William Maxwell writes in his riveting short novel So Long, See you Tomorrow: “The reason life is so strange is that so often people have no choice.”
This strange world, indeed. My daughter drives us up Vermont’s long loneliness of I-91, the interstate running above the river. Villages are tucked into the blue and snow-sprinkled mountains, these tiny clusters dominated by spires of white clapboard churches. This has been a week of in-and-out of ERs and hospital rooms, of resurgence in energy and a low so low I’m unable to bother to speak. Now, the ride home, the passing through of this winter country, where the new snow (so pure white) piles high on tree branches. This northern land in midwinter is territory I know with a familiarity akin to the veins on the backs of my hands. A haven of cold, often slow-going, a muted palette of pale blue, sooty gray, evergreen nearly black.
We talk until we’re spun out from chatter. I lean my head against the cold Subaru window. In the last room where I stayed, my companion was a woman born in 1933. 1933 marked the end of Prohibition, the year stenciled on the green-glass-bottled Rolling Rock beer we drank in college. 1933, the year of Roosevelt’s New Deal. The woman’s voice was clear as a spring stream, often studded with small wry jokes. When she saw me, her face glowed in a smile. Of all the things I’ve learned from this week and scribbled into my notebook, this woman’s radiant smile and easy language sticks with me. A few times, I wandered her way, hoping to have some of her joy rub my way.
Stony Soil Vermont 
1933 was the year my mom was born…..it was a good year. I posted a story the other day that makes reference to a song by Steve Forbert, where the closing line is “It’s often said that life is strange, but compared to what.” https://mitigatingchaos.wordpress.com/2025/01/29/time-is-running-out/ Hugs from S.C. 💕
Thanks for the link!
Sending hope for strength.
Gwen.
💕
I’ve lived in Vermont almost 20 years, and this is the coldest winter I can remember. My attitude hasn’t been the best. Now we have snow as well, and it’s the pure kind (as you say), that can only exist with real cold. I hope it lasts a long time.
Carol Burnett was born in 1933, and she’s still going strong. She and your hospital friend would probably make each other laugh.
Carol Burnett — that’s a name I hadn’t heard in a long time. It also appears the snow is in no rush to leave any time soon….
I’m sorry for the very low lows, and glad there was a glowing smile here and there to light the way.
❤️
If only you knew how many times the joy expressed in your writing has rubbed my way and lit the path…..thank you, dear Brett! May that joy reflect back to you brightly!
Thank you so much for this kind note! I really appreciate it!
I wonder at how you can be so close to the external world, noticing, nothing ” a muted palette of pale blue, sooty gray, evergreen nearly black” when you are suffering so. Is it that your practice of observation is so ingrained that it comes easy. I remember when my mother was dying and I wondered that the world kept on. Somehow you’ve kept wonder alive and acute. I so admire this.
❤️
Sometimes, there’s nothing better in the world than a genuine eye-contact heart smile.
So agree!!