Summertime in Vermont
Summertime in Vermont truly is one of the most incredible things I’ve ever witnessed. Maybe its not as grand as seeing the Tuscan hillsides absolutey covered in sunflowers, it’s not as showy. But to me, its the most beautiful. I grew up in Texas, and summer in Texas meant Brown. Dead. Sorched Earth. Eyes stinging with chlorine from the pool. Thighs burnt from sitting on a metal bench in shorts. Insane amounts of AC. Summer in California was no different than Spring or Fall or Winter in California. Perpetual sunshine. Groundhog Day. Brown mountains dotted by rich people’s houses and pops of green, here and there. Smog. Palm Trees. Never having to wear anything other than sandals. But Summer in Vermont knocks the wind clean outta ya. Its green. Every where you look, its a deep verdant green, lush and bursting forth with life and bounty. The air is filled with sounds of birds chirping and bugs buzzing in the lazy summer sun. The chipmunks under my porch happily nibbling on the little treats I leave for them in the morning. My back yard springs forth with plants I didn’t even know where there - raspberries and wildflowers and patches of forget me nots that clover the ground in a delicate blue carpet. The air smells sweet. Wholesome. Summer in Vermont is the apology note of Seasons. The makeup sex after the harsh Winter. Here to remind you that things can be lovely and easy and, for at least a few months, the least of your worries will be slipping on ice and shattering your wrist, sans insurance. A momentary respite in the storm.
Summer in Vermont is what roped me into this whole thing in the first place. I had quit my job with a very, very A list multi-hypentate, and had zero idea what I was going to do with myself. I got top recruiters and while looking at different industries, the jobs were more of the same. True 24/7 positions where you’re supposed to live and love to serve, like some monster. Your personal life would be on the back burner, again, but hey!, its six figures and you’d get to travel. I mean, sure you’d have to pack and unpack your boss, sneak in and of of the hotel rooms, making them think somehow the magical fairies knew exactly the pair of pants and folders you needed for the meeting. Waking up at 4am to triple check reservations and drivers and dop kits and if there are the correct chargers in the car and in the restaurant where they’re doing one of their seven meetings today. And then, even though the boss is long asleep, you’re up past midnight checking off things and double checking for the next day, just to face the same insanity again. But sure, you get to see the Acropolis in passing. And got to enjoy running though the cobblestone streets of Paris to YSL because your bosses dress shirt got fucked up by the hotel dry cleaners and you better get a replacement before they notice. And all that should be worth it, right? You get to make some money you’ll never be able to enjoy because you work all the time, while living in the most exciting city on the planet, but you’re unable to have a social life, so you feast on resentment and bitterness until you eventually have a stroke and die. And thats where I saw myself. And after an interview where I emphatically told the recruiter I would NOT work for a Murdoch and they then pitched me a job with George Soros, I realized I was stuck. And I went home, stopping for a bottle of wine and Thai food and watched Baby Boom. And the next morning I was in a rental car with my dogs driving up to see a house I saw on Craigslist at 3am. And the further North I got, the quieter everything seemed. The roads meandered like streams, not seemingly to follow a straightforward path, silently telling you to just follow it wherever it lead. Don’t worry that your cell has no reception. You’ll be fine, because the countryside was dotted with old barns and happy looking cows, grazing and basking in the sunshine. And the tree branches were heavy with apple blossoms. Quaint little towns with quaint little general stores appeared when you needed them too, and then faded away as you drove down the quiet roads, North, North, North. And before you knew it, without realizing really why, you’re babbling to the owner of a little house on a little hill about how you just need a change and to get away from it all and had he ever seen Baby Boom? And you can tell he thinks you might be a little nuts - with your spiel about apple sauce, and the fact you recently bleached your hair solid white, which looked quite chic, but also meant you were going through some stuff. But when you tell him you’ll use your inheritance and cut him a check for the entire years rent, and with that, whatever reservations he has go out the window. And you’re now driving back to New York to pack up your life, again, and hope that the green and goodness of this weird, quiet, special place will fill whatever is missing in your life.
