Vermont Diary

Interrupted

2011-10-10T11:45:00.000-07:00

Before September 1, I had a busy life. So busy that I slept in my exercise tights so that I was ready to roll as soon as I woke. It was very satisfying to hurtle through darkness toward Montpelier, then challenge myself with a killer ab class or a weights workout customized just for me. By the time I settled at my desk, I was physically and emotionally ready for whatever the day might offer.

Now my life is not so busy. I fell, you see, down the stairs. In my sleep. After some unknown period of time, I woke up on a living room sofa, bleeding. Based on the puddle of blood at the bottom of the stairs, it seems I had lain there for some time as well. But at the time, all I noticed was that my wrist hurt. Once I wake up, I thought, I’m probably gonna have to go to the doctor for that. And I walked through the puddle of blood and went back upstairs to bed.

When the alarm went off at 4:30 (my normal time to get up), my arm still hurt, so I put on a sweater and some shoes (how did my feet get so bloody?) and drove myself to the Emergency Room. Nice parking spot, close to the entrance. Registration staff looked at me horrified—although I had tried to wash off the blood from the head wound—and immediately put me into a wheelchair and skipped all their usual questions. The staff proceeded to take excellent care of me, starting with a catalog of my injuries: an H-shaped laceration on my forehead at the hairline (25 staples and stitches), a broken wrist (30 little pieces), a cut on my right leg (19 stitches) previously held together by my exercise tights, 2 black eyes, a big lump on my left shin, and numerous other bumps and bruises. I really should have called 911, but my battered head was not working very well.

By today (October 10) most of my injuries are far, far better. The shattered wrist is still healing. Anyone who knows me might expect me to be chomping at the bit, ready to re-engage fully in life. It is true that I am working half time (thanks to the federal government’s push for telework), and I am grateful to be able to keep my clients rolling along, not to mention grateful to be able to stretch leave a little longer. I am driving short distances to get myself to hand therapy or to the grocery store, and it is nice to regain a little independence. I’m even on the treadmill a couple of miles a day, so distressed I am at how much my muscle tone has diminished in a few short weeks.

And yet, I’m not really in a hurry to resume my life exactly as it was. Not that there was anything wrong with it. I take care to try to be thoughtful and responsible about my choices, so there have been no “Aha! I must stop (or start) doing that” moments. I wouldn’t wish to have the injuries again, and I still have a lot of healing to do. But to have life stop, to have others care for me, to have the patterns rearrange themselves, to be required to exercise ingenuity to accomplish the tiniest task…this has been an unexpected gift.

This interruption has to it the feel of a divine message. One that I cannot yet parse. So far I know only what it is not. Not a call to find a new friends—if anything the interruption underscores the rightness of these choices. The degree of help and support that came my way in the last few weeks has left me startled, humble and grateful beyond words. Not a call to find a new job—just doesn’t seem to apply right now—job hunting is one thing it is hard to do with one hand. Not moving, no right now. Not a push in any particular direction. So what is it?

Maybe it is the gift of time to sit still and listen. To pare my life back to basics and then add back what really matters. For example, it was only yesterday that I added back treadmill time—oh, how was missing my exercise routines! And for the last several days, I have been thinking how much I have missed writing every day. Maybe time to add that back.

If you have ever lived in a cluttered environment, your own or someone else’s, then you know that open space can seem like the ultimate gift. This time in my life feels like that kind of gift. I can’t figure it out, not yet, but I am enjoying the space.

Planting nasturtiums

2011-05-03T12:17:00.001-07:00

I have relatives and colleagues with obsessive compulsive disorder, and from time to time, I find I understand them very well. In the morning in the gym, when I put my shoes in exactly the same spot as the day before, and the day before that, I understand. When I put my favorite water bottle into one of my shoes, I understand. There is something about making sure I don’t lose that water bottle that gives me control over my world.

Then there are certain things I do every year. Starting at Christmastime, I save the skins of yellow onions so that I can use them at Easter to dye eggs. They turn out the most amazing shades ranging from pale yellow to deep maroon tie-dye. These eggs delight me over and over again.

And in the spring, I plant nasturtiums. I have twelve (isn’t twelve a wonderful number?) galvanized window boxes, an even dozen fitting perfectly along the tops of my porch rails. I used to buy plants, but I found that nasturtiums grow reliably from seed, at least they do with a little care. Soak the seeds overnight, nick each one slightly to give the burgeoning plant life a start, and plant them. Miraculous!

I am an enthusiastic but not a very good gardener. In the back yard, I have a circular herb garden in a space once occupied by an above ground pool. (Now that was a bad idea. Never got the maple leaves cleared out, and really, I am not the pool bunny type!) Gave it away to someone who regretted accepting the gift, hauled in a load of topsoil, and presto chango! It’s an herb garden.

I specialize in invasive species. I pretend I am a gardener, but sometimes I think all I do is weed out Siberian iris, lemon balm, mint, and fern-leaf tansy. A few old reliables come back every year—oregano, chives, catnip, and horehound—without taking over. Thyme is fussy, as are lamb’s ears. Lady’s mantle and peonies are steadfast. I take great comfort in the return of plants that do not run rampant. I am so happy to see them.

Out back, there is much that is unexpected. But on the front porch, there are twelve window boxes planted with nasturtiums. They grow reliably and they look beautiful. I am obscurely grateful to them for being a gardening project that I can manage. I put the seeds in the ground, they come up, and the flowers come. How amazing is that? None of my other gardens act like that, and I love them for their wild and crazy nature. But I love my nasturtiums for being exactly what I expect them to be.

Today I am thankful

2010-11-25T15:04:00.000-08:00

Today I am thankful (not in any order):

1. For the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
2. For the pleasure of making pie
3. For a pumpkin that came out to be exactly the two cups the recipe required
4. For Mom’s pumpkin pie recipe
5. For new recipes googled—say, pecan pie with maple syrup
6. For Northern-Southern détente—say pecan pie with maple syrup
7. For my family
8. For my dogs
9. For the joy that my girl dog gets from an 18 inch stainless steel bowl (yip-yip-yip-yah!)
10. For neighbors who tolerate her singing (yip-yip-yip-yah!)
11. For the giant octopus toy that Stony loves, which has only now started to fray after a whole year
12. For a washer and drier that work (we won’t discuss the dishwasher)
13. Okay, we will— for the dishwasher’s eight years of service in this house
14. For plentiful water – what a gift!
15. For the whole idea of flannel
16. For old friends
17. For new friends
18. For my neighbors
19. For the guy who reliably plows my driveway
20. For heating with wood
21. For my little gas stove in the living room that toasts my toes
22. For the pleasure of weeding out items too big to wear any more
23. For my job
24. For my colleagues, every last one of them
25. For certain specific people who have enriched my life this year and made me see the world through fresh eyes
26. For the invention of DVR
27. For all manner of things electronic: email, word processing, spreadsheets, digital cameras…
28. For snow
29. For my super reliable, mileage efficient car
30. For my friend who visits my dogs every day, just because she cares about them
31. For the incredible views from my house
32. For water, but especially hot water
33. For a big pile of balsam brush on my front porch—garlands in the making
34. For my health, especially the dramatic improvements in my health this year
35. For my trainers and their good advice
36. And most especially for the elliptical trainer and what it does for my shape
37. For knitting, which turns 2 dimensions into three—how cool is that?
38. For the women who knit with me
39. For silk long underwear
40. For my garden
41. And my house
42. And the 14-inch maple boards in my living room, that extend the width of the house, and that I suspect came from the maple grove out back
43. For modern and not-so-modern medicine and for my healthcare providers
44. For Vermont’s no-billboard law
45. For being (sort of) handy around the house
46. For friends who help me finish projects when I’m not quite handy enough
47. For the miracle of paint and wallpaper
48. For the invention of cleaning products that easily remove nose prints
49. For being almost done with my Christmas shopping
50. For a day off to finish
51. For the gift of hunter orange bandanas for Cassie and Stone to wear for hunting season
52. For friends who taste test recipes for me
53. For having a garage in winter
54. For the invention of automatic outdoor lights and remote garage door openers
55. For the lights that come on in my bedroom at the same time winter and summer
56. That although I forgot to set the timer for the pumpkin pie, I can smell when they are perfectly done (they are!)
57. That the pies came out perfect
58. For dogs who don’t steal food off the counter, and even for those who do
59. For pecans from my Mom to go into another pie
60. For maple syrup from a colleague to in there, too
61. For the whole idea of whipped cream
62. And for whipped cream itself
63. For recipes that turned out (pear jam, pickled pears, apple butter with coriander, pears in maple syrup) and for the lessons from the ones that didn’t (awful pumpkin pickles)
64. For recipe mistakes that turn out to be discoveries (apple butter with coriander was supposed to be with cardamom)
65. For friends who will feed me dinner today if I bring pie, or probably even if I don’t
66. For the farm fresh local organic turkey I still have in the freezer and for the fun of cooking it on another day
67. For friends who regularly drag me out for pizza
68. For friends who keep calling me even when I am not nearly attentive enough to them
69. For the Quiet Path in Stowe, and the dogs who romp there
70. For the tree that fell down this summer, that will warm us all this winter
71. For the repairs to the dog pen, so that Cassie can be outside and sing, even during hunting season
72. For silly jokes
73. For migrating birds outside my window
74. For an unending supply of murder mysteries to soothe my frazzled brain
75. For the opportunities to learn a lot of different things, to do a lot of different kinds of work and to live a lot of different places in my life
76. For blogging, which spurred me to write almost every day for a long time, which taught me a lot about writing
77. For genetics, which gave me a happy and exploratory spirit
78. For my parents, who nurtured that spirit
79. For those knee injections I tried for the first time this year that relieve almost all of my knee pain
80. For flu shots
81. For the fun of watching Cassie watch the dog show
82. For discovering items in my closet that I forgot I had…and that I love!
83. That the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade still makes me cry

Cuisine Fancy and Simple

2010-10-11T08:44:00.000-07:00

Some months ago, I read a description of Meyer lemons. So appealing was the verbiage that when I saw Meyer lemons in my local grocery store in Vermont, I jumped at the opportunity to try them. After a brief web search, I decided to try making candied Meyer lemon rind and Meyer lemon syrup to go into Meyer lemonade.

Just finished up the candied rind. It is very nice…and a dead ringer for candied grapefruit peel, a classic Christmastime sweet of my childhood. Ha! Still, I’m thinking it is probably worth experimenting with candying different citrus peels, maybe combining them in a yeast bread, something like a stollen, but lighter. I wonder if the different peels would be different enough to be interesting.

Just another adventure in the kitchen.

Followup: I'll need to go back to the old time sugared peel recipe. With three times boiling and a closely watched syrup phase, it is more work, but the new fangled version turned damp and limp. The Meyer lemonade wasn't half bad, though.

Followup 2 Well, huh. After a day of exposure to open air, the short-cut, new version of candied lemon peel was almost as good as the labor-intensive old version. Time to re-think? Maybe so.

Herb harvest

2010-10-10T05:12:00.000-07:00

It’s the first hard frost tonight, they say, and the chill wind confirms. I spent the day cleaning up the garden, harvesting the herbs. I wasn’t sure there was much there, but I brought in lemon balm and thyme, sage and catnip, a little parsley, some oregano and even a few last tiny squash. My kitchen smells wonderful.

Most of the herbs are tied with twine and hung from the spice rack, but I put the parsley into the oven to dry. Start at 200 degrees, put in the parsley and turn off the oven. Repeat several times. That really works!

Tomorrow I plan to forage for a few more experiments. Goldenrod and mullein can be made into teas, they say. And there is plenty of mint. Beautiful, invasive fernleaf tansy, no—unless taken in small, weak amounts tansy can be poisonous. I should have cut tansy earlier to see if the tiny yellow flowers and the foliage would dry for wreaths.

I’m reading and re-reading all my herb books these days, thinking of next year’s garden. I only have two acres, but I can grow a lot of herbs. I’m working through what products I might be able to make and sell to make my garden habit profitable. The dreaming is worthwhile in itself.

2010-09-18T10:47:00.000-07:00

I wish I had a different picture for today. A picture of myself dressed up in Corella’s hand made clown costume, which I embellished with extra ribbons, a big bow at the neck, a hat with tissue paper roses, and—of course—a big red, painted-on nose. It was an extra thrill to find that my hot pink Timberland boots were a perfect match. (This picture is Stone, not Daisy or Sam. But it looks just like Daisy and Sam today).

Corella was pleased with the look. And I was pleased that this spry 93-year-old was happy to see me in her finery, prancing my way down the route of the Hyde Park Home Days parade. I had my own spot in the parade as the only clown—no function whatsoever but to wave to the crowd—but I was enticed to walk with the Lamoille Valley Veterinary Services float (complete with a 3-month-old German Shepherd puppy named Daisy), then I was wooed away to walk with the Hyde Park Players. It was something to do with their current play, but I never quite got the connection.

I was too busy waving and babies and old people, while trying to convince Daisy to walk with me. The parade was just that little bit too fast for us, so a couple of times, I had to pick her up (oof!) and scurry forward. Big girl! Somewhere in front of the Hyde Park courthouse, Daisy licked my red painted nose, and then she had one too.

A little further along, I switched to walking her brother Sammy. Daisy gave her breeder a kiss, and then Carole had the red nose. What fun!

All in all, it was fine parade. Puppies were admired. Corella waved back from the reviewing stand, happy to see that one boisterous clown in the autumn sunshine. Corella says she needs a new heart, and that they won’t give her one because she’s 93. She’s a little bummed about it, since she doesn’t really feel old at all, and I do understand her position. Still, on another level, I don’t see a thing wrong with Corella’s heart. Maybe that’s because I spent a day in her clown suit, waving to small children and enjoying puppies.

The Second Half

2010-06-06T03:39:00.000-07:00

It's been a good six months of letting go, making myself space to consider new things. For four months, I have been getting stronger, first walking every morning, then with a renewed commitment to a workout each weekday. I can feel not only my physical strength returning, but also my creativity.

I'm thinking a lot these days about the second half of my life. My mother's family have mostly lived into their eighties and nineties. For my father's family, it's tougher to tell what their natural span might have been, since there were fewer of them, and they were lifelong smokers. It's a fairly strong probability that I have almost as many years left on this planet as I have been here already.

There are some things I want to be different in the second half of my life. I want to be fit and physically active. I want to be well grounded in the place I live and with the people with whom I share my life. I want to dance more. I want many creative outlets. I want to wear pretty clothes. I want to be able to touch people's lives in ways that are direct, personal and meaningful. I want to learn a lot of new things. I want to garden more and grow more of my own food. I want to have more people to cook for (or better yet to cook with). I want less conflict. I want a quiet life.

I'm going to buy one of those big adhesive note flip chart pads, and before I finish new walls in my study, I'm going to create a wall size vision of the second half of my life. I can't wait to get started.

Scent of a Skunk Part II

2010-02-28T14:30:00.001-08:00

I thought it would be one of the dogs who had the first skunk encounter, but no, it was me!

Driving down the hill, I saw a black spot on the snow. As I got closer, I could see that it was furry and moving. I was too close to stop, so I straddled the small animal. I thought for a few minutes I had escaped the spray, but no. It just took that long for the aroma to penetrate from my car's undercarriage.

For days now, my dogs have loved the car even more. Other cars don't like to park near us. Never one to name my cars, I'm thinking this one may be christened Pepe Le Pew.

Making Space

2010-02-28T14:20:00.000-08:00

I’m sitting in my study, a strange and jumbled room, the last in the house papered in one of the tiny florals beloved by the last owner. It is the least offensive of the tiny florals, which is probably why it has lasted this long. Functional in a haphazard way, the room has too much furniture and is the only reasonable place in the house for the treadmill. I’m looking at the room, and I’m trying to figure out what would make it a more pleasant place to sit on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Clearly the first step is to move out everything that is not immediately important to the room’s best use. (We will work around the treadmill for now.) Since I am no longer attempting to run a business from this room, I don’t need as many shelves, but which should go? The tall ones that add a library feel? Or the waist-high deeper ones that accommodate piles of paperwork so nicely? Is there room somewhere for a cozy chair for reading here? Is it time to give up on my tall armoire that was made from a kit and still is missing its doors? Should I put some of the shelves in the closet? Can I really work around the treadmill? Will I ever know what storage I need unless I actually sort out piles of old paperwork?

So many questions, but only one real answer: clear out the old. Only then will it be possible to imagine the new. I’m craving a new house project, something that takes my personal space to a new level of function and comfort, but I can’t see my way to it. For now, it’s prep work and waiting for inspiration—my least favorite (though essential) part of the creative process.

Funny, I didn’t see the answer before I started writing, but now I do. Not the whole answer, not yet. But it is time for the last of the tiny florals to go. I have the wallpaper already, purchased when I moved in almost eight years ago. A mellow yellow with a small abstract repeat, suitable for a study or a bedroom. I think the armoire goes upstairs, maybe the treadmill, too. Keep the tall shelves, and move them to a different wall, no longer in front of the second bathroom door. Put one set of the lower shelves in the closet, the other two out in the mudroom, which needs more function of its own. Give away extra electronic equipment. Clear out, clean up, wallpaper and paint. It’s a plan.

I wish the shape of my new life were as easy to discern. In a strange twist, I was accused last week of “liking my job too much.” I do like my job a lot. I think I am well suited to it. I like getting out into the community and finding out about projects, then doing what I can to help them along. I like my colleagues. I pad around in my sock feet most of the day, leading some of my colleagues to offer to take up a collection to buy me shoes. And most of all, I like that part where every two weeks, the federal government zaps money into my bank account. Whoo-ee! I think long term federal employees have lost track of the value of a regular paycheck and outstanding benefits, but it is all new and exciting to me.

Yes, I like my job, and I like my routine of walking in the early morning. I like my commute, and I am re-adjusting to having forty hours of my week scheduled for me. But it’s the rest of it I can’t quite envision yet. Who do I hang around with? What thoughts and dreams and activities make me who I will be? It’s stunning how much of our lives change with the change of a job.

One thing I am letting go is the church I have attended more off than on for the past eight years. I was there pretty religiously for a year, then got busy with economic development and lapsed, and finally went back about a year ago. The people are pleasant enough, though not particularly friendly, but then we are in New England. But I am missing there the hands-on connection to the broader community and the intellectual exchange that I had in a past church experience. I kept hoping that I would come to appreciate this church for what it is, but the spark doesn’t seem to be there, at least not for me. Time to stop. Time to open up that time in the week and see what new feathered thing presents itself in my life. Doing the same thing over and over doesn’t leave room for hope or for charity.

I wonder, is there something I am missing? Is there something I need to finish in order to be able to move forward? I really don’t know, and all I can do is clear out the old in order to make room for what is to come. This in itself is an exercise in hope.

Meanwhile, I think I will move out furniture and get rid of that last tiny print wallpaper. Then maybe I will be able to see the possibilities.

Cabin fever

2010-01-31T05:34:00.000-08:00

It’s right around zero this morning, and I am grateful for the gift of a bed of coals that lasted the night. No struggle with insufficient kindling, no running up and down the cellar stairs, just pop in a couple logs and the fire comes back to life.

Until this weekend, I had been afraid that the embers of my spirit were burning low. I had started to feel isolated, pitiful and older than my years. When you live alone, as I have for about half my adult life, every now and then you start to buy into social judgments on the single life. You keep saying, “No, really, I am happy,” but you wonder if it sounds as tinny to others as to your inner ear. Certainly, the happiest periods of my adult life have been when I was in a close relationship, married or otherwise, but then so were the unhappiest periods. It’s good to know how to be happy alone.

Right now, at the end of January 2010, I’m poised on the rim of a new life. I’m itchy to see what its shape will be, who will inhabit it, and who I will be. Looking back, it can seem easy to divide our lives into chunks that have some meaning: the years I was married, the years I lived in New York, my time (so far) in Vermont, periods that had some kind of story line that I could inhabit for years at a time. I am happy to close the book on some periods—the Chattanooga interlude, say, or the last two years.

I’m never sure if I cling too long to old story lines or launch too rashly into the new. At least I have learned to recognize the between-times. For me, health concerns are often a sign of the “betweens.” Something needs to be left behind, and I don’t seem to get the message until my body cries stop! you are living in your head again and ignoring body and spirit. My stamina needs to be rebuilt. As much of a change-lover as I fancy myself, I can be slow to discern when my personal world has changed, and I need to allow myself to be transformed along with it.

