’t think it is the repairman’s business what your political leanings are, not in today’s divisive political climate.
Agreed…. although he’s been repairing my cars for years now and at least who I didn’t vote for is pretty transparent, even without a lawn sign….
Sorry things are falling apart around you. LOVE your parting quote. Thanks – and here’s to some sunshine!!
Definitely here’s to sunshine although that’s not on the horizon, either. Is it just me, or is Vermont getting more and more overcast?
LOL. It always was one of the least sunny of the states. But you’d never know it if you only visit in July!!!
So true! Which is why it’s always a bad idea to leave Vermont during July!
This book has been on my reading list since I heard Ann Patchett talk about it on a Laydown Diaries back in August. Here’s the link in case you haven’t seen it! She talks about Monsters after she talks Jill Lepore’s The Deadline.
I loved this link! Actually — I really DO want to have dinner with Claire Dederer. Jill Lepore is one of my favorites. I’ll have to read The Deadline, too. Thank you!
You’re so welcome! Ann puts out The Laydown Diaries every Tuesday morning…we’ve become big fans. Art & I love to listen to her- She’s our new “ best friend and pal”😂
She also is putting out ‘New to You’ on Friday mornings; as in “if you haven’t read this book then it’s new to you”. Often she’ll profile older books of established authors, which is really interesting. And so, my book reading list just becomes more and more ridiculous in size!
Appreciate the hot tip!