I once heard Malachy McCourt begin a commencement address memorable for its brazen wisdom. “If you’ve got one foot in the future and one foot in the past,” he said, “it means you’re pissing on the present.” I was reminded of this vivid image as I was lamenting the tasks still on my To Do […]
Summer Calendar in the West River Valley
The summer calendar begins with Memorial Day even though the season starts on the solstice. Here in the West River Valley of southern Vermont, my summer calendar is filled with local events, fairs and festivals celebrated each year in our community. Around here, summer starts on the first weekend in June, with the Strolling of the Heifers, […]
Summer Time
As a child, summers seemed endless. I played hopscotch, tag, and running bases with the kids on my street, and I spent two timeless weeks at the beach with my family, where I was toasted by sun and tumbled by waves. The season’s good weather and expansive leisure was interrupted by occasional bouts of boredom […]
Weeding and Words
Sometimes, weeding is the best way to learn how to write. Thinning plants can be as painful as deleting favorite passages of description or dialogue, and just as essential. If seedlings in my garden are two crowded, none of them thrive; if my page is crammed with too many details, I risk losing my readers’ […]
Rainy Sunday
We had a rainy Sunday, the kind of cool, overcast day preparing to dissolve into rain, the kind of day best spent reading on the couch, the sort of Sunday for reading the New York Times. I planned to pick up a copy at the general store when it opened. In the meantime, I extracted […]
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