Certainly (I think), there are periods when you need to run on stored faith, to put your head down and do what you have to do. I wish I were better at recognizing when those reserves are running low. Eventually, even the message penetrates even my hard head, and I start to see where change needs to occur. I need to grow in friendship, with the ones I have and new ones. I need new charitable and volunteer ventures, not that there was anything wrong with the old ones, but I need renewal in this part of my life. I need a spiritual expression that aligns more fully with my heart’s desires. I love my new job, and I need to explore how it can contribute to a meaningful life for me and my broader community. I need to go back to the kind of daily schedule I have had in the past that honored my body in physical activity. I can see where I need change, but I am only beginning to see how it might play out.

If the initial stage of the between-times is recognizing that change needs to come, the more challenging stage is the next: making room for it to happen. I’ve been trying to keep still, to make space for whatever is to come. It’s a little like waiting for Christmas. Every year I wonder if it will still be special, and every year it comes, not just a day in the calendar, but a gift like this year’s hoar frost. This enforced peacefulness does not come naturally to me, a confessed control freak.

So here I sit, confined to my house by sub-zero weather, warmed by the gift of a fire that kept burning all the night long, nosed into action by Cassie and Stone, who desperately want to get on with the next adventure. We’re doing short runs today, building up reserves of faith and stamina for milder days to come. You can’t rush spring, but you can get ready.

Postscript. My horoscope for today, which I read after writing the above:

It's difficult for you to reconcile your current feelings with your commitments for the year ahead. There's a part of you that's ready to cash in your chips and start anew, but that's not necessarily an option. Instead, consider what you can do to revitalize your life without abruptly turning it inside out. This may be a time for bold thinking, but don't be in too much of a hurry to put your ideas into motion.

Ha!

Scent of a skunk

2010-01-17T11:15:00.000-08:00

It’s been warm the last few days, warm for this time of year in Vermont, that is. Warm enough for long walks with the dogs. Warm enough that the snowpack compacts and makes for easy snowshoeing. Warm enough that our frozen landscape shifts a bit before settling in for the long haul toward spring.

Last night as I sat snoozing in my chair next to a front window, there was a huge whomp! as the roof shed its load of snow. I couldn’t see anything in the dark, but this morning, piles of snow and mangled icicles lay sprawled in new ice berms along the front and back of the house. One always hopes that these avalanches occur at times when there are no dogs or people in their paths.

Today it is warm enough to dry to dig a path through the back berm in anticipation of more snow still to come. It is warm enough to empty the in-house compost bins. And it is warm enough that someone had an encounter with a wandering skunk. Every time I go back out to chip away at the path through the ice berm, the aroma hits me in the face again. I don’t really mind. It is another sign of (false) spring. But I think my dogs will stay penned up until the enticing scent dissipates.

As much as this may feel (and smell) like spring, we must guard against false hope. After all, it is only January 17. No, this is a January thaw, a weather “singularity” that returns almost every year.

As Willem Lange would say, I gotta get back to work. After all, this balmy weather won’t last for long, and I need to be prepared for the next snowfall.

New year, new life

2010-01-16T08:19:00.000-08:00

Long, long ago, when I was finishing college, I took a vocational aptitude test. Something in the combination of my responses led to the following result: you should be (1) a mortician, (2) a tea room hostess, or (3) a social security representative. I’m not sure what were the variables that led to these conclusions, but now I find myself working for the federal government, managing loan and grant programs. I help towns buy fire engines or fire stations, help libraries or health centers expand, and help non-profits that are in the business of helping small business help small business. I’ve been on the job for almost two months, and I love it, almost every aspect of it.

Okay, so the federal government can be bureaucratic. And working in an office with 30 other people provides more togetherness than is completely comfortable for me. But we are making a difference, and that is deeply satisfying.

It’s a new life for me, too. And I have launched into a new life with new (or recovered) habits. Bring your lunch, a healthy lunch. Take a walk at lunchtime. Keep your work hours to a prescribed forty per week. Oh, wow.

With work beaten back to a rationed number of hours, it becomes possible to think again about a real life. I can’t yet imagine how that might look. Chickens? Bees? A new renovation project? New people in my life? It is all a clean slate right now, and I am enjoying some space before anything new is written.

“Funny how those moments come, it hits you, your life has changed. Again and again, we learn the lesson, something still remains.”

Just relax

2009-10-08T07:42:00.000-07:00

You have a job (almost). The weather is perfect. In this enforced break in the action, can’t you really take a break? Relax.

Easier said than done. After two years of pushing hard to figure out the financial world as it shattered and reformed itself into unrecognizable shapes, after a year of attempting not only a new business but a new way of relating to the world of commerce, I seem to be hooked on anxiety.

Last week, I went to a movie for the first time in….well, in years. I’ve been on the treadmill every other day. Two or three, sometimes four dog walks a day. Bubble baths and reading in front of the fire. A couple of days ago, my shoulders lost their accustomed tension. I could breathe. I notice that even when I play solitaire, I play more slowly, no longer driven to top red with black with red, to strive for an outcome.

Back in the era when I had regular vacations, I went to Deer Isle for three weeks for pottery camp. What a wonderful break that was! All that was on my schedule was sitting at the kickwheel, making pots, occasionally glancing up to see whales spouting out beyond the firs on a rocky shore. Other people to share projects and meals, all cooked for us, and nightly meteor showers for our delight. And still, it took me a good two weeks to unwind. The third week was restoration.

It’s been a long time since I had a real vacation. I have had adventures and expeditions sandwiched in between work trips and, more recently, shorter breaks to enjoy a day trip to Canada or New Hampshire, or just to contemplate Vermont. There is a lot to contemplate in Vermont!

So when last week I was informed that I should expect a job offer in a week or so, to be followed by a couple weeks (or so) for background checks, my brain informed me that this was a good time for a break. It is always possible that this job offer could evaporate, but if it does, I’ll only have lost a few anxious weeks of job hunting. And I will be better for the break, of that I am sure.

Now if only I can continue to slow down my brain, tune up my muscles, and open up to a new life.

Limbo spa

2009-10-04T07:17:00.000-07:00

Well, this is a strange turn of events. I think I have a new job, but there are hurdles. Steps to go through. It is working for the Federal government, so everything has to go to Washington for approval. I didn’t know that Washington even knew about me, much less cared, but it appears that they (whoever they are) do.

In this intervening time, I’m declaring a spa month. Lots of walks with dogs, some serious exercise every day, good food, green tea. The kids are excited, and so am I. How often do we get a chance to relax and rejuvenate while looking forward to a new life? This back-to-school time has always seemed to me like a new beginning.

It couldn’t be a more beautiful time to take a break. Foliage is peaking: great washes of color light up the horizon. All across Vermont, people are picking apples, carving pumpkins and reveling in beautiful, crisp days. Even a rainy day like yesterday appeals, as the bright colors shine through the mist.

I have some goals for this period, but one of them is to work hard at not being so goal-directed. Yesterday I drove down to the Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival, almost. It seemed that as I got closer to the festival, it rained harder and harder. And I was getting tired, so when only a few miles from my goal I made a wrong turn, I surrendered and came home.

Actually, I stopped at the mall, another rare experience. For the first time in many months, I was able to buy something frivolous in the fabric store and something necessary (pantyhose and a new calendar) without worry. It is nice to contemplate a regular paycheck. I’m unlikely to go too crazy, but I did consider buying spring bulbs, a luxury that I have not been able to afford for some time. I still might do that, but not until the Federal Government makes up its Washingtonian mind whether to bring me into the fold.

Meanwhile, let’s just relax! I have to go now. There seems to be a pressing need for the morning walk to the pond.

Reframing

2009-09-21T11:03:00.000-07:00

There are giant bugs pounding on my window!

No wait. Not bugs at all. They are hummingbirds, seven or eight of them.

Someone who knows birds tells me that it is migration time. Sure enough, when I look, there are songbirds of every shape and color...everywhere. They particularly like the crabapple tree outside my picture window.

Not giant bugs, tiny birds on their way to South America. How cool is that?

Bravery

2009-09-15T11:09:00.001-07:00

Denial is a lovely thing. It allows us to hide behind our perceptions of the world, our ideas of who we are and how we fit. Or think we do. But sometimes the puzzle pieces come together with blinding speed, moving so fast that we cannot even parse their trajectory. It’s as if we were there….and now we are another place altogether. Here. Reality has shifted.

People think I am brave. I am the one who packed a seventeen-foot truck and left Brooklyn to move to Vermont. No job, a rented apartment. Stepping off into the void. Brave, right? Maybe not.

I am the one who quit a job without having another job. I was hoping to build a practice as a financial advisor, because I love the work, loved the clients even more. On purpose, could I have picked a worse year to try this? Launching into a new business venture, it is important to be appropriately capitalized. But how does one capitalize for a hundred year event? One doesn’t. I didn’t.

There is a woman I know slightly who is far braver than I. She has the bad gene for breast cancer and cervical cancer, and this fall, she will undergo surgery to remove both breasts and her uterus. She approaches it as a matter-of-fact choice. She wants to live to see her children grow up and to play with her grandchildren.

In many ways I envy her clarity. I have neither chick nor child, so I didn’t know what to look forward to when I gave up my last job, still don’t. But I know when I don’t have a choice. When staying feels wrong, it is time to go, and there is no real choice. It’s not a matter of bravery, just a matter of keeping faith with whoever or whatever you hold dear. Time to move on to the next chapter.

Moral dimensions of financial crisis

2009-04-05T10:46:00.000-07:00

Last week I met a man who was enraged. Like so many of us, he had lost about forty percent of the value of his investment portfolio, and he was at a loss to figure out where to put his anger. Yet he sensed that the other side of his anger and grief, there was a different perspective. He was anxious to get there, to be free of his distress. He wanted to move on.

Most of us weren’t dealing with confessed fraudsters like Bernie Madoff. So should we be angry at our advisors? Maybe. Certainly, Bernie Madoff and his like should be put in prison, regulation should be re-written and actually enforced, and the pay structure at financial institutions should be brought in line with performance over some reasonable time frame.

But I think there is a bigger issue here. I think most of us are really angry at ourselves. At least for a short time, we believed in bubbles. We believed that real estate prices would go up and up. We believed that the inflated price our neighbor received selling last year would drive the price of our own homes next year.

We believed that credit would always be easy to get. We believed that huge financial institutions could not, would not fail. And, most dangerous of all, we believed that the crazy things that happened in some markets (sub-prime, alt-A, CDOs) would not affect us as long as we were not directly participating in those markets. We were wrong.

I think this means that if we want to get past our anger, we need to stop looking outward and start looking at our own lives. Fundamentally, this is a moral crisis. We had money, we thought, and now we have less of it. Things like this happen, as the disclosures on our brokerage accounts and retirement funds say: You can lose money. If your financial advisor told you otherwise, then your advisor may belong in jail with Bernie.

We were wrong. We lost money. And now we need to forgive ourselves for it.

If anger at our advisors represents the first layer of the onion, and anger at ourselves is the second, then the next layer of the onion is fear that we may run out of money. Thirty-somethings are a lot more likely to be able to shrug off big losses than sixty-somethings, who have less time to catch up. Those of us who are older are facing the necessity to retire later than we planned, work part-time in retirement, travel less than we had dreamed, or make other adjustments along two themes: planning and stewardship.

I’m a planner by nature, creating alternatives for a variety of contingencies, so this is second nature to me. I chose my house partly because it has a first floor bedroom and bath, although I trust I am a good thirty years from needing to live on one floor with a caretaker upstairs.

If I lose more money before the time I need to start drawing on my retirement plans, I can sell my house and live somewhere more modest. That’s a contingency plan, and it is also a nod to stewardship, by which I mean not taking more than I need.

Right now, I live on two acres, I drive a car that gets 36 miles to the gallon, and I limit my trips to my Burlington office to two per week. I compost. I garden. Could I do more? Yes. I could live in a smaller house, even shared space. I don’t want to do that because I am a very private person, and I love having large dogs. But if I had to give up privacy and dogs, I could do it.

Not everyone is as fortunate. Many people in these times have cut their use of resources, their own and those of the wider world, to the bone. So they need more from the rest of us. That means our charitable contributions, our taxes, the prices of goods and services are going up. Which brings me to the next layer of the onion: anger at other people who now need help so desperately, our anger that drives a wedge between humans.

And our anger was supposed to be about money? No, it is about unfairness, taking more than belongs to us, stewardship of our own and others’ resources, forgiveness of others who need our help more than ever, and perhaps most of all, forgiveness of ourselves. Once we get past the moral dimensions of this crisis, we can focus on rebuilding financial plans.

Living on the Far Side

2009-03-22T05:36:00.000-07:00

One day last week as I drove up the hill where I live, I looked to the left and counted thirteen in my neighbor’s front yard, then another fourteen to the right in the open fields.
A few days without snow cover, and there is grass to eat, but the deer seem to have to range far to find enough. They are out at dawn and at dusk, as we might expect, but also in broad mid-day. The deer are hungry.

Constrained to the house more than usual, my dogs watch out the windows and let me know when more deer appear. I have become vigilant, doing a complete scan all around the house before anyone goes out even for a quick pee or to run the ten yards or so to the fenced dog run. Still, a couple of times when I thought there were no deer, we stepped outside to see a whirl of white tails. Thank goodness, my dogs come when they are called, at least if I speak quickly before they are in full pursuit.

The deer seem to be getting stronger, but they don’t move away quickly even when human or car approaches. They stand and stare, as if to say, “Please, let us eat this nice grass. There is nothing for us in the woods.” It’s a little spooky, a little like living in a Far Side cartoon. It makes me feel as if I should rush from car to house and lock the door, lest I hear the sound of hooves on the front porch and see antlers framed in the front windows.

Meanwhile, the back window—one of only two on that north-facing side of the house—has broken. No trees nearby, no falling snow or ice. I have to wonder if a bird flew into it with enough force to crack the glass. And from the front windows, I just saw a flash of black and white fur. Skunks back in the barn. Nature is on the move. It must be spring.

Don't jump

2008-11-03T16:35:00.000-08:00

From a family member:

A protester's sign in front of the New York Stock Exchange: "Jump you fuckers!" with the comment "I try not to forward things, but I just had to send this. Points for creativity and brevity of message."

My response:

Zero points for forgetting that your sister worked across the street from the New York Stock Exchange for seventeen years.

It's fun to demonize someone else, isn't it? But the majority of people who work in financial services in New York are just regular folks, trying to cover their bills. Think folks like Doug and Carrie in The King of Queens--that's what most people who work in financial services are like. Then there is a layer of professionals very like me...in fact I was one of them.

The financial industry expands and contracts much more than other industries. I haven't seen the job loss numbers in a few weeks, but I seem to recall losses of over 170,000 jobs in the last survey I saw. That's not just in banks, investment banks and insurance companies--it also affects cab drivers, coffee shops, hair salons.

I can tell you from personal experience in 1998 when I was laid off the first time that it is a double hit when these waves of job reductions occur. Not only do you not have your old paycheck, but there are very few jobs to compete for. And the bills keep coming. Not surprisingly, there were a few people who jumped. One woman I knew jumped under a subway car.

I know you didn't intend to offend me, and you didn't. But I do find these flip responses annoying. There is plenty of blame to go around for this crisis, and plenty of pain as well.

Was there greed on Wall Street? Yes. But if you rounded up the people who were driven solely by greed, I believe you would be able to fit them in the average small town high school gymnasium. Add the ones who simply did not understand the complexities of the financial instruments they were selling, and then you need a much bigger venue.

But that is the nature of the financial industry. Do you think that the people who sell variable annuities with guaranteed income streams really completely understand the embedded risks? Very few do. We have to rely on regulators to bullet-proof the products that are sold, and regulation tends to focus on the general public, not on the supposedly sophisticated investors that bought mortgage backed securities. Regulators failed us in the years since mortgage requirements were relaxed. And individuals who took out mortgages that they couldn't afford deserve blame as well. Plenty of blame to go around.

Personally, I have lost about 40% of my retirement savings if you measure it today. But I have great confidence in the US financial system to rebound. I was on Wall Street (literally, in an office overlooking the New York Stock Exchange) in 1987 when the market crashed.

And I was there on 9/11/01. We really thought the world was ending then. This crisis does not feel anywhere near as bad as that--we were unsure whether the markets or the city itself would survive the attack. An attorney I worked with briefly appeared on the front page of the New York Post head down on his way out of an upper floor window of the World Trade Center. Another jumper.

From one of our recent newsletters, here are a few other downturns for your consideration:

October 1973: Arab Oil Embargo launced a financial crisis, time to market improvement was 12 months
October 1974: Franklin National bank collapse (bankruptcy), time to market improvement was 2 months
May 1984: Continental Illinois bankruptcy, time to market improvement was 2 months
May 1986: Drexel Burnham Lambert bankruptcy, time to market improvement was 2 months
October 1987: US market crash (financial crisis), time to market improvement was 2 months
February 1995: Barings Bank bankruptcy, time to market improvement was 0 months
September 2001: 9/11 attacks (political crisis) time to market improvement was 12 months

There is no guarantee, of course, that we will see a near term recovery in the markets, but my experience of past downturns gives me a lot of confidence in the future.

And I hope that nobody jumps over loss of a job or part of an IRA.

Sunshine at my back

2008-08-19T17:37:00.000-07:00

Recovery of a window in my dining room has had more impact than I ever could have expected. The light is different throughout the entire ground floor, all four rooms in this simple and traditional Vermont farmhouse.

As I sit in my new most favorite place, I can see out windows in all four directions. First, I imagine eyes in the back of my head, looking across the porch to the dawn. To my left are two majestic maple trees and a wide expanse of pasture, the old dairy barn in the foreground. Ahead, I glimpse the crabapple, which seems to bloom only one year in three, periodic victim to harsh Vermont winters. Beyond the crabapple, the forsythia, even more sensitive, and beyond that, the valley stretches down to the village. To my right, perhaps the most fraught, a single small window looks to the maple grove and the northern wind. Vermont farmers knew how to build, windows few and small to the north, many and expansive to the south.

I could sit in this spot for years, analyzing portfolios and answering correspondence. Puppies at my feet. A pot of tea at the ready. Taking breaks to run to the raspberry patch or the vegetable garden. Perhaps I’ll get a chicken or a few.

The downside of my new profession is that I must, must, must make calls to people I know little or not at all. If the payoff is sitting with the sun at my back and German Shepherds on my feet, I’ll hit that bid all day long.

German Shepherds on my feet

2008-08-18T04:53:00.000-07:00

As I spend more time working from home, my contentment in this house grows. I find myself tweaking furniture placement, finishing up construction projects, opening the curtains wider to better enjoy the views. To the east and south, the Nebraskas lie beyond wide vistas of pasture, forest and valley. Out back, old Mr. Trombley’s prized maple grove still stands. The trees are enormous and very old. Nobody taps them now, and every now and then one falls. Except for half a dozen, they stand on my neighbor’s land, and none is near enough to threaten my cozy nest. There is only one window to the back, not a very large one, the winds of winter coming from that direction, but I can see the maple grove from here.

My dining room, where I now sit and type, is all new since yesterday, the culmination of a project to remove a clumsily placed closet and put in its place my large breakfront cabinet, formerly in front of a window. There are now three windows in this room, and the entry way is more graceful. From the porch, you have a welcoming view right into the dining room, or at least it is welcoming to those already acquainted with my two German Shepherds. And from the dining room, you can see out to the porch, orange and gold nasturtiums perched all around the rail. Sunrise happens through this window, and before today I had never seen it save from the porch.

I’m working through what it means to work from home. Do I have my office-office and my home-office in the same space? Will I really allow clients into my home? Do I try to create an upstairs space that is psychically extra-personal? How do I feel about cluttering the dining room with laptop and files? All of these are good and intriguing questions. In the winter, this room with its three windows, two interior doors and one exterior door may be chilly, but right now I sit with the dawn at my back, views to the outdoors on every side, and toasty German Shepherds on my feet.

August morning

2008-08-07T14:35:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, my friend shook his head sadly. He travels throughout the region, and already he was seeing leaves—just a few—changing on the trees at elevation. Surely, I rejoined, it must be only stressed trees. We were only a few days into August. And we scarcely feel we have had a summer, so much rain have we had this year.

