Greener Pastures

I didn't miss the internet while we were gone. Or the TV, or even my cell phone. At one point -- maybe our first afternoon in Vermont -- I pulled my phone from my purse to text a friend. "Holy shit," I wrote, "It's so green here!" but when I hit "send," I got an error symbol — there simply wasn't enough reception where we were. So I turned off my phone and didn't pull it out again until our train pulled back into Penn station yesterday afternoon and that was just to check what time it was.

We pulled into our B&B Friday night at 1:30 am after a long train ride from New York and then an hour-long drive from the train station through dark, winding mountain roads that reminded me of the streets I'd learned to drive on years ago in Germany. The inn keeper was still awake when we arrived, she'd started a fire for us in the lobby. I slept the kind of sleep that night of someone who's unplugged from the rest of the world and doesn't have to wake up for anything but breakfast the next morning cooked by someone else. And what a breakfast it was: the most fantastic cheese bread toast, amazing coffee, organic yogurt and fresh blueberries, poached eggs, potatoes, thick slices of bacon, and fresh-squeezed OJ.

Later that day, on our friends' small farm in the valley, I collected eggs from the chicken coop, untangled the goats from their ropes, tried to make friends with the horse, and found not 1 or 2 or even 5, but six 4-leaf clovers, which made our friends' 5-year-old son that much more smitten with me. "One day, Wendy," he said to me as we sat on the porch nursing glasses of fresh lemonade and petting the family cat, Cleo, "I'm going to send you a box full of kittens," sure that with that gesture, he'd win over my heart.

Without the distraction of any type of screen, I read a whole book while we were away and remembered summers when I was a kid, before the internet, before cell phones, before I ever had cable TV, when I read entire books in one evening — sometimes by the light of an alarm clock when my sister I shared a room — and I wondered why my priorities had shifted so much in adulthood.

We walked through woods while we were away and visited an artist-in-residence who worked in an airless one-room log cabin whose main source of light was a single florescent bulb that hung from the ceiling and attracted bugs. The artist was making a sculpture for the historic grounds to be be unveiled and cast in bronze in late September and I imagined spending the next 3 1/2 months in an airless log cabin in the woods of New England making art, and I decided it sounded pretty good. (As long as I had cheesy bread toast.)

We made s'mores one evening in Vermont, and got soft-serve ice cream from a place in New Hampshire that reminded me so much of a place i used to go to in St. Louis. When I was a kid, my family would spend entire summers at my grandparents' in St. Louis and as a special treat, once or twice or maybe even 3 times a week, we'd pile into my grandparents' big Buick, or Lincoln or whatever they were leasing that year, and drive out to Fritz's where we'd indulge in sundaes and concretes and chocolate-dipped cones. In New Hampshire, Drew got ice cream all over himself, making a bigger mess than our friends' kids. "You gotta eat it from the bottom," I said, demonstrating to my 38-year-old boyfriend how to eat an ice cream cone in the heat -- the way I'd learned years and years ago on that hot parking lot outside Fritz's. Is there not a place the city kids learn this in New York?

We sprang for business class seats on the train, thinking it would make our long trip more comfortable, and the ride there was a breeze. We spread out, stretching our legs until our toes touched the seats in front of us, reclining our chairs until we were almost lying down. I bought us beers from the cafe and watched Sex and the City episodes over the shoulder of the girl in front of us who played all of Season 4 on her laptop during the long ride. Coming back to the city was awful, though. About one hour into our six hour trip, the ac in business class broke, and without any available spots on any of the other cars, we sat in our expensive seats and stewed, unable to even open a window for ventilation. I watched the mountains and the river pass by outside, the sky every bit as blue as the sky we left behind in Vermont, and I ached.

When we finally arrived back in the city, and climbed the stairs from the subway onto stinky, crowded 50th street, the heat from the streets blasted us in the face like an oven, nearly knocking me to the ground. My bug bites itched and my back was damp from my heavy pack. That night, I slept the sleep of someone back from vacation who has to wake up and go grocery shopping and do work somehow live through a heat wave that even the most potent AC can't slice through.

This morning, I stopped by the farmer's market and bought five lemons. I'm going to try to make lemonade today -- the way I learned to in Vermont.

Comments

[Natalee]

As always, your ability to describe your story in such a way as for the reader to picture being there with you, astounds me.

Now I'm really looking forward to my weekend away in the woods next week.

Gorgeous photos, btw.

[Beth]

You made me remember why I love going to Northern Michigan ......thanks !

[Lpeg]

I'm glad you enjoyed Vermont. I went to college there and it was a unique experience, and I'm not sure I took it for it's face value - the fact that it is an absolutely beautiful state with lots of mountains and fields, and beautiful sunsets.

[teahouseblossom]

Oh, how lovely!! I'm glad you had a nice time.

Lemonade is one of my favorite drinks in the world!! Maybe sometime we can get together and I can have some or yours!