travel

Our Perpetual Holiday

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / 1 Comment

To practice night driving, my daughter and I set off after dinner, delivering a book and knitting needles to a friend. We’re laughing on the way there, and my daughter remarks, Why is it so dark?

I answer that I’m going to let that question lie.

At our friends’ house, we can see through the windows where the family is around the wood stove, talking, the walls painted yellow. I have a sudden flash of envy at the intactness of mother, father, two children, and then that passes quickly, too. At our house, warm and well-lit, with interior walls painted limoncello, we’re as intact as any family, too.

With my friend’s book in my lap, my daughter drives up the back roads, over ice and sand, through all that darkness. We reach the crest of hillside. There, as she drives and talks, I see across the valley to where a barn is lit in a long string of lights on the opposite hillside. Sporadic houses glow in the cold night, and not much more.

She drives down, then along the S curves along the river where I remember a terrible accident years ago. We stop and fill the gas tank. Beneath the bright gas station lights, it’s just us. I walk around the car, washing windows. In the driver’s seat, she watches me, and then I step back and bow. She shakes her head at me, amused.

Middle of February. Cold. A little chit in our collage.

Tuesday

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / 1 Comment

When I step out to start my daughter’s car before she heads to work this morning, a very light snow is falling, flakes drifting in the light from the kitchen window.

Last year, I would have been headed to Burlington through the snow, driving through whatever the weather might have tossed at me. This year, I’m headed a far shorter distance up a back road.

In my twenties, I lived in Washington state for a few years, on the western side, in the Cascade mountains. The mountains were beautiful, the people kind, but I missed the heart of winter, the drama of Vermont’s swinging seasons. On mornings like this, I sometimes wonder what the heck I was thinking. In February, so many Vermonters draw in — even pre-pandemic — hibernating at our hearths against the winter.

For a moment longer I stand shivering. In the village below, only a few lights glow. A milk truck drives along Route 14.

Then I head back in to make more coffee. My daughter yawns and packs her bag for work. She asks me, Remember the smell of rain?

Yes, I say. I do.

Photo by Gabriela

Old Photos

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / 6 Comments

The couple who last owned our home mail us old photos. When they bought the house, the 100-year-old dwelling was in ragged shape. My daughters and I spend some time looking at how the house has changed, and how it hasn’t.

I bought the house in good shape, and now we’re wearing into it, scraping and chipping at its shininess with our use. In the spring, we’ll open all the windows and polish our house again. In the summer, I’ll paint, as paint perpetually falls off in New England.

Once, I had thought to sell and move when my youngest graduated from high school. Now, like everything else in our collective lives, the future is uncertain. Shelter in place — a phrase I once believed would never apply to our Vermont life — directs the shape of our lives.

In the afternoon, I ski through the woods on the nearby trails. Just as I click on my bindings, I remember last night’s dream of a snowy owl… and then I wonder, truth or reality? I stand there alone, in the cold and under the overcast sky, wondering. For just a moment, I’m not sure. Maybe I really did see that elusive owl. Then I push off into the woods, silent but for the sound of skis over snow.

Sweet Day

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / 9 Comments

All day on my oldest daughter’s birthday, I remember that this was the day I became a mother. The day is imbued with a rosy holiness, transforming the everyday world of mundane things — a laundry basket, a cheese grater, a dutch oven — into pieces of our miraculous life. Parenting is a long, long road — there’s no doubt about that — the world would be unimaginable without this road.

At the end of a very long labor with this baby, I saw myself descending deeper and deeper into a dark, stone-lined well, my arm outstretched, reaching for my baby who I knew was somewhere down at the well’s bottom.

This child was born at the very end of the 20th century, in contemporary Vermont. Modern medicine made her life possible, and certainly saved my own, too. Every year, when I’m grateful for this young woman’s life, I remember the strangers who brought her into the world.

Happy February.

An Actual Excursion

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / 2 Comments

On a whim, I bought three tickets to an outdoor light festival. Each ticket was cheaper than the price of a movie ticket, back when we once went to the movies.

It was below zero when we arrived, and the three of us stood very near a crackling fire watching the winter twilight sink through deepening shades of blue into dark. We were outside a theater where I attended a fantastic poetry reading just before our world shut up last March.

Eventually, my daughters and I, warmed enough by the fire and hot chocolate, wandered through the enchantingly lit grounds. Overhead, the stars shone. At the far end, two little kids played in the snow that was lit cobalt — laughing with great pleasure, The snow is blue!

Just before we left, my daughters started the car and the heat, and I ran back to the window for sweets to bring home. I guessed who was bundled under layers of bulky coats and scarves and balaclavas.

A stranger who was stamping his feet and waiting for drinks asked if I was from here. Our house with our cats was eight miles down the road, but he had driven well over an hour to come. We have to do something, he said, then we wished each other a lovely night, and then disappeared into the night.

Winter Dreaming

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / 7 Comments

I found a paper butterfly on my car windshield yesterday afternoon — a gift, I’m guessing, from a local child.

My youngest and her friend, dreaming of summer and drivers’ licenses, create a plan of mountains to hike. While a pizza bakes in the oven, she lists summits on their list: Pisgah, Hunger, Belvidere….

I love this. While I worry about these girls driving, about the two of them heading off without a parent or big sister, I love that their dreams involve tying on hiking boots and pushing for summits. I love that they love mountains.