Ten inches one week. The farmers despair of their hay. Children are whining, and so are adults. We are missing the opportunity to soak our bones in intense summer sunshine, to pack away remembrance of warmth during the proverbial two weeks of Vermont summer. We specially need warmth now, as we face winter with unprecedented fuel prices.

Today as I walked to my car, I could no longer deny the signs. Not one colored leaf, but many. True, I don’t see them in the branches yet, but all over the front lawn lies confetti of red and gold. August 7. Usually, we get another week or even two before a certain chill turns the air, and we know. Winter is on the way.

Life will speed up now. There are kids to get ready for school, insulation to wrap around pipes, wood to stack, vegetables to freeze. Once we see those first leaves and feel that first chill, it’s time to get busy.

Counting blessings

2008-08-04T17:36:00.000-07:00

Much to my surprise, the evening news played “Happy Birthday.” After a moment’s surprise that my quiet celebration had national coverage, I realized that Barack Obama shares my birthday.

In accordance with long-standing tradition, I took the day off. I believe my birthday should be a holiday. After many years of more success than error, I am careful what I choose to do with the day. The most memorable birthdays are the least planned, but the most carefully engaged. My birthday is a day when I am likely to get in the car, head for the bottom of the driveway and only then decide which way to turn. Sometimes I get promises for my birthday; I still owe myself a kayaking lesson from last year. And one day I will collect.

Today we started with a good, long swim in the Little River. The dogs splashed, swam and attempted to herd several Golden Retrievers and one prim, immaculate little pit bull girl. It was raining, sure, but after rain every single day in July—ten inches last week—we couldn’t wait any longer for swimming. Last year we went swimming twice a day.

A nice lunch, a glass of wine, a nap, and a trip to the raspberry patch took up most of the afternoon. A few household chores. I may be almost to the end of the laundry backlog. A thought of cutting some grass in the afternoon, but the mower refused, and I took it as a sign. A good book. A short walk down to see Cassie’s best friend. Most of all, a staunch refusal to think about messy details of life and work. Today is not a day for worry but a day to savor all my blessings.

Dinner over, I stepped out to consider the pile of wood that still needs to be thrown into the cellar. The work is soothing, even meditative, but I am careful not to overdo. I threw a few logs down cellar, then stood still for a moment, enjoying the rainbow over Mount Elmore.

Across from my house are two spots rainbows are almost certain to occur after a bit of rain and the sidewise slant of Vermont light. Sometimes the two are connected by one gigantic bow, often double, even triple rows of color. They are stunning, gorgeous, predictable, yet wholly a gift, just perfect for a watchful birthday girl counting her blessings.

Stacking wood

2008-08-02T04:49:00.000-07:00

The decision to purchase more wood is easy. Finding a seller is easy. Then starts the hard work of getting the wood in.

Over the last two years, mostly last year as my confidence in the wood furnace improved, I burned almost two cords of wood, primarily on weekends. Circumstances have altered, and I now expect to be working locally two to three days a week, so I can burn more wood. Certainly economics would suggest more wood and less oil. So I ordered six cords.

Mind you, it took me months to get the last wood into the cellar. The delivered pile was just slightly downhill from the wood chute, requiring an intimate relationship with the wheel barrow. Load, move, drop into cellar, move, stack.

This year’s deliveries are a little closer, and the outside work is easier. Still, it’s drop, move, stack. Then do it again. And again. Great exercise—aerobics and weight lifting all in one. And the work is highly, highly meditative. Just what I need as long as I’m careful not to overstrain my fifty-ish un-athletic back and knees.

My professional changes are much the same. It’s easy to make the decision to go from a marketing role to a sales and business advisory role. It’s easy to make lists of people to call, and I have a strong enough network of past relationships that many people will do me the courtesy of seeing me. Just like it’s easy to order the wood. The challenge will be to see if I can keep doing the daily lifting.

By the time winter closes in, I should have some idea if I can stay the course. Sure hope my wood is in by then.

Let us be thankful (lest we weep)

2008-07-16T03:11:00.000-07:00

The $1200 wood bill has been trumped by heating oil at $5 a gallon and propane upwards of $4. If I burned the same amount of fuel as last year but at this year’s prices, the total cost to heat my house would be $4,000, double last year’s bill. Ouch.

Fortunately, I have the ability to burn either wood or oil in my furnace, so will switch the percentage to as much wood as I can manage. The limiting factor is that I can only burn wood when I am home to run up and down the stairs and put logs on the fire. So if I plan to burn wood four to five days a week and all evenings, I think I can cut my bill to $3,000. Still painful, but better.

As you may imagine, the “prebuy” is the hot new topic wherever Vermonters congregate. As in “Didja get your prebuy yet?” Translation: “Have you heard from the oil (or gas) company what their price will be for the coming heating season?” There’s a level of obsession with the coming winter that we don’t usually see until the first crisp turn of the air in mid-August.

The prebuys are just now out. The fuel oil companies have been having trouble coming up with plans they can live with. Mine is offering $5 a gallon if you buy now, with a couple of adjustments for good credit and paying by check. How else would you pay? Oh, maybe credit card? That would be dire.

Alternatively, you can pay $4.80 for the oil and 40 cents for a cap for a total of $5.20. Then you can pay by the month. And if the price goes down, you pay the lower price. Worth it? I’m not sure. And there is a time value of money calculation I need to do as well. From a psychological point of view, I would rather pay once and not worry further. But I am fortunate to be able to do so.

These small fuel oil companies are really hurting. They buy oil at a price and sell it at a markup, but they can get hammered if prices go against them. Even the little guys are pretty adept at hedging, but these markets are making everyone queasy. Further, as prices go up, so do the odds that they will not get paid, and you can’t really repossess oil from a home tank. Aside from the human and political angles, there is sludge at the bottom of most tanks. So they deliver smaller amounts and sometimes insist on getting paid before delivery. More, smaller deliveries mean higher costs for their trucks and drivers.

The politicians and the non-profits are ramping up for a tough winter. Unless the weather is unusually warm, they are expecting to need to open up gymnasiums and armories as temporary shelters for people who simply cannot heat their homes. Winter in Vermont is beautiful but can be deadly.

The only happy campers these days are the wood guys. Their costs have gone up to some degree, but nothing like the rise in prices. Me, I’m grateful to be able to soften the price rise by shifting to more wood. It’s a rare opportunity, not to be repeated until I retire and can stay home most days happily feeding the wood furnace. But that’s more than a decade away, and who knows what energy future we will face by then?

Note: Just so you know. I will not be accepting political or merely cynical comments on this or any of my posts. You certainly have the right to hold whatever opinions you hold. But this blog is not the place for them.

Burn, burn, burn

2008-07-14T16:51:00.000-07:00

Today I contracted for my wood. Two cords of dry at $250 a cord, four cords of green at $175. By the time I burn the two dry, the green should be ready.

The Vermonter who came to talk about cutting up fallen trees in my neighbor’s maple grove gave me lessons in wood economics. A house the size of mine could use 8-10 cords in a winter if I burned only wood, he says. I can believe it. Last year I burned 2 cords only on weekends. And this winter, I expect to be home more during the week.

He quoted me the above price, but wasn’t all that anxious to sell. He can stockpile till November then likely get $375 a cord over in Stowe where people have more money. I called someone I had heard had a better price, but they were at $225 for green with an eight-week waiting period. They aren’t even selling their dry wood yet. Not till November.

So altogether, I have now committed $1200 for wood. Tomorrow I call to find out what the prices are for fuel oil (I have an almost full tank to start, thank heaven) and for propane (I only burn a little, to knock off the chill in the living room). This year the chill may stay unknocked.

My friends and neighbors say the pre-buy programs are, well, quite unattractive. That’s the Vermont way of saying we are terrified. Usually we don’t start obsessing about fuel costs until the second or third week of August. I count myself fortunate that I have the option to burn wood as well as oil in my furnace. And that I have two dogs to pile on the covers on winter nights. Not all my neighbors are so lucky.

In a day or two, the first load of wood will appear on the side lawn. And I will proceed to shove it through a window into the cellar and stack it. Conventional wisdom is that wood warms you twice, once when you split it and again when you burn it. My Vermont neighbors reckon that this calculation comes up short; it’s more like seven times they say. Cut, split, stack, load, unload, stack, and finally burn.

The wood guy suggested that he deliver two cords at a time, a few days apart, “to give me time to get it in and stacked.” He was dead serious. He had no idea that last year it took me weeks to get two cords into the cellar.

Guess I will have to do better if I aspire to be a wood-burning Vermonter. Aerobics and weight training, all at once. Wish me luck. Better yet, come on over.

Running on instinct

2008-07-11T14:47:00.000-07:00

I’m one of those people who rise to a crisis. In the normal course of life, I am analytical to a fare-the-well, weighing costs and benefits, expected value and range of possible outcomes. But in a crisis, I act quickly and decisively. I slice through waves of emotion, mine and other people’s, and I do what needs to be done. Then I fall apart later.

It seems like a good system to me. But mental health professionals characterize this behavior as dissociation, which at the extreme results in multiple personalities or other maladaptive mechanisms. I accept that this shadow is out there, but these days, I am grateful to feel I have a channel to that inner instinct that guides my daily decisions.

The current crisis is not even mine, at least not mostly. My boss—let’s call him Jay—and my old dog were both diagnosed with cancer. At first, I joked with my boss that he had the same symptoms as Toby, but that ceased to be funny. Toby is no longer with us, and my boss is facing a grueling course of chemotherapy.

Jay has non-Hodgkins lymphoma, mantle cell type. As he says, it’s a “nasty little bugger.” He learns more about his prognosis one day next week, but he and his family and his colleagues have come to accept that the treatment is going to be a big challenge, even as we firmly believe that this big, strong, dynamic 55-year-old man will come through and regain his health. We can’t imagine any other outcome.

On the practical level, my world has changed. Outwardly, I will be doing many of the same day to day actions that I did when I was marketing Jay’s services. With him out of pocket for at least six months, we figure, it makes sense for me to change focus. I will continue networking my little heart out, but on my own behalf rather than Jay’s. I will talk to people about retirement plans, investment strategies, long term care and disability insurance. Until I can gather up some new clients, I will have an income gap to bridge—thank goodness, I am one of those conservative people who actually has several months expenses in the bank.

When Jay is healthy again, we can work out how we can work together in the future. When I joined Jay’s wealth management firm a year and a half ago, I was adamant that I wanted a role where I did not have to be involved in sales. Didn’t like selling, couldn’t do it. My outlook has changed. It turns out that the heart of wealth management for small business, individuals and families is talking to human beings about what they want to do with their lives and how their money enters into those decisions. And I do want to be on the front line of those conversations. Even if I have to recognize that I am in a sales role.

I am certainly qualified. I have over twenty years experience in financial services, and I have resources to fill in any gaps. Also, it has turned out that I am an effective and enthusiastic networker. I enjoy hearing about people’s hopes and dreams and helping figure out ways to achieve them. And I have a long list of contacts that I think I can convince to let me practice my value proposition. I had been thinking for some months about hanging out a shingle, which would allow me to work closer to home at least a couple of days a week.

But I wouldn’t have had it happen this way for anything in the world. Here’s a comfort for me: Jay sees it as a major positive that I am taking on this new role. He retains some continuity in the office, and he also genuinely believes that I will be wildly successful. How nice is that to hear?

Am I terrified? You betcha. I’m an introvert, for heaven’s sake! And I’m going into sales? Correction. I have been in a sales and marketing role for the last five years, one with Jay and four in economic development. Calling on businesses, listening to people, trying to find solutions. Still, it is different to have my income depend on whether I can find the people who need solutions and find solutions that they will embrace.

How can I go forward? I am running on instinct. I feel in my bones that this is the right road to follow as opposed to, say, going after another corporate job. There is little analysis behind this decision, beyond a quick check of my bank balance, and for me to proceed without analysis is rare. It is mysterious, even a little creepy, how strongly I feel this is the right path.

This spooky certainty has overcome my native conservative cast before. Many of my big life decisions have been made this way, and I have emerged with relatively few regrets. What would life be if we couldn’t remake ourselves from time to time?

Closing and opening

2008-07-06T04:50:00.000-07:00

We closed another chapter this week with the loss of my good friend Toby. He was twelve. He had been diagnosed with cancer and was just beginning to be in pain. It is truly a blessing that we can spare our animal friends the bitter end of life. And it is a solace to me that I was able to stay with him and calm him through the end. I was never able to do that for Max--I loved Max so much. But Toby loved me so much that I could not leave him alone. We all miss him terribly.

We also have a new chapter opening with vigor. Meet Stone. Also called Stony. He is another puppy from my friends at Stonybrook Farm www.vtfarms.org/farm.php/fid/90

Stony had several weeks with Toby, who taught him some basic manners.

I struggled for a long time naming this baby, who is a full brother (same mother, same father, different year) to 3-year-old Cassandra. Cassie is perfectly named.

When I first moved to Vermont, I was vocal about all the kinds of things that I thought I knew that people in Vermont did not. At last, someone sat me down and said, "You may be right. You probably are. But in Vermont, nobody will believe you. Here, you are Cassandra." Doomed to be always correct in her prognostications, doubly doomed never to be believed, that was Cassandra. What a perfect name for a talky, preachy German Shepherd!

It will be interesting to see how looks when he grows up. At this stage of his life, he looks exactly like she did at this age. And here's the beautiful girl now, rounding out the family photos.

I liked the idea of naming a German Shepherd for a prophet. And I like names that have layers of meaning. But in the end, Stony of Stonybrook Farm seemed like a good name. Formally, he is Stone--I can see him growing up to be a serious jazz pianist. And if we think of stones as runes, perhaps his name has a prophetic cast as well.

I am sorry I missed your comments. I failed to supply an e-mail address where I could be notifed of new comments, but I have corrected that error now. I certainly never meant to be so completely defended in my Vermont hideaway that I was unreachable.

Unfortunate

2008-03-25T17:58:00.001-07:00

Unfortunately, I have had to enable comment moderation on this blog.

Some little twit of a graduate student inappropriately used comments to solicit participation in her most unwelcome survey project.

I can't imagine the lapse of taste that this woman has displayed--it's on a par with telemarketers calling in the middle of dinner and refusing to go away--but I feel I must put up the defenses in a way I have not had to do in the past. Honestly, I cannot begin to express how annoyed I am with her.

My apologies to my readers.

New Words

2008-03-20T18:38:00.000-07:00

Orographic. As in “This will be a highly orographic storm.” Meaning the storm will creep over the tops of the mountains, then whomp down on the other side with a vengeance. Meaning that you may leave Burlington on a clear, almost springlike night, only to find cars off the road halfway home. Only to slow to a crawl two-thirds of the way home on icy roads disappearing under white-out blasts, that mercifully last only seconds. Whatever you do, don’t hit the brakes!

Emesis. The act of pouring hydrogen peroxide (an emetic) down the gullets of two dogs who stole a bottle of ibuprofen. When they still won’t throw up, you take them to the vet, where they will spend a full twenty-four hours recovering from an emetic that works, getting intravenous fluids, and having blood work tested to be sure their kidneys are not affected.

For those of you who care about such things, ibuprofen is really bad for dogs. The vet tech lost a dog to ibuprofen. What makes it even more dangerous is the dogs look fine for three or four days...until their kidneys shut down. I don't know that my dogs ate any, although I do know that they licked off the sweet red coating from a few pills. Attached as I am to my dogs, I am not inclined to take the chance of waiting to see if ill effects develop. I can't even think about what the vet bill will be. Don't know, don't care.

From emesis to orographic makes for a long day.

Cold

2008-02-28T16:43:00.001-08:00

I’m stuck at home with a cold, and cabin fever has taken hold.

My dogs haven’t been out to play in days. They can barely run out for a quick pee or poop before it is clear even to them that indoors is a better deal. Temperatures scarcely exceed the zero mark, and wind chills….brrrr.

Fortunately, I have lots of wood in the basement, and I have had a good fire going all day. When the temperature dives like this, the wood heat option is the very best. It’s a dry heat that soaks through to the house’s bones, and even to mine. I happily run up and down the basement stairs, adding more logs every couple of hours.

Maybe that flu shot did me some good. I am definitely on the mend in day two, while my colleague is down for the rest of the week. I could feel myself coming back to life this morning as I actually welcomed the opportunity to get back on the treadmill and sweat some of the germs out. A few rounds of laundry and I am almost as good as new.

Cassie has been going to daycare one day a week for the last few months. It helps her run out some of her excess energy, and better yet, she takes it out on playmates other than aged Toby. He went a time or two, but although he loved the play, it took him days to recover. Now his treat is to have Cassie go, to have a day of snoozing undisturbed.

Cassie and I will both be back on the road tomorrow morning, just in time to hurry home for another snowstorm tomorrow night. This is now officially the snowiest February on record for the city of Burlington. Kind of encouraging. If I can make it through this winter commuting, then maybe it’s not so impossible to live here and work there.

We’ll see. It’s still a long way to spring.

What to write about?

2008-02-19T11:28:00.000-08:00

I seem to be singularly uninspired to write these days. The puppy is still as charming as ever, the old dog as deep a comfort. My morning and evening drives have a little more light to recommend them. I continue to be obsessed with knitting socks. It’s a quiet life, but a good life.

We’ve had a lot of snow this year, all good news for the resorts and the local economy. My wood supply has been more than adequate to back up the oil furnace, and I have enjoyed burning wood on cold days.

I’m considering painting the dining room. I’m studying to take the Series 7 exam again. And I just realized that if it is the middle of February, I really should be thinking about what seed to plant come spring.

Spring! Yesterday, we got just a whiff of it. It rained all night and all day, turning driveways into practice areas for the Olympic luge team, or so said one of our clients. My driveway is short, so I just slither down the hill. Getting up is another story, but gunning it and pointing the nose of the car into the garage works so far.

Still, it is only mid-February, and there is a lot of mud to endure before we emerge into spring.

National Day of Whining

2007-12-27T15:09:00.000-08:00

The day after Christmas in England is Boxing Day, likewise in Canada. I have heard lots of explanations of the name, ranging from the traditional day the poorboxes are opened to the poor to the day that Canadians like to shop in box stores (really!).

I am proposing that in the US we should proclaim December 26 to be the National Day of Whining About Our Families--NaDaWhAF for short. Here are some real life examples I heard this Nadwhaf:

My Mom only gave my kids one gift each.
My family didn’t get my packages in the mail—I wonder if she is shopping at the after-Christmas sales.
It was the first day since my Dad died—my brother came late and left early.
My Mom only gave me $12 in scratch-off tickets as my gift.
I never get thank-you notes—I wonder if I should just strike them off the list.
My kids bickered all day.
My teenagers seem to view Christmas as a shake-down opportunity. Only one item on their list was under $200.
My daughter sent me a certified letter for Christmas, but I don’t know what it says because the post office is closed on Christmas Eve.
Everyone in my family was sick.

The great thing about Nadwhaf: It seems to last only a day, at least for most of us. By December 27, we no longer pine for Santa Claus and we have adult expectations of other adults in our lives. Mostly.

Christmas came early this year

2007-12-24T08:47:00.000-08:00

Don’t get me wrong, I love the hustle-bustle, the parties and the presents, all the sparkle and warmth of this season. I enjoy picking out just the right present for friends and family, then wrapping them while I imagine the unwrapping. This year, even the baking turned out just right as my cookie exchange was perfectly timed to supply the office Christmas party, and the stollen was ready just before I needed an extra thank-you for my plow guy. All of it is fun, and I wouldn’t miss it.

Still, there comes a time each year when the commotion steps back and silence takes center stage. That’s when Christmas comes. You feel it right down into your bones. Certainly, there have been years when Christmas seemed very far away from whatever woes I was experiencing, but I have been blessed to have a lotta lotta Christmas in my life. And I have learned that while you cannot wrestle Christmas into your life, you certainly can invite its peace and calm.

I’ve never been much for Christmas lights, and this year I have even foregone a lighted tree since we are dog-sitting. So last night I was sitting in my living room with a dozen small candles in the window…and there it was. Suddenly these tiny lights seemed incredibly bright, illuminating the darkness. Just astonishingly bright, and quieter than a (temporarily) three-dog house could be imagined to be. Christmas.

All best wishes for you—that you may know the peace and joy of Christmas.

