Other Publications: ESSAYS
- Lessons in Dying Well, Dartmouth Medicine Magazine, Fall 2008
Physicians are trained not to share personal information with patients and most don’t. They tend to keep their own counsel about everything from their health to family concerns. But when a physician experiences the death of a parent, all bets are off. Physicians will often share such a close-to-the-heart loss with others—including their patients. Regardless of how many deaths a physician has attended, or how anticipated a parent’s death may have been, when a parent dies it rocks a doctor’s universe.
- Care Package, Dartmouth Medicine Magazine, Fall 2007
For 16 years, I managed my husband’s medical practice. The “Mom and Pop Doc Shop,” I called it, because it was like an old-time general store where the proprietors lived in back and knew who would come in when, what they would buy, and when they would pay, if ever. Our office was never so quaint as to be attached to our house, but that never stopped patients from dropping by after hours for an informal consult. And, like a general store, it took both of us to run the practice.
- Life at the Top, The Commons, August 2009
STRATTON—Lots of people come to Vermont to get away from it all, but few do so quite like Jeanne and Hugh Joudry, who have been living on top of Stratton Mountain six months a year for 26 years.
The Joudrys first worked on the mountain as fire wardens from 1968 to 1979, and since 1996 have served as caretakers for the Green Mountain Club. Between these stints, the Joudrys lived in what Jeanne refers to as “that other wilderness” — New York City.
- Lessons From the Connecticut River, The Commons, August 2009
Almost every summer morning, I rig my shell — a boat over 25 feet long but only 11 inches wide — and launch from Putney. Most days, I row north.
- Interstates, Vermont’s Character, and Community, The Commons, July 2009
The politicians behind the building of the Interstate did anticipate the boom to Vermont’s ski industry, but not necessarily at the cost of family farms. The roads were expected to increase tourism; the irony is that Vermont has become a destination resort — a theme park whose identity is built on the very agrarian background the road so dramatically altered.
Perhaps most unanticipated of all, however, is the change in Vermont’s outlook on the world. Before the Interstate, Vermont was a rock-ribbed Republican enclave; now, it’s the most liberal state in the nation.
- The Marriage Bed, The Commons, February 2009
We bought our first mattress set 25 years ago. We’re now on our third. At first, the box spring sat on the floor, then on a metal frame. Now we have a handmade cherry bed and one of those new, memory-foam mattresses. It’s a great place for love and repose.
Other Publications: CREATIVE NON-FICTION
- Upon Viewing The Corpse of A Barred Owl, Cezanne’s Carrot, Vernal Equinox, 2006
What can we say in the squashed face of death, brown-eyed and yellow beaked? I have no language for the beyond or after, only persistent questions about the present: Are those paws where the talons should be? Is this a hermaphrodite, half owl, half rabbit? Aren't we all?
Other Publications: SHORT STORIES
- The Closing, 1958. Imagination & Place: Ownership (an anthology),
Imagination & Place Press, 2010. - Summer People, 1964. The Brattleboro Reformer, October 1, 2005.
- Fire! The Best of Write Action, 2003.
- Five Minutes to Four. Northern New England Review, December 2002.