Walking early this morning in the garden, the dew chilly over my bare feet, the thrush sings. The lilacs are opening, blossom by blossom, the deepest violet still closed tightly, not yet ready to reveal.
This is good news I remind myself. I look back at my house where our cat sits in my daughter’s bedroom window. She’s sleeping yet, a whole day of sunlight and apple blossoms yet to come.
May. Spring in Vermont. The air this morning is sweet.
I leave work in the middle of the day, to take my daughter from here to there. A downpour has suddenly stopped, and sunlight sparkles over the wet world. We drive with the windows and sunroof open, the breeze blowing in. Although both girls have had Covid, and I’m vaccinated, we’re wearing masks. When won’t we be wearing masks?
The girls talk about classes, and I tune out, listening to their voices. We pass clumps of golden daffodils. On my way back to work, I drive through fields of green so brilliant I blink.
All around me, the human world feels fraught these days with chaos, both self-inflicted and not. Meanwhile, the earth pushes alive with spring. In the evening, walking up a dirt road, I look back at my daughters beneath an enormous maple, its branches still bare. Behind us, the mountains hold a deep blue. The peepers chorus, and the red-wing blackbirds sing sweetly.
It may yet snow again this week. Meanwhile, spring.
We walk up the road and down through the cedar forest, where the path is black earth. We linger so long that we walk home in the dark.
“Walking . . . is how the body measures itself against the earth.”
— Rebecca Solnit
Skiing through the town forest yesterday, I ducked beneath sap lines. The sugarbush there is tapped and ready for the sap to run. I’m ready, too.
For years, our family sugared, and February began weeks that turned around the season and sap flow. We had no weekend. We had no days off. So now, on Sundays, I (mostly) fold up my laptop and lean into family.
One (small) silver lining of the pandemic is the pleasure of a single donut: peach, flower, poppy seed.
Ten degrees and sunny. Perfect for ice skating.
Here
I’m here —
the snow falling.
― Issa
I step out of our house just after sunset, and a crescent moon hangs over the road — a silent slice of gleaming beauty in a dark blue sky. By then, I’ve been on a school board call for hours, and I’ve had to remind myself repeatedly that what appears to be illusion at times — this strange, Hollywood-squares conversation — will shake out in ways that affect people’s lives directly: adults’ livelihoods, kids’ educations.
Although it’s five on a Friday, there’s not much traffic in town. In the little neighborhoods where I walk, no one is out. Against one maple tree, I see two plastic red sleds propped against the trunk.
As I round a corner, I hear laughter. I pause for a moment in the twilight, listening. A row of adults is bundled in coats and hats, sitting on a porch, talking and laughing. The cold air is wet with tomorrow’s approaching snow.
I’m no stranger to Vermont’s long winters, but mid-January 2021, and such a deep loneliness has set in — not just in my house, not just in my town, but spread ubiquitously. I stand under that gleaming sliver of moon, listening to the laughter of strangers. For the moment, I’m utterly stunned by the unexpected bliss of the moment, the sheer luck I have to be standing here, part of this shifting world.
Stony Soil Vermont 