Officially winter

2007-12-21T06:36:00.000-08:00

This is a day for great celebration, the shortest day of the year, which blessedly is followed by longer and longer days. Every little lumen is a gift to those of us who crave light. I must have been a plant in another life, or maybe I am one now.

It’s a short day at the office. Most working people have picked their heads up and shifted eyes from computer screens to gaze into the distance and wonder that the holiday season is really upon us. Do we have enough food in the house, enough wine? Heavens, yes. Are our gifts purchased and wrapped? Pretty much, yes. The baking is all done, the wrapping paper is packed away. We are ready to kick back for a few days. As we anticipate the pleasure of our loved ones, we know that the office will wait.

Here in Vermont, it is looking very Christmas-y. Snow came early this year, and in quantity. There’s a good two feet of snow on the ground at my house. The dogs love it, but they look more like porpoises than dogs as they attempt to bound through deep and drifted snow.

Forecasters opine that it is pretty certain that we will have a white Christmas, even though it may rain this weekend. More than one Vermonter has been heard to wish they were staying home this year—the skiing is reported to be excellent—especially if they are heading out west where there has been little snow so far.

Snow! It’s amazing stuff. It’s still a novelty to me, but I don’t revel in it the way Vermonters do. One friend reminisced about building forts and tunnels—she and her small buddies dreamed of creating a network of tunnels connecting all the houses in their neighborhood. And if you go to an outdoor party in the winter here, all the adults fling themselves into sledding, sliding and general mayhem along with the kids. (For a description of a Vermont sliding party see http://vtdiary.blogspot.com/2006/03/winter-ways.html)

Vermonters don’t have all the different words for snow that Eskimos do, but they do talk about different kinds of snow. This unusual early December snow is declared to be “greasy.” It is hard to plow, easy to turn to ice under tires.

Perhaps that is why I just got stuck in my driveway last night. I took a run at the garage, but wasn’t going fast enough. Couldn’t go forward, couldn’t go back without running the risk of skidding into a snowbank. Tried to angle left….bigger skid….angle right…smack into the snowbank. This in a driveway no more than fifty feet long, but with a wicked slope.

I called my plow guy, and this morning he came over and pulled me out. I am so grateful that he helps me out of these all too frequent situations, and I told him so, handing over a loaf of Christmas stollen as well. Now that I have gotten stuck—right in my own driveway like the gosh-darned flatlander that I am—it must really be winter.

Long time Vermonters tolerate us newer Vermonters remarkably well. I started the morning with Willem Lange’s story of Favor Johnson on NPR--the story of a hound names Hercules, a flatlander doctor, homemade fruitcake and the real spirit of Christmas. Honestly, they shouldn’t play these stories on the radio! I could barely steer through tears. It’s a good story and you can hear it here http://www.vpr.net/episode/42370/

Thank goodness for Christmas letters

2007-12-08T07:47:00.000-08:00

Adapted from a response to my friend Tykie's Christmas letter

I was so pleased to receive your Christmas letter and hear all your good news. Getting married! I wish you the very best.

Even better is the overall tone of your letter. You just seem happy. And I couldn’t be more delighted.

I’m doing well…though not as well as you! I’m sitting in my Vermont farmhouse looking out at snow covered fields. We had an early snowfall, which has left us with about a foot and a half of really nice snow on the ground. This doesn’t usually happen until January, but it is a boon to the ski industry and awfully Christmas-y. I’m not sure when I last communicated with you, but if you want to track my acclimatization to Vermont, take a look at my blog... Some of it is pretty good (if I do say so myself), some is just dull, but I have had a good time with it. There are pictures, too.

I spent four years doing economic development work for one of the counties here, which was in many ways very satisfying—-helped me get integrated in the community--but not particularly well paid. Finally last January, I decided that I really needed to prop up the retirement funds a bit before I needed them, so I am now working for a very small wealth management firm...I will hear no whining about commuting—-I have an hour drive each way in the summer. How long it takes in the winter is still an open question…worst so far was two and a half hours to get in one morning. Our interstate is only two lanes in each direction, so it doesn’t take much to close it down completely!

Vermont is awash in former Morganites. Hugh Kemper is attempting to redesign the cost structure of the education system, Tom White is heading up research at Dwight Investment Management, and I see Karen Reukauf Sharf from time to time when she comes up to her Vermont house.

My household has been dog-centric since 2000. My dear old Max died in January of last year. He had been failing for some time, so I got a beautiful German Shepherd girl the November before he died. She is named Cassandra and called Cassie and is a complete delight. She listened carefully to everything that Max had to teach her and learned how we do things in this household. She allows Toby, now eleven I think, to be the number one dog, and he mostly adores her as long as she does not herd him too vigorously.

Cassandra takes her name from mythology, from the prophetess who was doomed to be always correct and never believed. When I first started working in economic development in Vermont, as I was ranting about the need for universal broadband or enhanced computer skills or something similar, someone said this to me: “You are probably right. You are almost certainly right. But in Vermont, you are Cassandra. They will never believe you.” What a perfect name for a German Shepherd! They rant and bark and try to herd everyone, but if you know them well, you know it is pretty much an act. And it helps keep me humble to be reminded that people here don’t believe things that people in other worlds take for granted.

It really is a very simple life here. Neither you nor I was ever particularly conspicuous in our consumption, but my life is pared way back. In a good way.

This morning I got up and made a fire in the furnace. I burn wood on weekends for warmth and economy. A little breakfast, then out for a snowshoe and a romp with the neighbor’s dog Acer (named for the genus of maple trees, Cassie’s best friend). A little later, a guy who once had a little crush on me will bring over lots and lots of evergreen branches, and I will make eighteen kissing balls for the Rotary Christmas silent auction. I’m not in the Rotary any more now that I drive to Burlington, but I still have good friends there and they like to rope me into projects—kissing balls in the winter, duck race in the summer. The ducks live in my garage. This afternoon, I will wash my disgusting floors (all that snow tracked in brings piles of mud), then bake cookies for the cookie swap. This evening, I will get together with friends who count on my good sense and perspective (as I do on theirs), and we will finish the evening with a trial run of Acer staying with us while his family goes away for vacation. I might do a little writing for work or for fun, will almost certainly do a little knitting. I am currently obsessed with socks. It’s a good life.

How do you Washingtonians like the tree we sent you?

Thankfulness

2007-11-23T07:11:00.000-08:00

I’m a glass half full kind of girl, cultivating an attitude of thankfulness all year long, each and every day. Some days this practice is harder than others, but mostly I am thankful for all the blessings of my life, including the habit of thankfulness, which keeps the edge of everyday life from cutting so sharply.

I’m thankful for my parents, who taught me to say please and thank you and yes ma’am and no sir, but thank you for thinking of me. I’m thankful for reasonably good health and for the doctors and medications that support that state of life.

And as I discussed with my mother on the phone yesterday, we are both thankful for the crowd of people who help take care of us. Carpenters and painters, snow plowmen (for me) and dock haulers (for her), grass cutters and car repairmen, their mundane contributions are deeply appreciated. Taken together, these small tasks make a great gift—our capacity to live alone, as we choose to do. Imagine, we joked, if we had to sleep with some old man just to get our chores done.

Yesterday I had dinner with part of my support system, a couple who have become dear friends, not least because my German Shepherd puppy Cassie started her life in their home. We ate turkey, one they had grown, and fussed over Cassie’s mother, her sister Nellie—same mother, same father, but a year and a half younger, and Miss Abby, the newly-self-appointed leader of the pack. My Cassie-scented sweater was thoroughly sniffed on the way in, then sniffed again when I returned home covered in the scent of German Shepherds who were not Cassie.

There were human friends, too, and the quintessential couple of Thanksgiving strangers. Last minute invitations as they were dug out of their driveway, they came into a warm and hospitable room, and chilled it. There was history, you see. Nobody elaborated on the back story, but we could not entirely overlook past bills unpaid for services rendered and past ungrateful behavior.

In my past life, I spent many hours helping the man set up his dream business. It’s okay, I was paid for my work, and even accepted that many people feel it is their right to treat public servants badly. Still it rankled when he disappeared without a word one day, neither to me nor to the small business counselor who had also spent days on his dream. He tried to explain yesterday—he was busy. One can only imagine how she justified not paying her vet bill to a room full of the veterinarian’s staff. Justified in her mind, that is, not a word was spoken.

They left early, and the room warmed up again. There were enough German Shepherds for us each to have one to mess with. We didn’t give the ungrateful pair another thought, except to be thankful that we don’t need to know them.

We all have behavior that we aren’t proud of, and in a small town people know about it. Our history is written in invisible ink on the backs of our parkas, and although people may continue to extend courtesy, warmth is another thing altogether.

Why we love winter

2007-11-21T17:34:00.000-08:00

Bright sunshine on the first snow cover. What seasonal light shifts take away, the glare of sunshine on snow gives back.

Puppies tunneling their noses through the snow. We forgot how much fun it could be to run puppy chins along the ground, or to roll gloriously in new snow. We forgot that puppies love to eat snow, to crunch ice. There’s a rush of puppy energy, even for the old dogs. They really love the snow, and watching them, so do we.

Monochrome. Funny, but after the riotous color of autumn foliage, gray and white soothe the senses.

Crunch and crash. The leave are gone, with their ability to deaden sound. Instead we have unaccustomed echoes, magnifying the crunch of sleet underfoot.

Surprise. Each winter has its own new topic: the door that freezes shut for the first time, the frisson of what if might be like to be trapped in the car for and-I-quote-several-hours. What supplies should be on hand for such an eventuality?

And finally, surprise of surprise, how agriculture clings well into winter. The fields across from my house are paisley’d brown as manure is spread across the season’s first snowfall. If you don’t think about what it is, or maybe only if you do, it is really quite beautiful.

Flashback

2007-11-15T03:40:00.000-08:00

To Google oneself is an interesting exercise. I have discovered that I have a broader and longer digital footprint than I expected, partly due to working for a few years in a sort of public job in a state that takes open meetings seriously. As a result of that experience, my name is frequently listed as “in attendance,” and sometimes my comments are quoted.

There are as yet only a few brief traces of my newest venture, and that probably won’t change. I live again in the world of private business, after all, so beyond the bio on my employer’s websites, there isn’t much exposure to the digital world.

What really surprised me is that work I did, almost off the cuff, in my early twenties had staying power. It was just a little paper, based on one of those Wait-just-a-cotton-pickin’-minute moments that come to all of us from time to time. A brief observation dating back to the time in my life when SAA meant Society of American Archivists instead of Stowe Area Association. A simple thought backed up by analysis of grant proposals, propped up by statistical support from my former husband.

The simple thought was this: If we really don’t know how long it takes us to organize collections of personal papers, how can we write grants that say we will finish this number of collections of this size? At some level, deeply and collectively, we must have some notion of how long it will take.

Further, in a world of limited resources, we are always making tradeoffs. Perhaps it would be better if we assessed those tradeoffs up front, rather than bending in the breeze of opinion.

It’s nice to look back and realize that the work we did in the MIT Archives in the late seventies and early eighties was creative work. Maybe even groundbreaking in its small way. Younger, more energetic archivists have moved the bar forward since that time, but I find it touching that they would have quoted me, that they have built a theory of archival processing if only in part on our work from that time.

A gift from the internet twenty—almost thirty—years after the fact. A flashback to work in an earlier time. A reminder that our creative brains work in pretty much the same way at twenty and at fifty. Thank you, Google.

Living in your head

2007-11-11T06:21:00.000-08:00

A long time ago now, I used to be married to a mathematician. In many ways, it was not an easy life, although it got easier when I came to understand that I was responsible for all things mundane, from electric bills to finding dinner. The man lived almost entirely in his head, except when he blew off steam by hiking or biking, as if the explosion of all muscular synapses would be the only thing that could counteract his habitual over-concentration in the brain.

To an extent, I also live in my head. I can see that many people don’t relate to my craving for things intellectual. But there are degrees of everything, and most of us are very, very different from mathematicians. Or physicists. Anyone who spends a lot of time in a world that is pure abstraction. Don’t feel sorry for them; their lives have a purity and clarity than many of us miss. And if they miss human connection, it is for the most part something they don’t know to miss, just as most of us don’t miss the joys of their lives.

This morning I saw the movie version of David Auburn’s Proof. Very nice. The guy gets mathematicians. The scruffiness, the obliviousness to anything other than mathematics, the fear of being past their prime before they are out of their twenties. The idea that work trumps all other demands. And whoever did wardrobe for the movie was a genius.

Catherine wore a variety of interesting and intricate knits, particularly when she was most herself. Cables and patterns in muted colors. When she feared she was crazy like her father, she tossed off her sweater, as he had shed his winter coat in the snow. When she was furthest from accepting herself, she wore denim. Knits are the perfect metaphor for the mathematical mind, turning linear thread into flat surface.

When I knit, I can get into a zone that is, at least in my imagination, something like a mathematician’s creative ecstasy. I’ll never know that particular passion, but I like to think I can discern its shape. And knitting or writing or painting the house, I do experience the joy of living in my head, a joy that is not available to everyone.

Painted

2007-11-08T15:37:00.001-08:00

It’s been two full painting seasons, but I think it is time to declare victory and move on. There is still one door to be painted black, and there is the porch floor and steps, and already some spots need to be touched up, filled in, and otherwise redone. Still, now when I drive up the hill, I see a house that looks pretty darn good. If I do say so myself, as I shouldn’t, as they say where I come from.

Lots of help was provided on the upper peaks, as I decided that not only was I afraid of being on a ladder that high, I was right to be afraid. And I was determined not to drift into a third year with my house in multiple colors, dressed as the Vermont equivalent of white trash.

The patches of red and gold on the trees—I can’t take credit for that painting job, nor for the dusting of white that speckled my deep green roof this morning. It’s winter now, and time to rejoice that my house is painted. I need not paint another drop until spring.

Once again, a new life

2007-11-07T03:29:00.000-08:00

No major changes on the horizon, not yet. Rather, I am just now feeling settled with the new job I started in April. Six months, that’s about typical.

Like most humans, I struggle with change, but maybe less than most. I love the excitement of newness, and I crave intellectual stimulation. I’m a person who lives mostly in my head. But the right dose of routine is a comfort, and routine only becomes routine with time.

I’ve adjusted to new colleagues, or they to me, probably a little of both. I’ve adjusted to driving an hour to work and an hour home, which has required a new commitment to staying on schedule to conserve my energy through the week. The dogs have adapted, too.

People ask me if I will move closer to work. Certainly it is too soon to make that decision. You don’t really know if a job is working out for at least a year, sometimes two. Optimistic creature that I am, I can convince myself that things are going fine, then be flattened by other people’s foolishness. I’m thinking of one past boss who ran away to South America, leaving his family in tatters and disrupting the office, too. This kind of thing can happen anytime, of course, not just in the first year of a new job.

I’m not sure I would move anyway. This will startle people who know me, because when it comes to living situations, I am a change junkie. I love to move. There is something wonderful about coming into a new space. I love to roll out my carpets and arrange my furniture, pick colors and find the best spots to sit for morning coffee or plant the herb garden.

But here, thanks to my last job, I have gotten to know people. I can catch up on small town gossip and actually know some of the topics. I can sit in the same spot each year at town meeting and chat with the people next to me, the same ones from last year. And there are people who take care of me: the guys who fixes my car and cuts my grass, my painter/carpenter who is married to Cassie’s breeder, my knitting teacher who is also my dental hygienist, my plow guy who is also the one I call on the rare occasions I need something dug up. At work in the “Big City,” they laugh at this, but here at home, I feel well supported.

At the end of the day, after that long drive, I feel I am somewhere. The herb garden is well established. Here is the view from the porch where I sit with morning coffee when the weather is fine. I still have interior walls to paint, enough to keep me entertained. And we know seven different places we can go for off-leash dog walks or play dates.

In this moment poised on the front edge of winter, it’s home.

Young love

2007-11-03T04:53:00.000-07:00

Cassie has a crush. She has always liked television, preferring animal shows, particularly shows about dogs. One recent evening, I was concentrating on my knitting when the new Jeep Liberty commercial came on (you can see it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8qVM6f9Ogs )

As my German Shepherd girl skidded into place in front of the television, I realized that she was loving this commercial, most particularly the wolf who drops into the jeep. Thanks to the miracle of DVR, I was able to replay it for her.

"Oh mom," she seemed to say, looking back at me over her left shoulder, "He's so fine."

Seasonably cool

2007-10-29T16:06:00.000-07:00

This morning I arose to a fifty-degree house, and by evening I had managed to forget what awaited me. Seasonably cool.

The furnace guy will be here tomorrow to find the problem, but meanwhile I am experiencing rapid re-entry into seasonable weather. We have had a warm fall, with plenty of sunny days to enjoy the foliage, but now only a few bright yellow leaves cling to the maples’ charcoal branches. It is stick season, the lesser known season that follows one of Vermont’s greatest tourism attractions.

Foliage, then stick season, winter, mud season, then summer. Three of the five are good for tourism, but we don’t talk much about stick season (depressing) or mud season (more depressing). And along with stick season comes the reminder of what cold feels like.

It’s not so bad when you have snow to look at, and winter sports to enjoy. It’s not so bad when you get used to it. It’s not so bad when you have been here long enough to be convinced that the cold won’t kill you, not if you are respectful. But when the furnace doesn’t kick on, when it is fifty degrees in the house, when you don’t remember where you put the long underwear last spring, then it is really, really cold.

At such a time, it is lovely to open a drawer and discover the pair of Icelandic wool socks that someone once knit for you. Fluffy fiber and kind consideration, what a nice gift to receive, even nicer to rediscover. And people wonder why I only want socks for Christmas.

Back at the keyboard

2007-10-27T09:36:00.001-07:00

A new keyboard. My personal laptop developed intermittent disorders of the type that are difficult and expensive to diagnose last spring. Since then it has been in and out of the hospital, and now it is on almost complete bed rest. It works for about five minutes, then must nap.

I am writing to you from a new (to me)repurposed desktop provided by the generosity of my employer. It had its issues, too, but an extra shot of memory and a new wireless card have made it a terrific solution for my home requirements. And I have a big new monitor appropropriate for fifty-something eyes.

I am so very proud of myself. I installed memory, installed the wireless card, and got all the appropriate settings working again. Now I get mail in a place I may review more than once a week, and I can easily blog again. The blogging outlook is optimistic, since I find that my two hours driving time get populated with lots of thoughts, many bloggable.

For now, I concur with my sad laptop. It's time for a nap.

Continuity

2007-09-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

Watching Matlock reruns last night, I think I spied a palm tree along a street that was supposed to be in Atlanta. I don't think there are palm trees in Atlanta, but maybe I have been away so long I have forgotten them. A continuity glitch?

I’ve been having some of those myself. My laptop failed in the spring, and I have only recently come to accept its death. A few more days, and maybe I will have the hand-me-down desktop (a nice gesture on my boss’s part) set up and operating. But it will probably take longer than that to rebuild e-mail address lists.

The work computer has a leviathan of a client relationship management system, so I am cautious about letting my friends and family drift into it. Correspondents who are accustomed to seeing me e-mail back in minutes now may not get a response for days. It’s all very different.

New jobs do this. So much of our social network is linked to where we work, even more to our electronic complex of phones and computer. Disconnect one strand, and big swatches of the fabric of daily life unravel. It’s almost as if our the electric impulses in our tiny brains merge with these other machines, at least for a time, till continuity breaks.

Mid-summer special

2007-07-22T18:02:00.000-07:00

There are days in July, sometimes in August as well, when it is brought back to us clearly why we live here. The days are so soft and alluring, it seems impossible to be anywhere else.

I am back to painting. I primed about a third of the back of the house, once again astonished at what a difference even that simple step makes. My friend Tom is working on the peaks, priming and painting the very high parts where I cannot bear to climb. And I am re-priming the ends, priming the back, painting all the parts that I did not get to last summer.

Today was one of those perfect days. A few hours painting, a few hours editing (work, doncha know), a few hours reading Howard Frank Mosher and wallowing in nostalgia of northern Vermont, all capped by dinner on the grill. Last night I made Bobby Flay’s gazpacho, and tonight I added his suggested grilled scallops. Yum!

Did you know that some dogs (Toby) like gazpacho? We will wait to see if gazpacho likes Toby. Miss Cassie held out for the grilled scallops.

