Tuesday: making some rounds, quick in a hurry

I visited people I love. Shirley and Fred are kinda like my chosen grandparents. When I was little, I stayed with them while my parents went on hiking trips. Shirley taught me how to knit, and spoiled me rotten. Fred taught me about sarcasm. I LOVE them, and it has been way too long since we spent any facetime together. I saw old photographs, including the quite spectacular specimen above, and was reminded of some of the expressions I heard as a child (the politically-correct term for sunburn, "red as an Indian," and phrase to indicate sudden movement, "quick in a hurry"... that just sounds like rushing, doesn't it?).

Then it was on to Dover, NH, to visit my dear old friend and college roommate Brian, and his fiance Jaynie, in their gorgeous old colonial house. I hadn't met Jayne yet, and I absolutely adore this girl. She made me feel so welcome and loved and comfortable! Kevin came over, too, and we drove to dinner in his Volvo and talked about yuppiness and off-the-grid living. I miss those Massholes, I really do! Wishing I could see them, and their crusty-sweet goodness, every day of my life. Alas, one fun night with beer and laughing and barbecue, will have to fill me up for now.

Sunday: Sleepy in Montpelier

Leaving the Valley was bittersweet: bitter because it meant saying a real goodbye to my BFF Amanda, after reconnecting in our sisterly way. Bitter because it also meant saying goodbye to the whole crew, and to the dear sweet valley, and to the everyone-in-the-same-place-at-once-ness that likely won't happen until someone else gets married.

But sweet, too: sweet because I got to visit Bethany (look how purty she is, at the shack up on the hill) and little Siiri (who isn't so little anymore, as it turns out). Sweet because we went to get maple creemees at the sugar shack in East Montpelier, and sweet because I got a big long nap in the afternoon before we headed to Joel's birthday party, which was also, of course, pretty sweet.
It was a quickie visit Montpelier-way, but restful and chill, which is exactly what I needed after the weekend of debauchery and T-Rexing. Thanks, Miss B, for putting me up and chatting it up. Miss you already.

Saturday: People got Married!

Saturday morning: Hangovers for everyone at Big Buck. Coffee at the roasters. Farmers’ Market in the village. Saw the Tan Man, who charges $6 for a pint of raspberries these days. I gritted my teeth and paid up like a good little city girl. Ran into so-and-so and so-and-so. Avoided so-and-so and so-and-so.

Went for a swim at Bobbin Mill with the boys. Matty dubbed the afternoon "The Last Temptation of Herilhy," and we jumped into that chilly water and felt all good and clear. Amanda and I, crashing the bachelor party. Chris saying, "this is my kind of bachelor party," as he sat in the cold river with a Trout River Ale in his hand.
Then, the wedding. The WEDDING! (I'll be posting pictures soon.) The nicest, most perfect wedding in the history of the world, maybe. Truly, it was really really nice. Outdoors, behind the pond at Millbrook, under the lovely little Octagon, short, sweet ceremony, the rain held off just until the vows, and when it came it seemed just right, as if maybe, when Chris and Emily declared their love and devotion to one another, the world just needed to touch them a little bit... to touch all of us, reminding us that we were really there in that important moment. Chris and Emily were both beautiful, so glowy and ready and right.

Thom and Joan put on a feast, of course, and Emily’s brother and Barry gave good toasts before the Starline Rhythm Boys knocked out a couple of real good sets. Good friends and food and dancing and booze and a pretty tent and fancy clothes barefoot in the grass on a Vermont summer night with humid air and peepers in the pond and so much love all around was almost enough to bust my heart all open right there, but I contained it and soon it was over, over in just the right amount of soon-ness, and we all went back to the Big Buck again, with a woozy kind of loviness hanging in the air.

Friday: Valley, Wedding stuff, and the Big Buck

On Friday, Amanda came into town and we had breakfast at Khatouna’s with our old friend Stacy. Stacy and Amanda were roommates way back, and lived in that cutie pie apartment just over the covered bridge in Waitsfield. We ate Khatouna’s good food (that woman makes anything taste better than anyone else can), and gossiped about what people are up to. Before we knew it, it was two o’clock.

Hot and sticky, Amanda and I dashed down to the river for a swim before heading over to the Big Buck Lodge, to score ourselves a bedroom in our weekend digs. The Buck is Jesse’s weekend ski-house, and is well-appointed in the way of the weekend warrior. The only "big buck" appears as a tattery, taxidermed doe’s head screwed to the wall above the stairwell, old-fashioned tele-skis and boots are screwed to other walls, and six bunkrooms can sleep somewhere around twenty people. We scored the next-to-the-bathroom bedroom and waited for other folks to roll in, before accidentally crashing Chris and Emily’s wedding rehearsal. Sorry, y'all!

Then it was off to Flatbread for our favorite vittles and wine. The experience at American Flatbread is rivaled by none… only open on Friday and Saturday nights, the old barn and woodfired oven produce some of the very yummiest food around. There’s always a long wait, so we sit by the fire outside and drink wine and talk to strangers who become friends. Still the same folks tending to the inside, samesame, goodsame. A little on the tipsy side, after our vino and dinner, we headed back to Millbrook for cocktail hour and mingling. Cory and Annie, Philibuster, Matt Reilly, Shippee and JoAnne, and all of Chris’ siblings were there in full force, and by the time we got there the first keg was already tapped. No worries, there was more to be had. This was not a weekend for want of beer.

We played awhile there, under the tent at Millbrook, before heading over to the Hyde Away for another round. Oh, Hyde Away, you are still the same and I love you. Sean was tending bar there, still there, samesame. Nice to see him. When I found him tending bar the next night at the wedding, there it was again, samesame, littlevalley.