But after moving here you realize that just because you’re in a special place, it doesn’t mean the bad things won’t follow you. And despite the air being filled with leaves rustling and chipmunks chirping, and the two years you’ve been able to distance yourself from the noise and chaos and anger, you’re still you. All those bad habits are still there. You still don’t know how to live your own life. So you bury yourself in work. You get up and go into work every, single, day, even if just for an hour. Focus on your job so much that you don’t have the energy to do anything else. It worked before, didn’t it? You were able to lose years of your life at those jobs, and never once really understood what you were missing out on until you left it all behind. You may be a fuck up in every other aspect, but by God, you work hard! You worry about everything. You’re worried about fucking stuff up at your job. Worry about the cancer you’ll inevitably get. Worry about when the day comes that your dogs die. You worry you’ll never, ever meet someone and you’ll always be alone. So alone that you can feel it in the marrow of your bones. You worry you’ll never lose the weight and that you’ll always hate the person starting back at you in the mirror. You break your wrist and can’t write for months and worry about all the deadlines you’re missing. You worry about money, all the fucking time. You worry you’ll never be able to sculpt again. You worry that if you actually tell people how you feel, how adrift and lonely you are that then they’ll start worrying. You spend so much fucking time worrying, there’s no time left. So your entire plan of getting your shit together and getting a life is one big ruse. Because you’re doing it again. Maybe its because you don’t know how to live for yourself. You’ve spent your entire adult career catering towards others, that you forgot to take care of you. Maybe its that weird East Texas thing your family raised you believing - that doing things for yourself - was somehow indulgent and selfish. Or maybe the whole thing is that you don’t actually believe you deserve something good in the first place. So you chose a career and bosses where you were constantly demeened and it created a self fulfilling prophecy. You shoot yourself in the foot and wonder why you’re bleeding. And now that you’re out of it all, you have no idea how to cope. So you break out your old methods, and while worry feels awful, its better than hoping for something good and it falling through. The rug being pulled out from under you. So you hold all those worries close, like little Talismans. So you won’t trick yourself into thinking this place, with its beauty and decent people, could be the place for you. You keep yourself at a distance from it all.
But.
On this morning, with the sun shining and gentle wind blowing, as you water the flowers and drink coffee on the front porch, You’re forced to remember that first drive up to Vermont. And wonder if this place isn’t a little magic after all? A lush, wholesome mirage that transports people who need some time to figure it all out, to this place. A place where you’re able to fuck up and be flawed and not have to do it surrounded by concrete and chaos. You can be a mess and trying to figure out how to be human, and this strange little beautiful land, will be your buffer. It won’t abandon you to the grime and brown. It will let you fall down and then scoop you up and drape you in a cloak of forget-me-nots while you tend to your wounds. And I guess, if you have to worry somewhere, isn’t it better to worry here? Where you can dig your toes into the soil as you water the squash, and make little fences to keep out the woodchucks who like to nibble on the lettuce. And where, if you need to cry or contemplate, there are so many secret, quiet rivers that you can confide all your secrets in, and they’ll slowly drift away. Never gossiping with the trees or the bees. They’ll take your secrets and meet with other creeks and rivers, and other peoples worries and woes, and it will all blend together and wash away. Because this is a place people come when they need to change. Whether they realize it or not. A little Xanadu for the worries and people who need to shed their skin. And while the Winter forces you to change in harsh, beautiful ways, the summer is there to salve your wounds and kiss your cheeks with sunshine. And when the Fall comes too soon, as it always does here, you’ll be ready to slough off the old bad bits that are still there, and start the process anew. And hopefully, in another summer, you’ll see a change. Or maybe you won’t. Maybe the worry will still be there. And the sadness, too. But so will the morning glories and fireflies. And I think thats a fair trade.