Yesterday, we had a visit from one of Cassie’s younger sisters, Nellie. Cassie’s breeder Carol brought her over for a little socialization, puppy and human. Carol is still reeling from the sudden death of Hannah, grandmother to Cassie and mother to her little Nellie. It was one of those things, a sad and rare occurrence, that Hannah died while she was being spayed. Forty-eight puppies—that’s Hannah’s legacy, that and a lot of happy days with Carol and Tom ( yes, the painter).

Carol and Nellie (the puppy) came over looking for another place to be. Did this ever happen to you? That you just want to be somewhere else?

Nellie is just 28 pounds, grave and self-possessed. Right now, she is very dark and she looks a lot like Cassie’s mother, but at this age it is probably just for now. Cassie was very dark, too, at this age, and now she is a golden girl. Her light face shades down to a black nose, and the black fur on her back is shot through by creamy guard hairs . I have baby pictures on my computer, and I am always startled by how such a dark, dark puppy could have turned into such a golden girl.

Swinging and blogging

2007-06-17T05:37:00.000-07:00

Across the fields, the big haying machines have almost finished the first cut of the season. I love watching the waist-high grasses fall into long corduroy stripes. One morning this week we walked through a neighbor’s field just after hay had been cut. By evening, it had all been gathered up into gigantic cylinders. The next morning, the cylindrical bales were gone.

These magical machines appear a couple times a year on our hill, markers of the changing seasons. Every year that I am here, I learn more subtle signals of the seasons within seasons. Between first cut and second cut (August) is our true Vermont summer, if you ignore the standard wisecrack that there are really only two seasons here (winter and July, the month of darn poor sledding).

From May to June, for example, is the season of frenzied construction. Although the building season is soft this year, it is still impossible to get a carpenter, an electrician, or even a professional carpet cleaner if you call now. While consuming their stores of root vegetables over the winter, the locals also planned and plotted all their projects for the spring, then flung themselves into action as soon as snow and mud receded. Recent migrants compete for tradesmen by throwing money at the problem. The rest of us beg, plead, and vow to plan further ahead next time.

Having grown up down south where the change of seasons is more subtle, these crisp breaks from one micro-season to another intrigue me. I guess they interest my neighbors, too, since we seem to spend an amazing amount of time talking about the weather. And about microclimates. And about how various forms of human activity relate to the weather.

Today’s weather report is optimistic. This morning’s overcast skies are expected to give way to bright sunshine, with maybe an afternoon thunderstorm to follow. Right now the weather is perfect to sit on my porch swing in my flannel pajamas, a dog at my feet and my happy little fountain gurgling, watching the big machines get the hay in before the rain comes.

Fighting fire with fire

2007-05-17T16:07:00.001-07:00

This phrase has become so common in our day to day speech that we often forget the real and startling phenomenon—setting a line of fire to stop a fire. It’s a miraculous thing, and who would ever have thought it would work?

In this crazy world, I sometimes double dip my challenges and find to my surprise that both become easier to manage. For example, I used to read The Economist while riding the recumbent bike at the gym. I find The Economist rather obscure and dry, but it was a time when I needed to be well informed, so I read it. As for exercise of any time, well, I can get into a zone and I find its effects highly desirable, but it is not something I would choose as a daily activity if I were designing the world. Oddly enough, taken together, both weekly economic briefing and aerobic activity became more bearable.

The commute—the dreaded commute, so deeply dreaded because the last time I had a significant commute my whole world came unraveled—has had an unanticipated benefit. My house is more organized and cleaner than it has been in years. A friend looked at me in awe the other day, “How did you accomplish that?”

Because I was so worried about driving an hour to work and an hour back, and because I so very much want to create the best chances of success for this new work venture, I set about reorganizing my life a few months ago, really as soon as I knew I was making this change. I was ruthless. I must have exercise in the morning, so I bought a treadmill. I did test runs of morning routine, cutting out anything that slowed me down. I weeded my wardrobe and set up rigorous laundry routines. I bought a new coffeepot. I got rid of all manner of clutter, any little thing that might get in the way of success.

Then one day I looked up, and my house was orderly and clean, almost without effort.

There was a song I used to like that had a line “Funny how those moments come, it hits you, your life has changed…” We concentrate so hard on small steps that the new life we planned so carefully and worked so hard to achieve sometimes catches us by surprise in a moment of unanticipated grace.

Living with Helen Keller

2007-04-17T19:46:00.000-07:00

We went to see the puppies today. Hannah’s puppies, which would make them my Cassie’s full brothers and sisters, although in a different generation altogether. Genealogy is so challenging when you dwell in the world of dogs.

Then later today, someone said to me that living with adolescent puppies reminds her of what it must have been like to live with Helen Keller. You always feel that you are the verge of some communications break-through, that any minute the figurative light-bulb will go on over their all too literal fuzzy heads.

I laughed out loud, thinking back to a moment not so long ago, when I felt like I was Helen Keller. My beautiful puppy came to me, desperate to convey to me a concept, which I suddenly realized was a single word, her word, meant to say Mom-I-am-dying-to-go-outside-for-I-really-must-pee. A simple concept, surely, and how frustrating for her that I was so slow to learn it.

This, in a nutshell, is the difference between living with a German Shepherd or any other dog smarter than its nominal owner and living with retrievers. Retrievers are needy; German Shepherds are in charge. Seriously.

Oh, wow

2007-04-17T19:29:00.000-07:00

Oh, wow, but it is …well, interesting to be in the path of the worst nor’easter in decades.

There is a wind so strong that I can barely close the doors. The dogs are puzzled at a howling from somewhere far away. The front door—nobody ever uses the front door—is firmly shut by a wood bar across it, with barricade chair under the door knob to boot.

The door to the wood chute has blown free. There is a distinct airway from one end of the cellar to the other. And there is a stream in my cellar that I have not seen in my four years in the house. Although the drain system installed in the floor posits a need for same.

In the utility room, the vinyl floor has taken up residence in horror movie land. The whole floor billows and buckles, vinyl straining for the ceiling, but why? I am in awe, I have never seen a vinyl floor behave in such a way. Oh, wow.

Oh, wow. I have put to rest old commitments, made good on old promises, and moved on to a new chapter of my own life. I have changed jobs, and it only took me….well, something like twelve months in all. Last May, I was hoping for a new life; this April, late April, I have it.

As much as I enjoyed my four years in public service, I’m not really cut out for it. Maybe nobody is, not forever.

Weather worlds

2007-03-07T04:49:00.000-08:00

The commuting challenge continues. Here’s a new wrinkle: microclimates. I drive one hour to work. It takes 20 minutes from my home to Stowe, another 20 minutes to the interstate, and 20 minutes along the interstate and to the office.

The big surprise is that weather can be dramatically different from home to office. The day before yesterday I left a bit early to avoid the blinding snow squalls which were not only to hamper visibility but also to cause dangerous road conditions. For the first forty minutes there was almost no snow, but then at the edge of Stowe Village, it was as if I had dropped over the edge of the world into an arctic village. Snow, lots of it, blinding drivers and bringing traffic to a crawl. Twenty minutes expanded, I don’t even know by how much, so focused I was on the taillights ahead of me. At last, I could creep up my icy hill to welcoming dogs. Ahhhhh, home.

Yesterday, the reverse. The icy hill, always the first challenge, is plowed by two different towns, so conditions can be different between here and the dump half a mile away. Then messy roads in Morrisville, not so bad on the road to Stowe, and a terrible slick patch right in the middle of Stowe Village. I saw the car in front of me slide sideways, so I was prepared with a correction when my car did the same. Steady improvement in driving conditions eased my tense shoulders for the second leg of the journey, then the third was as if no snow storm had ever occurred.

In fact, there was only a dusting over there in the “banana belt,” warmed by Lake Champlain, as compared to another (yes, another!) six inches at my house. I suppose I must be more tolerant of the failure of area network news stations to accurately report what is going on at my house. It is not uncommon to see a storm with 2 inches of snow in Burlington, 6 inches at my house, and a foot in the Northeast Kingdom. They have area spotters who report on local accumulations, but it is not nearly so interesting to know after the fact how much snow came as it would be to know what was expected. Microclimates.

Still, I think I prefer living in the “snow belt” and commuting to the “banana belt,” rather then the reverse. If I am going to be stuck somewhere, I want it to be at home with dogs, food, and a big pile of wood. And it is comfort to know that if I make it off the icy hill, conditions will be better and better all the way to the office, with the exception of Stowe Village. For such a wealthy little town it is hard to understand how Village roads can be so much worse than the rest of my route, but I don’t spend a lot of energy trying to figure it out. Instead, I slow down, focus on the car in front of me, and try to breathe through Stowe.

At least a little, I can see now why people keep asking me if I will move closer to Burlington. Not yet, for sure, not until I have a better sense of what this new life will be like, and I really do love where I live. But I can see how the commute could wear. In a way, though, it is a lovely thing to have the world of work and the world of home be physically separated, whether by migration from microclimate to microclimate or—as I have had in past situations—by crossing water. The ability to draw that sharp line is, I believe, restorative to the spirit.

Plow guy says "Enough!"

2007-03-04T05:10:00.000-08:00

We officially have no more room for snow. My plow guy says so. And he has had enough of plowing, never mind the financial windfall. I am grateful for his good cheer and heavy equipment, even baked him loaf of bread in thanks.

For reference, note the cross bar on the gate is four feet off the long unseen ground. And no, that's not the pile from the roof--that's base.

How whiny we have become in three short weeks since we had way too little snow!

So much to see

2007-03-04T04:54:00.000-08:00

I have long held a theory that tolerance of commuting is carried on a chromosome. I can’t cite scientific evidence, but have observed that people who say that you can get used to long travel to work in fact can get used to it. Others, myself included, launch into new travel patterns with enthusiasm, but sputter and fail.

The last time I was faced with any significant travel to work was the fall of 1983. My husband and I lived in Princeton, and we each traveled long distances to work. I took the train north to Manhattan, and he took the train south to Philadelphia. Lots of people did it.

But the ninety minutes I traveled in the morning stretched to more like two hours in the evening, worse if I missed my usual train during budget season. On those occasions I spent an hour watching the rats run up and down the tracks, waiting for the next train. I was spending far too much of my day cooped up with stressed-out polyester-clad men and women, who streamed like cattle through the PATH train turnstiles then scrambled for seats on an overcrowded train. My husband fared no better. He hated his job, hated the commute even more that I did, if that were possible.

I tried to read, tried to sleep, tried to focus on the positive—that at least I wasn’t driving—but when I fell down the stairs of Penn Station that Christmas, I knew that commuting was not for me. By New Year’s, my marriage was over, and I was living in one room in Brooklyn, convinced that I was constitutionally incapable of commuting. For the next several years, I traveled one subway stop to work and back, then moved to Staten Island.

From my tumbledown Victorian on the north shore, I traveled almost exactly an hour, most of it on the Staten Island ferry. Now that was a great commute! Drink the coffee, read the paper, watch activity in New York harbor, nod to Lady Liberty, or just stare into the dawn—highly restorative. Come 1998, my job disappeared, and I had an offer in mid-town. An hour and a half away. I wasn’t sure I could take the commute, so I moved away.

Until now, I have avoided any commute longer than half an hour, especially driving. It’s not that I mind driving; often I enjoy it. What I mind is the enforced timetable gridlock, and I mind other drivers. Many people are at their worst when driving, although Vermont’s ration of road rage is smaller than more traveled places. Still, it’s a matter of probabilities. The more you are on the road, the more the probabilities are against you—probabilities that someone will make a dangerous, even fatal error. Since I have never held the illusion that I am any better than an average driver, and since my reaction times have deteriorated with age, I figure the probabilities are stacked against me.

All this weighs in against driving to work an hour each way, and yet I am now doing it. Opportunities in Vermont are not so rich as elsewhere, and I know myself well enough that once a job feels like a trap, it is time to do something different. So I am taking the calculated risk to commute, trading off the downside of much more time on the road against the certainty of new interests, new people, new horizons.

Having made that tradeoff, I find pleasant surprises in the drive. It offers quiet time to enjoy my own company. Gnarled thoughts disentangle themselves, as the Vermont landscape rolls by. Barns and fields, mountains and meadows. I haven’t seen a moose yet, although there are signs of moose crossing areas even on the interstate. I have even found some alternate routes to work, a startling achievement in a state with so few roads that there is generally only one route from A to B, if that. There is a lot to look at.

In another reminder that more time on the road brings new dangers, I was also—for the very first time in my life—stopped for speeding. Those of you who know me personally will not be surprised at this perfect record; I am the original Goody Two Shoes when it comes to authority. But yes, I was doing 37 mph in a 25 mph zone. Something I said must have struck a chord with the young Waterbury policeman—he let me go with only a verbal warning. Since then I have heard from others that Waterbury seems to have a revenue program, so perhaps I will trade that village for more scenic alternatives.

Were we expecting six inches more?

2007-03-04T04:30:00.000-08:00

Friday there was a storm, dropping six inches of wet snow, sleet and freezing rain on top of what was left of the Valentine’s Day blizzard. And there was plenty left of the three feet of snow from that storm, even though it seemed lighter than air, that Valentine fluff.

When Saturday dawned, the storm had passed, and all around looked like a Christmas card. Wet snow clung to trees and bushes. A sky of blue, gray, gold and peach reminded me that Vermont always shocks with color.

We had a peaceful Saturday, errands and dog romps in the snow, pausing to consider the enormous pile of snow that whomped down onto the path so carefully shoveled for fuel deliveries. The path that is now a mound of wet, packed ice and snow. Well. That will need attention on Sunday.

It’s a funny thing about snowstorms. You don’t hear them. Unlike rain or sleet, snow comes in silence. And yet, you come to awareness that something is going on. There’s a brightness that intrudes on sleep. And an absence of sound, a hint that even the usual sparse traffic up and down the hill is not there.

Open the back door, and the puppy bounds up onto the mound. It probably isn’t a good idea to have to walk uphill on the snow from the back door…what happens when it starts to melt? Will water flood direct into the house? And why is the puppy sinking into what looks like six inches of fresh powder?

Were we expecting this?

Another ping to the consciousness. Perhaps I will need to start listening to news on the weekend. It might have been a good idea to be aware that we were expecting more snow. Not an issue on a quiet Sunday morning with plenty of food and wood in the house, but as I start to plan for long morning commutes, perhaps I should be more prepared.

I check the weather on the computer. Snow showers, with a dusting to two inches. I crave the Weather Channel. How is it that a place as obsessed with weather as Vermont, a place where the morning news has the same forecast six times over, how can it be that there is not Weather Channel? I try the local television stations—no hint of another winter storm. And yet, outside my window is white, white, white. The kind of white that says accumulation is occurring.

Weather forecasters have gotten so proficient, and they warn us so often that we come to discount their dire predictions. In an information rich world, unexpected weather seems a betrayal. I see my neighbor out for her morning walk, and I shout out, “Were we expecting this?”

“Two or three inches,” she calls back. “Isn’t it grand?” The puppy concurs--it is a grand surprise.

Adaptation 2: Wormholes

2007-02-18T04:52:00.000-08:00

A growing German Shepherd brain is a wondrous thing. Cassandra loves figuring things out, and I love watching her figure things out.

Here's a picture of Miss Cassie, diving for snowchunks. For perspective, note that the cross bar on the gate is four feet off the ground.

Almost every day, the two dogs and I make a short trip down the hill to visit Acer and his family. Acer and Cassie are well matched in energy level, and twenty minutes of running and romping makes both puppies more pleasant indoor company.

We haven’t been able to visit Acer since the big snow last Wednesday. We simply cannot get there. We have tried a couple of times, but the snow is too deep. The snow is also too deep for our usual games; we have had to adapt, hence the puppy racetrack laid out in the herb garden.

Yesterday we drove out on some errands then stopped at Acer’s house on the way back up the hill. Such happy puppies! But they couldn’t navigate the large field where they usually run in circles—just too much snow. We tried throwing chunks of snow over the side of a steep drop from the driveway for the dogs to chase and chomp, a favorite game.

Both young dogs leapt over the edge in joy, then were surprised at how difficult it was to swim up the bank through deep snow. They made it, but it was a tough job. Another snow chunk, and they were off again, but this time Cassie turned after a few steps and came back up her first track. Smart girl!

Soon both dogs were diving off the bank, but returning up the same couple of wormholes through the snow that they had first created. Look Ma! We invented a new game! Play with us!

In the background, Toby wandered back and forth, looking for the perfect chunk of snow. Not for this old dog the wild games of puppies. Not too long for puppies either. They played hard, but we went home before anyone got tired enough to risk injury.

Puppy life is back in order. Now if I could just find my mailbox.

Adaptation

2007-02-17T07:02:00.000-08:00

Well, that didn’t work! It really is not possible to snowshoe in three foot deep powder snow. After fifty feet of sinking in as far as my knees, then trying to pull snowshoes out of the hole…well, I turned back toward the house.

Instead of backtracking, I made a big loop, which has now become the puppy’s racetrack. Old Toby was ready to come right back in, but Cassie had not had enough exercise for an eighteen-month-old German Shepherd girl. She romped around the racetrack while I watched from the door, then steadfastly sat at the highest point on her snowbank for several minutes, sniffing the breeze and keeping watch.

As for me, I switched from snowshoes to shovel and started on a path from the driveway to the back door, just in case the oil company needs to make a delivery. The snow is lovely, light powder, as easy to shovel as it is hard to walk through. Cassie likes the shovel almost as much as the vacuum cleaner. I stopped every few minutes to throw a lump of snow into a bank for her to chase—it is as funny as you might imagine to see a large dog swim in snow as high as she is tall.

Predictably, I took a lot of grief for closing our office for two days. Even in a blizzard that now ranks as the second worst in recorded history, Vermonters think one should keep on keeping on. I’m not from here, and I still stand in awe of the vagaries of weather. I still believe cold weather and snow and ice can kill me. So when the authorities declare a travel advisory and ask that Vermonters stay off the roads unless travel is absolutely necessary, I think they are speaking to me. It is not a good idea to acclimate to dangerous behavior, I say. If I take two days off every single time there is a storm that is the worst in decades, I don't think the Vermont economy will suffer unduly.

It is surprising to me how little we have heard of people’s experiences in the storm. Maybe people aren’t completely dug out yet. I am fortunate that my plow guy lives half a mile away and is in the excavating business. He spent all night out plowing driveways, then in the morning brought over the heavy equipment to dig me out. No rush, I wasn’t going anywhere until it was all over.

Tim's Wood

2007-02-15T17:59:00.001-08:00

Trombley Hill Road is my address, but few Trombleys live here now. Tim sold me the family farmhouse and two acres, then moved down the hill to a new house. But as time moved one, heating bills and healthcare for his wife took their toll, and Tim sold that house, too. Tim’s sister was the realtor, but she lives somewhere else, so now there is only the other sister who lives across the fields. It is sad to see families leave Vermont home places, but younger generations can’t handle the ongoing investment in dairy cows and maple groves.

Tim left me a stack of wood in the basement. The furnace burns either oil or wood, but for the first couple of years I lived here I was intimidated by the wood burning furnace. Then one cold weekend, I built a fire and I was warm for the first time that winter. Now I build fires every weekend, as much to save on the cost of heating oil as to be really, toasty warm. When you run on oil, you see, you set the thermostat at a barely tolerable level, but when you burn wood, you don’t have such fine control, and the house is filled with jagged, blessed warmth.

When Tim sold me the house, he left me a stack of wood in the cellar. He left me a living room with fourteen-inch maple floorboards, harvested and shaped from the maples on the family farm. I feel a connection to those trees that I, personally, have never known. I feel responsible to them.

It is cold this week. A record-breaking blizzard has dumped two and a half to three feet of snow on us, followed by howling winds and single digit temparatures. A good time to build a fire in the wood furnace. I started yesterday morning, feeding the fire every hour all day. This morning I was thrilled to see that the coals had lasted through the night, and all I had to do was add one more log to the coals.

Tim’s logs are big logs, far bigger than the ones that were delivered as firewood this fall. I have to believe that they came from the maple grove up the hill. These logs are rough cut, hunky, and well aged. Someone cut them years ago, thinking that they would keep someone warm. Probably someone named Trombley, but certainly someone who lived nearby, watching the maples through the seasons.

I am fortunate to be that someone.

