On the cusp of turning 15 — 15!— my daughter lounges, reading the newest installment in The Hunger Games. Across our short, dead-end street, the little boy digs in his sandy driveway with toy trucks, talking to himself, busy in his world. By the afternoon, his whole family splashes in the kiddie pool.
We are waiting for rain in our quiet corner of Vermont.
The cool breeze.
With all his strength
The cricket.
— Issa
A Sunday of skipping the news, opening the house windows, hanging out the laundry. A brilliantly sunny day — when I put my shovel into the garden, pull weeds, and empty buckets of manure.
All afternoon, we’re in the sunlight, the grass around the garden emerald. On the other side of my garden fence, families walk in the cemetery — teens with parents, little kids running ahead, and dogs on leashes. The neighbors’ three-year-old chases last fall’s dead leaves, blowing in the merest breeze.
The girls make garlic knots for dinner, and we eat them with carrot sticks, talking, talking.
I know there’s a lesson here — about slowing down, staying home, putting your hands in the earth — a lesson that would have been much harder had the day sleeted. Sleet, too, is possible in Vermont’s May. Mostly, though, I’m grateful for the day’s rejuvenation, this bright spot to carry us along.
So this is Nebraska. A Sunday
afternoon; July. Driving along
with your hand out squeezing the air,
a meadowlark waiting on every post.
— Ted Kooser
We’re into the third calendar month of the Stay Home order — I know this only by the date and time in the upper corner of my laptop — pretty much my compass to the exterior world these days. That — and an ongoing scrawl in a notebook that lists chores I cross off one by one to keep my paycheck coming. The paycheck I’m immensely grateful for.
These days, the old demons arise — what am doing with my life? How have I failed my children? Is it normal my youngest wants to go anywhere else (yes, resoundingly, I know that is).
At the end of a rainy afternoon, as the weather parts, my daughters insist I trek through the raspberry and blackberry brambles behind our house. On the other side of the brambles, they show me an apple tree surrounded by emerald grass, and tiny blue squill sprinkled everywhere. They caution me not to step on the flowers.
This is Vermont spring — wet and muddy, largely brown, studded with small radiant flowers. Everyday, the green insistently pushes forward, brighter and stronger. That’s where we are.
Photo by Gabriela Stanciu
To combat my lousy mood, my daughter suggests I go for a run. It would be better for everyone if you did, she says.
In week whatever, on day whatever, I run through town, seeing only two older women with masks, walking the standard 6 feet apart, and a few teenagers on bikes. There’s no one else I’ve seen for weeks, it seems. Eerily, I wonder if this is what the end of the world feels like.
In the woods behind the high school, I run up through the sugarbush, where moss greens up the forest floor in places. Then, around a bend, I suddenly see spring beauties — a whole forest field of these tiny, perfect white and pink blossoms.
Later, returning home to play a few more rounds of Uno, I know the run has done its magic. To that field of enchantment, where no one else perhaps has walked that day, I think — thank you, little wildflowers and daughter.
Kitchen office
My friend appears at our back glass doors and startles the three of us in the kitchen. She holds up a dozen eggs she’s dropping off and the seventh Harry Potter movie.
My daughter lifts a plate of chocolate chip cookies.
Yes, my friend mouths.
I step out on the deck and suggests she step back as the porch roof is about to dump snow down her back. My daughter hands out cookies while we’re talking about wanting to step into Harry Potter’s world. Maybe the kids are interested in flying, but what we’d really like? To sit in a train car and hang out with your friends.
Until then… this snow is melting today. Bit by bit, spring is emerging here.
To save some cash, I switch cell phone companies, and I realize, while I’m on the phone with the representative, that she’s working at home when she talks to her dog.
Knowing this opens up our conversation, and I learn her husband likes to turn down the heat, they’ve been living in Phoenix for two years, and she sought out this job because she likes the company so much. I’m amazed, because I never considered working for a phone company an interesting career option. She insists the people are all just so darn nice. It’s a great job.
While she types in my info, she hums faintly. I hear a screen door squeak open, and her husband’s voice. We chat about the coronavirus, and what it’s like to work only from home, for week after week.
When she’s finished setting up my phones, she wishes me good luck and welcomes me to the company family. I feel weirdly delighted. I don’t even know this woman’s name.
Somewhere along the way, I’ve more or less resigned myself to a kind of lone wolf existence — raising kids and gleaning work hours — and much of the work I do requires solitude. But this coronavirus existence has made me realize how valuable are our slenderest connections.
When I hang up, I step over my daughters who are sprawled on the rug doing a workout in preparation for bikini season. The cat wanders between them, clearly confused, likely wondering, What now? I step out on the back porch. Snowflakes are twirling down. Summer? Hello? I wonder.
Many people nowadays live in a series of interiors… disconnected from each other. On foot everything stays connected… One lives in the whole world rather than in interiors built up against it.
―
Stony Soil Vermont 