Snow Day

2007-02-14T17:22:00.000-08:00

There are so many things I could be doing. Working, cleaning, laundry, baking, mending. I could be learning all about cascading style sheets. I could do my taxes and review my retirement plan. I could get on the treadmill for an extra mile or two.

But how often do we get a snow day in Vermont? Oh, we get days when it snows, even days when it snows a lot. But not days like this.

There is really a lot of snow out there. Television weatherpeople say it is around twenty-three inches. I say it is one German Shepherd puppy deep, about shoulder height.

The surprise on her face as she attempts to bound through the drifts is my treat for the day. She dives, coming up completely white, only her eyes dark and liquid with excitement. She still seeks out the usual spot to pee, but squatting completely swathed in powder is a new experience in her short life.

We try a short walk around the back yard, but the snow is thigh deep for me, so we don’t get far. I throw huge armfuls of snow at her, and she leaps and tries to bite it, then bounds in joyful, wide circles.

A day like this is a gift. It’s a day to watch as the snow covers the swing, the wheelbarrow, and the woodpile. It’s a day to call friends and hear stories of how it really is out there on the roads. It is a day to sit and knit, to play with puppies, to heat up soup from the freezer for lunch, to wave at the snow plow guy, and to do as little as possible. How often do we get a snow day?

Tomorrow we will start working our way back to daily routine. But today is a snow day.

Unseasonable spring

2007-01-07T12:28:00.000-08:00

I am changing jobs and attempting to achieve an orderly transition for myself and for both employers. It is toughest on the old employer, or at least I would like to think so, but I know that nobody is irreplaceable. Life will go on in my old office, sooner than anyone thinks possible, and my new life will blossom at the new place.

Spring is a good time for planting, as one friend said to me, so let us make use of this strange unseasonable season and plant the seeds of something new.

The rhythm of my day will change. Since I am a creature sensitive to daily and seasonal pattern, I must prepare for an earlier wake time, an hour’s drive, exposure to Vermont’s relatively mild version of road rage, urban energy replacing bucolic rural pastimes. Will I leave my dogs home alone for more hours at a stretch? Will my elderly Honda tolerate greater demands? For how long? Will I be able to find a carpool? Maybe not one that can handle the residue of muddy paws.

Will I take my lunch? What if I forget it? Do I have enough professional clothes? Can I find a dentist, a dry cleaner, a bank that is more convenient?

Will they like me? Will I make new friends? Will my old friends forget me? Will people I thought were my friends disappear? Almost certainly, they will like me. They already do, since I am working at each job part-time, and I can already tell that it is no just a honeymoon that makes me feel at home in the new place. And I know from past changes that some people will move out of my life, even some that I will be sorry to lose. That’s change for you.

But here’s another thing I know about change. Some people will turn out to have been better friends that I ever knew. Some people will pop up again in my new life, surprising me with connections stronger than I ever dreamed. This whimsy in the way the world reorders itself never fails to amuse.

That’s the part I can’t control, nor would I wish to. So for now I will put gas in my car on Sundays, do the laundry every weekend, put lunches in the freezer, renew my pedometer pledge, buy another suit or two, and go to bed by ten without fail. If I can start with a healthy and centered routine, I have the greatest chance to blossom in this new garden.

Playtime

2007-01-07T04:13:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I saw taciturn Vermonters crack and admit that it was kind of nice to have a day of sunshine and temperatures in the fifties right smack in the middle of what is supposed to be winter. Up till now it had been all gloom and despair. No winter sports, no tourists to prop up our local economy. We still feel these losses, but just for a day it was nice to kick back and enjoy a taste of spring.

Cassie had four playdates yesterday. We went to check on Lola and Amiga who had spent two nights with us while their mom was away in Boston, then stayed for a few minutes play. Driving back home, we looked in on Miss Elly, who is Cassie’s aunt and half-sister in one of those convoluted relationships that dogs can have. Acer’s dad called around lunchtime, looking for some playtime, and it was so much fun that we went back for another romp in late afternoon. In Cassie’s opinion, this is how all days should be.

I am conscious of needing to carve out playtime for myself. I am changing jobs, which for now means I have two sets of expectations and demands. The old world is still very much with me, and the new one asks for more attention every day. It’s a good kind of stress, and it is nice to be valued, but still. I need to find that part of each day that belongs only to me and the dogs. I need playtime.

Practically Perfect

2006-12-28T18:41:00.000-08:00

At last we have a little snow, maybe four inches here. More on the ski slopes, less in the warm valleys. I drove to Burlington this morning. Slippy roads close to home got better and better, giving the lie to dire traffic reports on the interstate.

The snow is the fluffy, shiny type flocking the trees at the Christmas farm. When I take the puppy out to the pen in the backyard, I glide over seqinned velvet. The puppy is wild. She can’t find her tennis balls, covered up by snow, so she digs until she finds a rock, a bowl, something, anything to toss into the air. What fun!

Life is back to what passes for normal here on the hilltop. That is, if magic be normal.

May you all have shining memories of 2006 and hopes of a spectacularly beautiful New Year.

Brown Christmas

2006-12-26T20:40:00.000-08:00

Today’s hopes for a major storm dissolved in rain. Less than half an inch of slush covers our brown Vermont hills, but we remain steadfast in our hopes for snow.

We really like the stuff. It is good for sliding and skiing and snowshoeing. Handy for insulation once it builds up above the level of interior floors. It covers up all things unsightly, indeed it covers everything and makes everything beautiful. We miss it.

Watch old reruns of White Christmas and think of us, wishing we had white stuff with which to entertain the few tourists who have come despite internet searches. Think of the hotels and the restaurants. Think of the grocery stores and the auto shops. If the tourists don’t come, they don’t eat, and their cars don’t run off the road. Think, too, of the snowmobile shops. If the snow stays away too long, it’s hardly worth buying the annual license.

Vermont’s economy needs snow. Our aesthetic sense of what makes winter right…that needs snow, too. We choose to be cold, believe it or not. In choosing four seasons, snow is not just part of the deal, it is a blessing.

Think of us and think snow.

Making room for Christmas

2006-12-24T06:55:00.000-08:00

I remember vividly the year that Christmas changed for me. For the first time, the shining array of toys and presents became just a pile of stuff. For the first time, I heard greedy little snorts mixed in with shouts of delight, and not only from my younger siblings. For the first time, I was aware that the gift was often not nearly enough. Rather, there were criticism and imagined slights. My parents did their best to teach how to give and how to receive, but we—and they—remain human.

That year was also the first year that I crept into the living room before sunrise to find the quiet space that has come to mean Christmas to me. I sat on the sofa, looked at the tree lights, and read a little. I did take a look at the glittering pile of booty, but it didn’t enthrall me as in previous years. I was ten.

Since that time, I have learned the lesson that all adults learn—that things don’t always turn out as expected.

If you had asked me when I was ten what Christmas would look like when I was fifty-two, I would certainly have expected to be bustling in the kitchen, wrapping in the attic and doing all the things that people with children do at this time of year. When I married at nineteen, my outlook would have been more hazy, since by then my husband and I had decided not to have children. By thirty, I was in the middle of a divorce and completely confused about how to predict my future. We were happily married for seven years, then unhappily married for four. That kind of experience burns away any illusion that we can predict the future.

I never, ever expected to be divorced. The last Christmas we spent together was miserable. My husband gave me luggage. How’s that for a message? By New Year’s I was packed and gone. But even that Christmas was really Christmas. Christmas strips away illusion, leaving only the truth of the moment. That year, the truth was that we needed to make a change. Knowing the truth may be uncomfortable, but it is always a gift.

I don’t think I have ever had a bad Christmas. Maybe there were one or two when I didn’t make plans to see anyone and regretted it—I honestly don’t remember. Even when I have no plans, I take a walk with the dogs, look at all the lights, and find that place of stillness that means Christmas to me. By this stage of life, I know that I have to make time to allow Christmas to happen. Not too much travel, no overcrowded schedule, keeping the flurry of baking and decorating and shopping to a minimum. It’s not really important to have seven kinds of cookies, but creating that still space—that is the advent preparation that allows Christmas to enter into our hearts.

Here’s what I predict for this year’s Christmas. For Christmas Eve, I will cook a nice meal…or maybe go out for Chinese. I might drive into Burlington to church…or not. I will start the pumpkin and pecan pies for tomorrow’s dinner, and maybe the chocolate chip cookies and brownies requested by the two 22-year-old Brazilian men visiting my friend. Tomorrow, I will join them all for Christmas dinner. We are expecting six people and seven dogs. And sometime in the late night or the early morning, in the kitchen or sitting in front of the fire, at some completely unexpected moment, Christmas will come.

Through the woods

2006-11-24T17:35:00.000-08:00

We didn’t travel far for our Thanksgiving celebration, just down the hill through the maple grove to our new neighbors. We took pie and champagne, celebrating an outstanding sunset and a couple of puppy romps.

My single friends understand what some others don’t, that holidays can be wonderful even when you don’t travel far from home, maybe especially when you don’t travel far. The heightened bustle of the airport, the holiday higgledy-piggledy stop and go of the freeway are things I prefer to avoid. Instead, I have a series of outstanding home improvement projects that have taken place on holidays.

In my Staten Island house, there was the Easter wallpaper in the bathroom and the Thansgiving diagonal grid stained on the kitchen floor. Painting projects are holiday favorites—they make such an impact for so little effort. Usually the projects are ones that have been long planned and prepared, with all or most of the materials on hand.

Today I took advantage of a beautiful, sunny November day to install wire mesh between porch wall and ground, all in the effort to reduce the wildlife taking refuge in my cellar. I had been thinking about it for awhile, particularly since the unfortunate incident of the rats chewing holds in the dishwasher supply and drain lines last spring. There used to be lattice, but that clearly was not working.

Bright and early, I was off to the hardware store for hardware cloth, staples, and a bit of molding. It worked! I dug a trench along the porch edge, staples the hardware cloth in place and covered the edge with dirt and gravel. Tomorrow if we have a repeat of this beautiful weather, I will cover the whole structure with lattice again.

Fewer small animals in the cellar—there’s something to be thankful for.

What have you been doing?

2006-11-19T15:49:00.000-08:00

Well, nothing much. It has been a long summer and fall of moving and moving again. Painting and taking dogs for swims, but those cheery summer projects are long past now.

No, I didn't finish as much of the house painting as I hoped, but then again it was a lot of good work. I will spend the winter looking at a patchwork house, the gable ends still staring white in an otherwise muted color scheme. Very Vermont in its way.

The time for swimming is also past. That first day in August when the temperature dropped, however unnoticed by us humans, was the day that Miss Cassandra let me know that she had no further intention of getting wet. Not this year, no way.

Instead she romping with young Acer, the golden retriever mix who moved in next door. Acer is named for the genus of maple trees, beloved by his owners. She goes for play dates with Lola and Amiga and sometimes with Ellie. Some kind of relative (aunt, half sister, or second cousin--we are not really sure), Ellie and Cassie are well matched. Down to the pond and around, then back up to laugh at slow, stolid humans, they are twin furry streaks. They both love Toby, too, but at ten he takes the run a bit more deliberately.

Tonight we are expecting snow, so it will be time to hunker down, draw in as the days shorten. Feels just like November. The best thing about November is knowing that there is only one more month of days getting shorter, one more month until we can have a little more light to accompany snowshoeing ventures with the dogs.

So tired

2006-09-15T05:03:00.000-07:00

My office moved this week, or more accurately, I moved the office this week. I did have the help of good movers, though my assistant chose a bad time to flake out completely. She is now done, as they say in Vermont. I sent her off with her last paycheck and words of cheer, nary a syllable chastising her for leaving me to do all the packing alone. Surely there must be some good rationale for such behavior from a person that I had come to trust, but I do not assume the right to intrude on her privacy once she has refused to answer questions.

Oh well. We have all been there. So tired and fed up with a job that we phone it in for days or weeks or longer. So weary that we tread on bonds of long association, heedlessly snapping them in our rush to get on to the next thing.

Moving from one town to another, I have also spent three evenings in meetings in the hope that I can reassure constituents that they will enjoy uninterrupted, solicitous attention to their needs. My tolerance for evening meetings is about one per week, but making change successfully requires heavy doses of reassurance.

I enjoy moving, actually. I like walking into a new space and seeing possibility, then making it happen. But there is no denying how much work it is, how draining of resources physical, mental and emotional. Yesterday I started to feel it. The kind of tired that when you bend down to plug in a printer, you just aren’t sure you have the energy to stand up again. The kind of tired that makes the carpet look like a good place to lie down for a quick nap. The kind of tired that makes you start to make silly mistakes, that makes you think seriously about having somebody come pick you up from work and take you home for a long soak, a long sleep, returning to our animal nature its due.

So tired.

Clicker training

2006-08-26T05:54:00.000-07:00

Bright puppy Cassandra has figured out that many of the best things in life are immediately preceded by the click-click-click of the car's turn signal. Now that sound is associated in her furry head with arrival at a place to run or swim, even return home. She now loudly signals her approval with "uunh...uunh...UUNH...woowoo."

We have been enjoying outdoor Vermont this summer with walks and swims and road trips to new places to walk and swim. It's fun to watch Cassie learn. She prefers wide, deep brooks to rocky spills with deep pools. She likes to watch canoes and kayaks come off the lake. Task-driven, she likes to go after sticks, although retrieval is not her strong suit.

Toby meanwhile finds rocks and moves them. Sometimes he makes pyramids, sometimes he takes a rock across the brook and buries it in a new place. I think back to college geology class lectures about all the ways that rocks and soil get transferred from place to place and I wonder if they thought about Toby.

Vacances de blog

2006-08-23T04:18:00.000-07:00

It has been a summer not for blogging. Too much to see and do, too many new places to swim, too much to paint. We are still in this vacation mode, still feeling as if the summer will last forever.

But the trees have begun to turn. And the first frost warnings have sounded for the coldest hollows. Time to get the wood in.

The painting continues, although all other house and garden work has been put on hold. I don’t care if I ever cut the grass again—well, maybe once before frost—but I am determined to finish my painting project.

It’s gratifying to hear comments from friends and neighbors.

From the wife of a fellow Rotarian: “I am following your progress with interest. It looks like it is going well.” -- “Oh, please keep sending those positive thoughts every time you drive by.” –“Should I honk?” –“Yes! No, wait, perhaps not while I am on that tall ladder.”

From the guy in the hardware store who lives up the road in an impossibly well kept house: “I like the color. It will really ground that house. Good choice!”

From a colleague who lives even further up the road: “Did you fall off the ladder?”—“No, I am moving to the next section of wall, and it is hard for me to move that big plank, so I left it tilting from one ladder while I move the other around to the far side.”—“Oh, good, I was worried.”--"Thanks for watching and worrying."

And from everyone who sees hands or hair or even dogs, “What are you painting? Are the dogs helping?”

Why yes, they are. Toby sports a racing stripe from a porch windowsill, Cassie has frosted the tips of her ears.

Beaver beaver

2006-08-05T19:36:00.000-07:00

Beaver beaver
Build your dam
We’re the best team in the land
Beaver beaver
Bite and chew
We expect a lot of you!

(Old MIT fight song)

Our relaxation regimen these days consists of two dog swims a day, morning and evening. Yesterday we did a road trip to some swimming holes further away; today it was nearby Green River Reservoir. We drove all the way to the end of the road, then hiked for awhile, passing beaver ponds and following moose tracks.

A beaver pond is a remarkable achievement. It is a little spooky to be walking on a trail with a pond to your left two feet higher than the trail. You can see why the MIT boys at the turn of the century referred to the beaver as “nature’s engineer.”

One of my Vermont books says that seeing a beaver is unlikely, although you might see a nose in the center of a v-shaped ripple. And you very well might hear the sharp slap of broad tail as a warning. We heard two loud splashes today at the beaver pond, and Cassie made a swim for the source, but turned back. Whether it was my command or her native caution, I don’t know.

We love Vermont, but would happily forego close, personal encounters with beavers or with moose. We would just as happily avoid any repeat of Toby’s attempt to capture a woodchuck. This evening we found big goofy dogs at the Reservoir—that’s more our speed.

Water baby

2006-07-30T14:49:00.000-07:00

So much younger than her brothers under the skin, puppy Cassandra is almost an only child. I am very conscious of what I want her life to be like, and how her life enhances mine. But after knowing many German Shepherds in my life, I am startled that this one unique and particular girl likes to swim.

I now find myself slowing down at water crossings, looking for likely spots for a puppy to have a refreshing dip. The many possibilities are keeping us both occupied in this otherwise dreary summer. This hopeful exploration is one of the things I need from Cassie, and she needs from me the results: places to go where dogs can splash in contentment, maybe swim alongside a canoe or kayak for a few minutes before the otter imitation fails.

Cassie needs from me exercise (channel the Dog Whisperer chanting Exercise-Discipline-Affection), as I need all three from my interaction with her. It is a happy bond that gets us both out to revel into the Vermont sunshine.

On this day when the puppy turned one year old, we skipped a day of painting and went on a field trip to Dog Mountain. Three ponds! Trails for hiking, Stephen Huneck’s dog art, and the Dog Chapel. I took a step into the Dog Chapel, but could not stay, so overwhelmed the small space was with grief and remembrance.

Toby and Cassie had the right response, I think. They took a brief stroll around, sniffed everything and headed right back out into the sunshine. There was a golden retriever to chase, and something smelly that required a roll in the wildflowers with all eight legs in the air.

Dogs are masters of the moment.

O guru of paint

2006-07-26T16:16:00.000-07:00

O guru of paint, I am most grateful for the loan of your ladders and the plank that spans from one to another. I am learning to scrape from that plank, learning to ignore the bounce.

O guru of paint, I used to wonder how I would recognize boards that need to be replaced. Particularly after you told me that with plenty of caulk and spackle, my aged clapboards would last “as long as you want them to.” But today as my scraper plunged deep into what looked like a board, dislodging black mold and green gunk, I could see that even I do indeed know them when I see them. That board needs replacing, as does the one with a big hole full of dry rot, covered over by a thin veneer of masonite, now a red flad signaling all kinds of things that should never have been hidden thus. It is good the former owner has moved away, far away, as I unearth these hidden treasures.

O guru of paint, I thank you for guidance. Is it lead? Am I poisoning myself? “Well, it probably is. Just don’t sand much. Scrape and keep moving.”

O guru of paint, I thank you for power washing. What a lot of old paint that removes! I honestly did not expect so much.

O guru, that tall gable above the porch roof. While I understand your concept of a plank on the roof line, another two by four upright and a couple of screws, I must confess that I do not yet believe. Perhaps another few days bouncing on the scaffold, a day or two caulking from a stable position on the porch roof, and I will be ready to call you for further guidance as I reach for the upper peak.

It’s a step by step process, painting a house, and some of it has to do with building one’s nerve, or remembering the nerve one once had. I used to paint from tall ladders, not happily it is true, but step by step I will do what I can, then call for help.

Water rushes in

2006-06-02T18:43:00.000-07:00

When you turn fifty, you become eligible for all kinds of interesting extracurricular activities, including the first round colonoscopy. This is not a fun procedure, although I hasten to add, it is life-saving, and it is not completely unbearable. The day and night before the procedure are trying enough, thanks to a dose that chemically reverses the normal digestion process. That’s how my nurse described it to me. Instead of taking water out of the colon, water rushes in, washing away everything in its path.

I handled the pre-procedure steps well enough, but apparently I did not handle the procedure itself very well, since they gave me double Demerol. Still, eventually I woke up enough to be driven home to snooze the afternoon away.

But no.

Late afternoon, I received an emergency call from the building where my office is located. The afternoon thunderstorms had overtaxed something—whether roof or drainage system is still unclear—but water was rushing into our offices through light fixtures or any tiny gap in the ceilings. Thanks be to the colleagues next door who pulled our computers out before they were swamped!

Two days later, we are on the streets looking for alternative accommodations, but determined not to return to the still wet, increasingly moldy offices that we once inhabited. There are several alternatives, and we hope to have a new home soon.

In the grand scheme of things, it is not a major crisis, but gratitude springs anew, both for the help we have received this week and for the overwhelming good fortune that we normally enjoy. Water was less than an inch deep in our offices—how much worse was it for this year’s hurricane victims?

Making hay while the sun shines

2006-05-30T05:03:00.000-07:00

The wettest May since eighteen-ninety-something relented with the gift of a sunny weekend, so we all headed out to cut the knee high grass. Hard work! Doubly hard on a holiday weekend, when we all feel we ought to be remembering or barbecuing or both.

When the grass is this tall and lush, it is slow going—take two steps and back up, stop and let the blades clear. Do a chunk and take a break. Normally it takes me three sessions to cut my lawn, trisected into manageable parcels. This time I did the toughest parts first—six hours so far—and I am about two thirds done. Maybe this afternoon...if the sun is still shining...I will finish the remaining hard patch in the back and the easy one in the front. Then I can plan to do everything over again this weekend and be back to summer norms.

I am toying with dramatically decreasing the size of my garden this year, probably just putting half or more of it into green manure. With the aid of the grass, the garden keeps me tied to home all summer long. I’m thinking I may get out more this summer. See a little more of beautiful Vermont.

Besides, the mice ate big holes in my hammock.

Obsession

2006-05-27T05:38:00.000-07:00

When I started picking a color for the upstairs bedrooms, I let myself in for gentle joshing at the paint store as I came back again and again for more of those little sample jars. I am the target market for that product. At four bucks a pop, I can afford to try colors over and over again, until I get exactly the right one. Upstairs, I went through seven samples before picking Coastal Fog—the first color I started with, but I don’t care because now I am confident that it is perfect. Now, I am attempting to pick exterior colors. Oh, my.

I live in a classic Vermont farmhouse, which is to say it is a Greek Revival clapboard covered house with a corrugated metal roof. It is currently painted white, and until I ripped them off in a fit of good taste, it had black plastic shutters. I can’t afford to be a preservation perfectionist, but I do draw the line at plastic, non-functional shutters.

I started with the view that it would be nice to have some contrast in the paint scheme to accent the architectural details which now disappear in a blur of white. Historical research is not particularly helpful, since it reveals the following contradictory stances:

1. All Greek Revival houses were always painted white, which was meant to represent pure cut white marble.

2. It is a myth that all Greek Revival houses were painted white—other appropriate colors are light yellow, tan, or gray.

3. Domestic buildings of the period were not generally painted, or if they were, they were painted red or ochre because those paints were the least expensive. Only very wealthy people could afford white paint.

4. Buildings that were heavily used and esteemed (churches and meeting houses) were usually painted in polychrome schemes that we would now find excessively bright.

Well, huh. I took a side trip into investigating deeper colors—maybe a nice charcoal gray—then decided that I don’t want to emphasize all the architectural elements of my house. I particularly don’t want to emphasize the slight bow in the roofline, with corresponding swag in the back wall, which I fear a stark contrasting paint scheme might betray. It was nice to think that a darker color might deter my ongoing infestation of ladybugs, which are said to prefer light colored houses.

I have some other constraints—the rather bright green roof and the white replacement windows don’t fit with every color combination, but I won’t bore you with the details of how I have gotten to one possible conclusion: Clarksville Gray with Lancaster White trim. New London Burgundy doors. I wanted a nice grassy green for the doors, but that green roof...no. I will have the pale blue porch ceiling of my dreams.

I accept the rightness of obsession with colors. These choices stay with us for a long time and have such an impact on how we experience surroundings.

Being boring

2006-05-27T05:34:00.000-07:00

Shy people have skills, just not the skills of the extroverted. For example, we know how to fade into the background. We can do it at will.

I remember using this technique on several boyfriends or would-be boyfriends. If they ceased to amuse, I did not need to resort to confrontation or heavy discussion. I just became dull to them, emphasizing the parts of myself that they were unlikely to care for—braininess, attention to detail, rule-following, or a tendency to disappear into books for days at a time. Boring! And soon they would be gone, leaving me to sigh in relief.

Let me emphasize this is not a strategy for long-term friendships which deserve more openness and honesty. When a friendship deserves saving, it is worth risking by exploring what has gone wrong. No, this is a strategy for the short term acquaintance who has turned out to be not quite as interesting as on first encounter.

So I have been boring lately, not so much as a strategy as because I have been busy with house painting estimates and garden planning (is it possible I might take a year off?) and a couple of major projects at work and dog obedience classes (which as everyone knows are really about training the human in the partnership). But partly I have been boring because I was writing for two blogs, Vermont Diary and a group effort that increasingly weighed me down. I felt obligated to write for both, so ended up writing for neither. There is no reason to go into detail as to why I did not enjoy the group blog, but I didn’t. And now that I have been adequately boring, the group blog has thrown me out. All I can say from my cozy briarpatch is “Woo Hoo! Let’s hear it for being boring!”

This experience has reminded me of that old chestnut, “Not to decide is to decide.” And thinking of all those old boyfriends has reminded me that not to play along can indeed be a strategy. Maybe I’m not as socially unskilled as I tend to think. Hmmm.

Close your eyes and jump

2006-05-21T05:04:00.000-07:00

I’m getting stressed about a major event next week, no make that this week. (Feel the stress increase with that tiny realization.)

Still, I have always been good in crises, whether they arise unexpectedly or are planned. It’s probably something about how I process adrenaline, although there are other aspects of life where that physical function does not serve my best interests. It is certainly something about how I plan. In detail. Obsessively.

After all the plans are laid out, there is—time permitting—a period of secondguessing, re-thinking, burrowing down into even more detail. This is the period when I wake up in the middle of the night with visions of disaster. (How will we hang the banner? Will all the participants show up? Will we all behave ourselves?)

There are so many ways we small humans struggle against physical limits of time and space. But here’s one for what I am grateful, that time marches forward to a tipping point, the blessed moment when all the planning has to be declared finished because it is time to perform. There are still problems to be solved, dance steps to re-choreograph on the fly, but the time for anxious re-thinking is past.

Showtime!

Who’s training who?

2006-05-19T17:14:00.000-07:00

We have been doing our homework for dog obedience class, including exercises on attention, walking on a long line (well, maybe we will do this one when the deluge abates), and sit and stay. With roast beef rewards, my two dogs both want to participate.

Cassie is a little shy today, so she retreats to the dining room, and I work with Toby on “stay.” I have him sit, then I put a palm toward his forward and say “Stay!” To my amusement, he slides down into a prone position and executes a perfect stay.

I try it again: sit and “Stay!” Same result. Almost furtively, he slides down. He looks at me apologetically, and he stays. Perfect.

Again and again, the same result. The stay is flawless, but he will not stay in a sitting position, only prone.

Ha! Now I have it.

This is how he was taught to stay when he went to obedience class with my mother in….are you ready?.....in 1998. Eight years ago. A command never practiced, but Toby remembers. He knows “Stay” follows “Down.” And he is mildly embarrassed that I do not know something so simple.

Who’s training who?

First day of school

2006-05-19T05:46:00.000-07:00

If you apply the traditional multiple of seven, nine-month-old Cassie is now ready for kindergarten, so we went. There were ten or eleven other dogs in class, along with their humans. Big ones, little ones, pushy ones, shy ones. About half were puppies around Cassie’s age.

After the rains we have had, we were fortunate to have a relatively deluge-free evening. We doused ourselves with the insect repellent thoughtfully provided by the instructor and scoped out a portion of the ball field that was almost free of puddles.

We hung out between Odie, a black-tipped German Shepherd who at six months is bigger and heavier than Cassie, and Tad, a six-month old field Golden Retriever.

Oh, my! That Cassie is so smart! She excelled on looking at me when I call her name, and because she was clearly so good at “sit,” she was selected to demonstrate the first steps of learning “stay.” (The dachshund demonstrated "sit," not too effective as a demonstration given short legs and long grass.)

She is, however, willful, and we amused our classmates with the exercise of walking (dog on a long line) randomly in different directions. This is supposed to teach the dog to pay attention to where the human is going. We don’t have this down at all, not at all. But it was amusing for others to see what happened when I repeatedly went the opposite direction from a seventy-pound German Shepherd girl.

I thought I lavished attention on my dog, but ninety minutes of undivided attention had her enthralled. Did I really need to be reminded how much German Shepherds love to work? How much they crave a job to do? Apparently I did.

Cassie loved school. Younger puppies Tad and Odie collapsed for naps when they got home, but Cassie was calm and relaxed, then ready to try again the following day.

I’m trying to teach her the word “school,” as well as a word my old dogs understand and appreciate: “tomorrow.” In our little language, “tomorrow” means “tomorrow we will do something fun, okay?” It’s one of those words I taught my dogs by accident, kind of like “Max-don’t-lick-that-baby!” You wouldn’t think dogs would be able to anticipate pleasure “tomorrow,” but it seems to work for us.

Why are you here?

2006-05-19T05:08:00.000-07:00

I’ve been going through a flurry of routine medical checkups—physical, mammogram, and pap test—and I find that I am not equipped to deal with the medical establishment. I don’t understand their rules. I don’t understand their approach—in fact I am offended when the first question is “Why are you here?”

“I’m here for a physical,” I replied.

“No, you’re not,” countered the nurse. “You only have a fifteen minute appointment.”

Not even testy yet, I said I was quite certain that I had scheduled a physical, and eventually—after reading me far too much of another Karen’s chart—the nurse realized that not only was I there for the wrong reason, but I was the wrong person altogether. I was directed to go back out to the waiting room and fix that.

Uh?

After I was called back for a second look on the mammogram, another nurse greeted me—without actually looking at me—with “Why are you here?”

“Because you called me back. Surely that is in your records.” By now I was getting testy.

Yesterday the routine pap test. “Why are you here? Did you want a pap test or a full physical?”

“Well, your office called me to say it was time for a routine pap test, and that’s what we scheduled, so I guess that’s why I am here.”

Since when do physicians attempt to up-sell? And if you’re going to pursue that revenue enhancement strategy, you might want to do it on the phone at appointment time, not when I have blocked time for a simple pap test. Not that I wanted a physical.

“Have you ever had a negative pap test? Are you still having periods?”

“Gosh, I think that information must be in my file, since I have been coming here for four years.”

This is the second time I have had this experience with the same nurse. I would change doctors, but it appears that it is standard practice in my town to greet a patient not with “Good afternoon, Karen. I see you are here for your test. I’ve taken a look at your file and this seems to be routine. Do you have any questions?” but with an abrupt and disorganized “Why are you here?”

Speaking as only one patient who—thank heaven!—does not see a lot of the medical community, I find this greeting disrespectful.

Perhaps there is something about the medical community that I do not understand. Perhaps I am oversensitive—well, actually, I am. Perhaps it is that I spend a lot of time trying to create an environment of acceptance for the clients who walk into my office for business advice. I just know I would never use such a blunt greeting. People looking for help with their businesses are a little vulnerable, and they need to be encouraged that it is okay to ask for help and that help will be forthcoming. Are patients that different?

Demolition

2006-05-16T04:28:00.000-07:00

As a hobby, it has a revolutionary ring.

“What are your hobbies?”

“I’m really into demolition.”

As stress reliever, there are few better ways to refocus the mind from grant-writing and job descriptions, budgets and the details of annual gatherings.

As instrument of history, the crowbar is a surgical tool, prying away layers of cheap building materials, dirt and accumulated crud to reveal the beautiful bones of old houses—instant gratification in which we indulge at our peril. Some of that admittedly substandard material provides insulation—important not to remove more on a sunny summer day than can be replaced by the time the snow flies.

Sometimes the payoff is a startling discovery. When I ripped up carpet from my living room, I found fourteen-inch maple boards. Not exactly pristine condition, but I far prefer their scarred and pitted warmth to cheap carpet and accumulated dog hair. This weekend, the carpet in one upstairs bedroom came up. While not as dramatic, the payoff was still sweet: a painted floor in reasonably good condition. A new coat of paint, and it will be much easier to sweep away the piles of ladybugs. (Can you have too many ladybugs? Oh, yes.)

One more bedroom and a hallway to go. It is such a pleasure to watch the house become mine, project by project. Every owner of an old house dreams, I suppose, of having the money to do it all at once, but I’m not sure we would make wise decisions if we had all that money to spend in a single swoop. And we wouldn’t have any demolition projects left to brighten rainy weekends.

The outright destructive steps—swinging hammer or crowbar—are relatively short, satisfying as they are. Demolition is a process of removing material layer by layer. It requires a fine touch, attention to detail, and always more hauling of debris than you imagined possible. It takes patience. It takes an eye to see where to stop. It takes listening for the house to tell you when you have peeled back to its essentials.

Demolition is more than a hobby, more than raw escape. Demolition is a metaphor.

Love suddenly

2006-05-02T17:44:00.000-07:00

Bang bang bang bang bang!

In rural Vermont, it is a shock to hear someone banging on the door at 8:30 in the evening.

“I didn’t know what to do,” said the nice man in the baseball cap. “There is this big black dog in the middle of the road, looking like a deer in the headlights.”

Oh. I see her, and I let out the universal puppy call. “Puppy, puppy, puppy, puppy-eeeee”

And the dog head back down the side road along my property.

“Ah, uh, okay,” says the nice man, who then leaves me to watch for the dog.

Sure enough, I get into the car and head down the side road. There’s the dog, but when I stop, it moves on. I toss my cookies in the dog’s directions—the dog biscuits in my sweater pocket—but no joy. The dog is having none of this. I give up, and turn my car back toward home when the owner meets me on the way.
“Her name is Love,” he says, “I guess she must have followed my truck.”

They say that great new jobs and wonderful love does not come to find you in the confines of your home. Today I wonder.

Faithfulness rewarded

2006-04-15T15:00:00.000-07:00

It probably was not lost to Toby. He probably knew right where he put it sometime last summer on a day when I didn't manage to intercept his trip outside with my boot. By the time the snow came, I gave up hope and replaced them.

Somewhere in my psyche there must have been a grain of faith because I didn't discard the remaining boot, the left boot, the one on the right in the photo.

Today the right boot came back. I walked around the house, and there it was between house and dog pen, as if it had just been brought outdoors in the mouth of a boot and rock loving dog.

It is not in bad shape, all things considered. It doesn't appear to be much worse for spending the winter outside under snow--a little algae, a little damp, but it does not seem to have been buried.

There must be a moral here somewhere, but for now I am just enjoying the surprise.

Beautiful girl

2006-04-13T14:17:00.000-07:00

Ah, Oceans, it does not take much to get me to post pretty puppy pix. How are your girls (Cassie's sisters)?

Gal pals

2006-04-09T06:11:00.000-07:00

Friday I got a message that the puppy was loose, so I came tearing up the hill. I found Miss Cassandra sitting regally at the top of the driveway, all her chest fur fluffed out. Chin level, she panned left and right and back again, scanning for likely intruders. Every molecule of her eight-month-old body screamed, “I’m in charge here.”

It’s a German Shepherd thing.

Digging under the gate is not so much a German Shepherd thing. Cassie’s accomplice was her best gal pal, Lola, who is an escape artist of retriever-ish extraction. Leap tall fences at a single bound—that’s Lola, formerly Sweet Pea, one of the puppies born at my house last year—although my six-foot dog fence foiled even her remarkable jumping capabilities. Undeterred, they went under.

It can be daunting having a smart dog, but I take comfort that I am smarter, sneakier and have the only set of car keys. I put concrete blocks in the holes they worked so hard to dig, and I don’t leave these two alone for long.

But, oh! it is a delight to watch them romp! They take turns rolling each other over, biting at legs, tail and snout. They part covered in doggy drool, but neither blood nor toothmarks appear. The noise Cass makes is remarkable, somewhere between a whine and a roar, something like a low flying jet both in decibels and in how it grates on human ears. I never knew a puppy could make that sound.

Here they are plotting escape. From right to left, it’s Cassie, Lola’s friend Amiga, Lola, and mournful old Toby, who can only take a little of the girls’ society.

Seeking society

2006-04-05T05:12:00.000-07:00

A card-carrying introvert, I cherish my time alone. I need it. I crave time to let the many potential responses to colleagues, friends, neighbors and family—especially family—settle to the point that I am measured and calm in what I actually say. I conjure up a stunning variety of scenarios as I try to figure out what is “really” going on. There is no question that I am over-sensitive—my life experiences have led me to where I am, as yours, gentle reader, have led you, although we would all like to think that we can rise above such simplistic conditioning.

All that therapy, all that writing, and I am left with the irony that if I want to respond simply and authentically to another person, I have to spend a lot of time processing, thinking, mostly just musing about not only how I want to respond, but more basically, how I want to perceive the situation and my range of possible responses.

I do have friends and family, some more distant than I would prefer, but that is not in my control. And I understand that my social safety net of human connection is frayed as a result of moving three times in the last decade. Big moves, like divorces, take about three years to re-establish equilibrium. I do have a life, which has many, many satisfactions and much happiness, and I am blessed that I enjoy my own company.

But all that thinking, all that time alone—there is a sense in which it is unhealthy. There is nobody to pull me out of abstraction, nobody to say to me, “Just a cotton-pickin’ minute….you are way off base,” preferably in a loving and respectful tone. Oversensitive, doncha know.

So, I’m thinking I need to meet more people. Can you sense how my teeth are gritted when I say this? It is so much work for me! And yet, I know there is a payoff. Two decades ago, when I was first living in New York, a painfully shy bumpkin, I undertook to conquer my basic shyness by committing to talk to three new people a day. Anyone. The counter man in the coffee shop, people on the subway platform, the person sliding by on the opposite escalator (very safe, that one!) It worked. Very soon, I was talking up a storm to anyone and everyone. I ended up dating someone from the subway--one of my healthiest relationships with a very nice man.

Meeting more people in rural Vermont is tougher, but I refuse to believe it is impossible. Now past the magic three-year mark, I get invited to parties from time to time and I make a point of going. It is time to take up contradance again, and maybe some group hikes. The first step is getting out in the world more, since nobody is likely to come uninvited to my front door to bring me a fuller, brighter life.

The next step will be to pay attention. Again and again in my life, prospective friends and would-be lovers have stopped me, lectured me, whacked me silly to say, “Hey! You! I am trying to be friendly. Could you please notice my efforts?” Who knows how many interesting new people are circling even now, while I make my oblivious march through a good but solitary life?

Rats!

2006-04-03T18:13:00.000-07:00

A friend, Vermont born and bred, came by today to help me figure out how to fix the dishwasher. During the last subzero snap, it did a little snapping of its own, pouring water down through the kitchen floorboards into the cellar. Not a pretty sight.

I figured it had something to do with the cold, frozen lines popping free of connections. Maybe even, I mused, it was my own fault for filling that big hole with spray foam. I learned years ago that insulating old houses can be tricky, sometimes blocking warm air flow that kept pipes cozy. Not this time.

“Dear,” intoned my friend, the only man I know who can address me in such a way without being remotely flirtatious, “You have a rat.”

Oh, ick. This is not the pastoral haven I dreamt of in Brooklyn. There were rats there, big, honking, muscled ones, but I thought Vermont had only cute little mice. Maybe a skunk or a porcupine now and then, unpleasant rodents all. But rats?

Behind the dishwasher, the intruder had a superhighway from outdoors, and tasty hoses to chew. He got them all, the water supply hose, the squiggly little connector, and the drain hose—big holes bitten out of them. Over fifty dollars worth of parts, before I pay my friend for his time.

All the holes are filled now, with that trusty expanding foam. I think I will stock a couple extra cans and go on a rampage filling holes in cellar and utility room. A mouse or two or even twenty—I never minded sharing my warm house with them as long as they stayed off the kitchen counters and out of the drawers—but rats? No, thank you.

Now that’s what I call customer service

2006-03-28T05:29:00.000-08:00

The puppy loves the vacuum cleaner. She likes to chase it, barking her fool head off. And she absolutely loves to chew on the hose. She chewed the hose so completely that she severed it from the connection into the main compartment.

Sighing, not even daring to think about how expensive it might be, I placed a call to the source, Jeff Campbell’s Clean Team online catalog. Teresa called me back. Imagine that, she called me back. And then today, she called me back again, and she left a detailed message including instructions on how to salvage my vacuum cleaner hose.

It turns out that it is designed to have a chunk of the hose cut away, then it simply screws back into the fitting. I tried it. The repair works, way better than my last repair which relied on duct tape. And I no longer need a new vacuum cleaner hose.

Now that’s what I call customer service. Teresa could easily have sold me a new hose, but I am much happier to spend money on other products from the Clean Team. And yes, the Swedish Big Vac vacuum cleaner works great—I have had mine for at least four years.

Why I write

2006-03-26T05:39:00.000-08:00

The most annoying thing about therapy—yes, therapy, I spent a lot of time in New York and learned the value of therapy—is when the therapist tells you something and you say, “No, that’s wrong,” only to realize an hour later that it is right. Humph.

“You use your writing as therapy,” she said. “Yes, I agreed,” while inwardly thinking “It’s soooo much more than that.” Outlet for the rant of the day. Communication with family and far-flung friends in a kind of overarching, ongoing holiday letter. Platform for discussing issues that are important to me at work or in human interactions. Artful rearrangement of the events of my life in a way that might speak to my readers. A way to play with words or ideas, a rollicking gambol through my interior world.

“Doesn’t it bother you that it is so public?” Sometimes it does, but mostly it intrigues me, this border between private life and public, writing for self and writing for reader. There are issues that are not suitable for blogdom, either because they impinge on someone else’s privacy or are not adequately respectful of my reader or myself.

I try to write as if anyone might be reading, particularly the person that I least want to have read my writing—say the person I most annoyed lately, or the person who most annoyed me. I try not to be flippant, which I view as disrespectful, or to fall into the trap of ranting “Ain’t it awful!” which I view as lazy and irrelevant. I try very hard not to use cheap tricks to be amusing at someone’s expense, not to dine out on anyone’s distress. I fail in these goals from time to time, but I try to keep the overall thrust of my writing is respectful and thoughtful.

In the end, maybe the best reason I write is to cultivate that attitude of thoughtful consideration and respect. I’m as quick-tempered as anyone, but when I sit down to write about someone or some situation that is at the top of my consciousness, I am often amazed at what comes flowing out of that process. Many, many times, I have sat down thinking I knew exactly what the issue is—“that so-and-so is a jerk!"—only to have the writing process change my opinion, while I look on helplessly. Or I start writing about one subject that I think is top-of-mind, only to find that I need to change my title at the end. Humph.

Words are treacherous. We keep grasping for the right ones, falling back as we realize that we don’t have anywhere near enough common meanings to be able to communicate, and then in a flash, we do. It is a kind of magic, that moment of insight, just like that scene in The Miracle Worker when Helen Keller first understands what a word is.

Writing, for me, is like that, over and over again.

Interior life

2006-03-24T04:42:00.000-08:00

You may have the power to force through the changes you want to see but with Mars and Jupiter at a rather dangerous angle to one another you will encourage opposition and, later on, those you have forced to do your bidding will in some way or other hit back at you. Persuasion is always better than compulsion. Remind yourself of that fact today.

Oh, dear. I am weary of persuasion. I recognize the need for a gentle touch, and I do respect my fellow creatures. But it can be such very hard work.

Communications is hard work for everyone. I keep reminding impatient colleagues that research shows that feckless, inattentive humans (that is all of us) do not hear a message the first time, the third, or sometimes even the tenth time. So we are not allowed to give up on our chosen audience until we have said the same thing ten times. Boring? Yes. We can’t invest in crafting, strategizing and multiple delivery of every message, but we must do the work to achieve the goal for the ones that are important enough.

Those of us who are introverts have so little desire to venture outside our own heads that we must learn technique to make those forays as fruitful as possible. We learn superior communication techniques in self-defense, so that we can spend as little time and energy as possible getting our messages across, with the reward of retreat back to the interior life.

Introverts are not exactly rare, but we are in the minority, some 20% of the population by most estimates. Why should we be surprised if people think us odd? And why should we care? For all the discomforts of standing on the sidelines while others are picked for teams or of being the wallflower at dances or of being the one in the office that people forget to invite out for drinks—for all that, we have the amazing gift that we are happy in our own company.

I tried, and failed, to explain this to my dental hygienist. “Please don’t keep asking if I am okay,” I pleaded. “I need to zone out. There is a lot going on inside my head, and if you talk to me, it spikes my anxiety—not what you were trying to do, I know.” She didn’t understand, but never mind. I will keep trying. Nine times to go, then I give up and change dentists. Well, not really. Why on earth would I accept care from a person who didn’t hear me after three or four times?

Analytical to a fault, I can divide the world into people who think I do too much to explain and communicate, and those who think I do too little. As I age and become more comfortable in my own skin, I am less patient with those who think that I need to do more and more and more to explain who I am or to be different. I have communications skills that are above average, skills in which I have invested to a significant degree—I know that. So I need to accept that people who do not hear my message simply may not agree with me—that’s really okay. And if they disagree angrily, it usually has nothing to do with me.

There were times in my life when I did not like myself much, although others preferred the more placid, people-pleasing version, and I changed. After a lifetime of being put in the wrong, I now take the Popeye position: I yam what I yam. Or more elegantly put, I am as God made me—introvert and all—and I like how I am.

All this self-knowledge does not change the fact that sometimes I just get tired. I have had a few weeks of a lot of demands from clients and colleagues for interaction—it wears on anyone, but especially on an introvert. I need a break.

As I write this, there is a flash of rust color at my vision’s edge. Robins—two of them, a whole flock of little grayish brown birds, and a stunning black and white striped woodpecker with a red head. The birds are back, so is the mud, and it is spring. Can flowers be far behind?

Conflict and stress and tears, oh my!

2006-03-21T03:37:00.000-08:00

There may be a great deal of conflict in your life today, dear Leo, and different people and situations seem to be pulling you in all directions. Your sanity is being put to the test. Try not to be too stubborn, for this will only cause more tension among you and the situations that you encounter. You have the potential of stressing out over the smallest things. Try to avoid this scenario if you can.

Sometimes it seems that the world is all too ready to chew me up and spit me out. It has been a week—or more—of days like that. Honestly, where do people get the idea that I need to think and be exactly like them?

I have clients who want more, more, more. I have colleagues who want to second guess my decisions and pile their work on my plate, then other colleagues who are franticly trying to regroup after losing key team members. I have issues to track in the legislature, where they seem to be making a lot of sausage this year (don’t we say that every year?). I have a eight-month-old smart puppy who wants to test every single limit placed on her, working—as we say in the South—on my last nerve. I have an assistant who is home with a sick child. Everybody has their reasons for being where and how they are, and I don’t really think they are conspiring to make my life miserable. Not really.

On the contrary, when life seems altogether too, too much, it is often…well….me. It is time for a change of direction. Time to say no and dance away. Time to let projects slide. Time to disarm attacks with, “You may be right.” Time to do something entirely different. Likely my change of approach will cause yet more anger. Never mind. I can’t control all of them or any of them, but I can get out of reach.

None of this is worth tears.

Frost heaves

2006-03-20T17:17:00.000-08:00

First day of spring. Big, long, wavy icicles vote otherwise. New snow last night tempted us out for a round of snowshoeing, just me and puppies old and new. It was a beautiful morning, but springlike? No.

Still, the roads think it is springtime. They have metamorphosed into washboards. Frost, as they say, heaves the pavement up, but not in any uniformity. Just here and there. Others rate the winter’s rigors. My friend over on Stagecoach Road rates spring’s rambunctious turn by how many cars bounce right off the road and into his sugarbush. Four, this year. So far.

It is one of those repetitive, seasonal events that is almost a commentary. Frost heaves. Both noun and sentence whole, the relentless slowing of molecules somehow causes the road’s surface to move further than you would think possible. Frost heaves, causing frost heaves, causing cars to bounce and shimmy.

Careful readers of my blog will have noted that I love a duplicitous title, a name that works two ways or even more. Frost heaves. And when the frost heaves most heartily, spring isn’t far behind.

Life with pictures

2006-03-17T03:55:00.000-08:00

Had to replace the umbilical cord for my digital camera. Here as promised is Miss Cassie watching the Westminster Dog Show. She only likes shows with dogs.

And here is what a tired puppy looks like. Tired puppy equals good puppy.

Quiet friendship

2006-03-12T05:16:00.000-08:00

The dogs and I had a nice visit with Robert of Beginner’s Mind and his family yesterday. We got a little lost trying to find their house, but once there Cassie and Toby were delighted to meet Cain. They romped and played, then snoozed while we ate lunch and spent hours at the local library’s annual book sale. Baby Ethan watched dog antics and human browsing with equanimity—a cheerful baby, the kind that lures young parents into having more.

Blowout extravaganza of cookbooks and gardening books and crafty guides: total price eight dollars. Who says entertainment has to be expensive?

I meant what I said and I said what I meant

2006-03-11T06:43:00.000-08:00

Jola writes,

But do you really believe what you wrote, and what the horoscope said? For example, I think that life here on earth is to be taken very seriously (whether there's nothingness or a form of heaven afterwards or not). Unfortunately, it all too often it doesn't "come right in the end." (I just realized that there's an offcolor interpretation to the latter phrase - and that indeed does happen, figuratively speaking.) I don't view life as a country dance. Collaborative teamwork can be like that, yes, but not my life. I don't experience my own life as a passing through before I become disconnected atoms and "swirling spirit." (Sorry, I don't even buy the swirling spirit part!) I'm sure I'm taking your post too literally, but it started me thinking about what I DO believe.

Karen - you're kidding about Bush, right? You must be aware that he's led the nation on a "glorious adventure" in Iraq and despite a lot of evidence to the contrary, and many slipping into thoughts of doom and gloom, he continues to insist it will all come right in the end...

I do believe what I wrote, although I take no responsibility for the horoscope. I do view life as a contra dance. I do believe this life on earth is only one stage in a much broader existence. While this may be the only part of existence of which I (this particular configuration of atoms) am conscious, it is not all there is.

I agree it does not all come right in the end, that there is pain, heartache and darkness in the world. From a theological point of view, I even believe that darkness is necessary if we are to see the light. That does not mean that I think any individual evil (death, illness, injury, mold and mildew) is sent from God. When evil intrudes into our lives, I believe we should take time to grieve, but that the end of grief is acceptance and return to the dance—which can take a very, very long time.

As you may have figured out by now, I am a card-carrying Christian. I believe that God wants us happy, and I believe that in the end (whereever you measure the end) it often comes out beautiful. I believe that heartache can bring lessons to a listening heart. This is, however, a matter of faith, which is a gift from God, not something that the most talented preacher can convey.

Is life serious? In the sense that we owe ourselves and others respect, yes. In the sense that we have any control over the ultimate outcome—death—no. We might as well dance.

Re Bush, I am not particularly a fan of trashing either political party. It is all our representatives in Washington working together who made the choices that led to the Iraq war, and it is all of us who put them there. I am a registered voter, but with no party affiliation, because I don’t see much to choose from—no leadership on right or left. In fact, I am not—in general—a fan of the “ain’t it awful?” school of conversation. It bores me. I would rather dance.

Yes, I am serious. This is what I believe. Opinions will vary, and many, many people disagree with me. Next!

Glorious adventure

2006-03-10T04:09:00.000-08:00

Your naturally optimistic nature will come to your rescue today. As others slip into thoughts of doom and gloom because of what's going on in the world you will go right the other way and see it all as a glorious adventure. And you're right - it is. Nothing in life is to be taken too seriously. Rest assured it will all come right in the end.

There is no question that how we greet the world shapes our reality. Perhaps the most powerful little word I ever learned is “Next!”

When colleagues fail to live up to their part of the bargain, there’s a time to renegotiate and a time to move on. I have been talking to several colleagues who just don’t see the point of collaborating. They would rather moan about how bad things are than get excited about what could be. I think they have given up too easily, missing the dance by sitting it out. But I can only encourage them to play, then move on myself. "Next!"

When family members berate or ignore you, “Next!”

When plans don’t turn out as expected, take a breath, then “Next!”

If this sounds suspiciously like turning the other cheek, it is that and more. It is recognizing that in the long term, our physical bodies return to dust and mold, and our swirling spirit can only brush the cheeks of those other physical bodies we once loved, counseling joy.

Meanwhile, this short time as overly serious, dumpy, earthly physical beings should not get us down. This life is a glorious adventure, a dance. Sometimes we clasp hands, sometimes we let go. Holding on too hard or letting go too soon spoils the dance. Getting it right, using our bodily weight and our clasped hands to counter momentum and free us from gravity’s earthly bonds is a foretaste of heaven.

If I can keep this attitude in my daily practice and in my interactions with other creatures, perhaps when it is time to give up this glorious adventure, I will accept willingly the return to a state of being as disconnected atoms, swirling spirit. Meanwhile, I am called to the dance. Next!

First Tuesday in March

2006-03-07T19:39:00.000-08:00

Five Town Meetings today. I work for one of those nonprofits that derive funding in part from a line item in the budget or a specific article. Not surprising, then, that from time to time questions arise at Town Meeting about what we do and why the voters should support us. I am happy to oblige, because I am truly grateful, but even I could only manage five Town Meetings today representing half of of the Towns that support us.

Johnson is the most polite and orderly. Cambridge is civilized enough to take a break at mid-day for chicken and biscuits. Morristown has the biggest turnout in person, but strangely almost no food--dry muffins and watery coffee. Stowe has the best food (chicken pie and carrot cake, yum!)

But Hyde Park is home. I see the same neighbors on the same spots in the bleachers, and when someone calls for a paper ballot, we all enjoy the opportunity to stretch and jabber for a few minutes. Then it's back to the bleachers to knit, nod and whisper as neighbors opine, and solemnly intone "Aye" or "Nay."

As a Vermont transplant, I love Town Meeting Day. My first year I was amazed at the tolerance of diversity of views and the highly developed skills of social discourse. By now, I have come to recognize that what I once saw as politeness is sometimes the Yankee economy of not spending much energy on a fight you can't win or on a fight that has already been held many times over in generations past.

Today in Stowe, for example, the Town decided not to go to Australian ballot to vote on the budget. Recapping the argments, one Selectboard member pulled out an almost identical proposal from the 1976 Town Meeting notes.

Most towns are done by early afternoon, even contentious Stowe. Then it's off for a romp in the sunshine, an afternoon free to play in the snow, spring's advent teased into our consciousness by another Town Meeting Day. It may not be spring yet, but surely it is coming.

Lottery

2006-03-06T15:40:00.000-08:00

Step right up. Get your winning ticket. Pick your entry in the springtime lottery. No, it’s not in the raffle for when the ice goes out on Joe’s Pond.

My mother sent me today a big box of spring flowers—daffodils and forsythia and spiny pink flowers and spiky white long stems. One vase on the television, one on a side table, they do brighten my wintry living room.

One of the shocks of living in Vermont is that the forsythia does not bloom. Before Vermont, I was accustomed to the bright yellow cascades as a sign of spring, and even after I learned that the bush is pretty darn invasive, I still welcomed its annual show. In Vermont, where winter temperatures can drop to forty below zero, buds freeze and there is no show. Not forsythia and only sometimes crabapple.

So it is lovely to have some blooming sticks in my house. It hasn’t been a hard winter, not at all, but spring will still be very welcome.

Still you have to wonder how long I will have these flowers. The puppy circles. I fear we may be looking at hours rather than days. Get your winning ticket soon.

Winter ways

2006-03-05T04:39:00.000-08:00

I’m getting the hang of burning wood. And I am watching my own perspectives shift. I used to set the thermostat and wait for oil deliveries, like anyone who has an oil furnace. Now I start the weekend with a wood fire in the combination furnace, and I enjoy my house all the more because it is warmer than my penny-pinching would tolerate of the oilman. Actually, I run a three-fuel household, applying oil, gas and wood each in its best use as I see it. The oil is the backdrop, with a small gas stove in the living room for a cozy fire that warms my toes when the north wind kicks up. I have appreciated both, but I revel in the dry, toasty warmth of a wood fire in the furnace.

Now it seems luxury to be able to sleep through the night without stoking the fire. The oil burner kicks in, and I stay cozy under the covers. This morning I went down and found warm ash that sparked when I stirred it. Ah. A little newspaper, some kindling, and a log, and we are in business again.

You have a relationship with a wood fire that you don’t have with an oil burner. A wood fire takes skill to build (learnable), it needs tending, and it repays your care. I can see how burning wood could be an essential element of the Vermont winter experience—its warmth, its fussiness, the daily repetition of task. Not to mention the extended work of getting wood in. City-spoiled as I am, I will order up a couple cords to keep my weekends toasty. I know how hard people work to bring in their wood.

Yesterday at a neighbor’s sliding party, I met a guy who brought a big black sled with a rope handle. Heating his home entirely by wood, he needs to make trips into the forest from time to time, hauling back the little stuff and bigger stuff on his sled. I suspect that despite the gruff exterior, he also needs a slide or two each winter. I gotta get me a sled like that.

The sliding was great to watch, the party a little daunting. I have been here three years, and I don’t get a lot of invitations. Shy to a fault, I force myself to accept most invitations so that I put myself in a position to interact socially—not so bad once you get past the reserve. Fortunately, Vermonters don’t really care if you talk to them or not. You can just stand there and admire the sliding technique, later bring out the puppy on a leash to get her a little socialization, too.

I am here to report to my Southern kin that if these people were magically transported to a Georgia hillside on one of those biennial occasions of four or five inches of snow, they would be amused at how little we warm-dwellers know about sliding. I had been to a sliding party once before, but that one was populated by transplants, who simply do not get it.

Everyone of every age took some kind of trip down the hill in total abandon to the triumph of gravity over friction. The Vermont-born take to the snow like otters to a stream, whooping and falling, going down in groups, then scrambling out of the way before the next slider knocks into them like bowling pins…or sometimes daring collisions and rolling in the snow. Teenagers were present in number, and despite a few moans, “Maaaaa, do I have to be here?” were the most active sliders. One girl, pepped up on cold and laughter, stopped on the way to her parents’ car to flop down and make one more perfect snow angel. I have always thought of sliding as an activity for little kids, but it was clear that they were just learning. The parents were right in there, falling off their tubes and rolling in the snow, laughing at themselves and along with their offspring, demonstrating that sliding technique does take decades to perfect.

Clothing and equipment and party venue all are designed for this kind of an afternoon. When I first moved here, I would not have believed that people can have a party that is mostly outdoors on a twenty degree day. There was a heated garage space to accommodate people who needed to warm up—that’s where the food and beer were—but mostly people were outdoors for hours at a time. Warm boots, snow pants (no fancy schmancy ski clothes here), and peculiar looking but functional headwear make this possible. Sliding equipment ranged from tubes (the ones for sliding are filled in the middle) to snowmobiles to the hot new skateboard-on-a-ski. No making do with cafeteria trays or cardboard boxes for these serious sliders.

In the hours I was there, I eventually unbent enough to consider going down the hill. It helped a lot to see one of my board members demonstrate the superior sliding technique developed over his forty years of life in Vermont, whooping and hollering as he did so. He also confided the important tip that you should never go down the hill with your beer in your pocket. But by then, I was cold and the puppy was fussy. Maybe we will get our own sliding equipment and she can pull me along—I think she would like that kind of work. Or then again, maybe you can only properly slide at a party, laughing and bouncing off your neighbors, warming up with chili and hot chocolate, and going out to do it again.

The curse of February

2006-03-02T04:49:00.000-08:00

This morning it was clear and not too cold (that’s 20 degrees Fahrenheit for you non-Vermonters) so we continued the pedometer challenge, again on snowshoes. The calendar has moved forward, renewing the gift of light. By seven, it is now light enough for an enjoyable tramp, a good—no, make that great—half hour with landscape and romping dogs.

Suddenly, I realized: it is March. March, march, march. Tramp, tramp, tramp. If it is March, that means that dreary February is past. Woo hoo! Yippeee!!!!

I have always hated February. How can such a short month pack in so much hatefulness? As a sufferer from the aptly named SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), I know to watch out for autumn retreat of light and to be particularly on guard in February. I know, the days start extending at the winter solstice in December, but my personal experience is that the world is not quite right until February is over. Ever optimistic, I hope every year will be different, but no.

Still, this year it didn’t seem so bad. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention to dreading February, and it slipped right by me while I was doing something else. Or maybe it is because we really have had an easy winter, hardly even any snow and few subzero days. Or just maybe I am actually learning to moderate my own behavior to live with the rigors of the outside world, including February’s call for enhanced indoor lighting, disciplined physical activity, and patience.

One way or another, for this year at least, the curse of February is broken. Let us March forward toward spring!

I once knew a little girl, not so little by now, whose birthday was March fourth. How perfect is that for a birthday?

Please read Julia’s exquisite comment to Dancing on Snowshoes. A woman with her priorities straight, that’s our Julia.