After the Hyde Away, a dark walk up the dirt road and back to the Big Buck, where two refrigerators of Magic Hat and Long Trail and Otter Creek awaited us. Talk turned to the old story of the T-Rex, Chris’ infamous dance of yore, topic of many years’ worth of making-fun-of-Chris Herlihy. T-Rex chatter went on awhile, and a debate ensued about where the photo evidence of this particular form of movement had gone. (Burned by Chris Herlihy, I think.) General consensus was that there would most certainly be some T-Rexing taking place on the dancefloor at the wedding.

I shared a room with Amanda and Matty, and when we went to bed we giggled and talked awhile before drifting off. "T-Rex!" I heard Matty say after awhile, "That is funny."

And that is what Matt Reilly talks about in his sleep, as he drifts off, dreaming of Chris Herlihy. Almost beats the original T-Rex story.

oh, i love my old valley.

Back in the valley again. The dear, dear Mad River Valley, home of youthful adventure and debauchery and learning and the good old days. The Valley is still the same. People are still driving around in the same pickup trucks with the same canoes on top (canoes this time of year, instead of skis). Everyone looks pretty much the same, but a few years older. "I heard you were in town," they say when I run into them, after I've been in town for less than an hour.

Rural Vermont living is great in this way, it is so so wonderful. And it's also terrible, because privacy ain't real easy to come by.

I ran into my old friend Jacob at the post office, and he is beautiful and doing well, building canoes and kayaks and healthier than I've ever seen him. He is vibrant and and happy and clear, his hair is incredibly lovely (go with your bad self, Jacob!), and we talked about those good old days, how we weren't so clear back then, and how great it is to know clarity and inner peace. I got rundown on old crew, J-Ham's baby, Chris' housebuying plans, etc. People growed up. "Kevin is still Kevin," Jacob told me. Good thing, since that boy is a sizzler.

Found out about a party on Sunday in Montpelier, for Joel's birthday, where I'll likely run into anyone I haven't happened upon already, and where I'll get my play on with some of the old cats. It's funny, as I was driving into town today, I felt a little bit lost. Wondering what I'd do, if I'd feel lonely, if I'd find enough stuff to occupy me during the non-wedding stuff time. But lickety-split, as is always the case in the Valley, I've got some good mellow plans, and the lovefest is on.

Went river swimming in the Mad, to cool off from the sticky day that I would never complain about, because these days are so rare around these parts. Nice and cool and clean, got the travel stink off.

Staying the night with Khatouna, my second mama, who is also lovely and vibrant and clear these days. With wine and chocolate, we can talk a whole night away until sunrise, and we have lots to catch up about.

Remember what I said a few days ago about not being an easterner anymore? I think I was mistaken. Still got it, can't shake it. So happy to be here. So so so content right now. Except for one thing. I need groceries, and all the stores closed at six. That's the valley, still the same.

with my pops

dad making popovers

garden and barn

I’ve spent the last few days at my father’s house, running errands and spending time with my Pops. Coming home is hard (I think a lot of people feel this way, a kind of retroactive childhood ensuing as we visit our parents). My father is getting old. He’s eighty-one, and he’s lived in the same huge house for almost fifty years. I noticed the backyard hasn’t been mowed, and the garden is weedier than I’ve known it to be. The house is getting to be too much.

At dinner the night I got here, my dad told me he’s thinking of selling the place. He’s got some plans brewing, and although this stuff is hard to talk about, and hard to think about, and hard to do, I feel some relief that the elephant is being spoken of. Nothing too urgent, no swift maneuvers: "I’ve still got enough wood for two winters in the shed." My dad is a DIY-er, in the truest sense of the word, and still, with his bad eyesight and compromised balance and slowing-down-ness, chops his own wood, bakes his own bread (with grain he grinds himself), and makes strawberry-rhubarb pie with homegrown goods.

We’ve had a nice couple of days. I’ve gotten caught up on some errands, cleaned the car, done laundry, and spent many hours finishing up Chris and Emily’s wedding present. That feels good. We went to farmers’ market, on walks to the post office, and on little drives here and there. On Tuesday we went to see the Big Apple Circus, a longstanding summertime ritual for Dad and me, out on the Fullerton Farm. (Thankfully, this time, unlike one unpleasant circus experience while I was in college, I wasn't tripping.) Yesterday we rode up to Farm-Way in Bradford. For those of you who didn’t grow up in rural New England, the nuances of what it means to visit Farm-Way might be lost on you, but I’ll do my best. Farm-Way is the place you go to if you need a hose, any sort of gardening tool, grain for your cattle, work boots, Carhartts, or attachments for the milking machines. You also go to Farm-Way if you want Patagonia clothes, Dansko clogs, or good camping equiptment (a la REI). Sort of a one-stop shop for yuppies and farmers alike, way up to Bradford. ("Up to," around here, is used to denote anyplace upriver, or up a hill, or north. Sometimes, it means somewhere down a hill, or south, or downriver. It’s really pronounced "up tuh" and as long as you pronounce it right, nobody gives flack.) Anyway, around here, yuppies and farmers have a strange sort of symbiotic relationship, and if you want to understand it better, you have to live here, or at least take a trip to Farm-Way.

Anyhoo. I had a nice time at my dad’s house, I found a couple of big boxes of books I’d forgotten all about, poetry mostly, and all my Kerouac (nice timing!) so that’s pretty exciting. I’m on my way up and out just now, though, stopped in Hanover at the Dirt Cowboy Café for a coffee and wifi connection. Trying to update Flickr, I should be almost there. Ready to have onward motion again, I’m driving to Montpelier to meet miss Bethany for some lunch or somethin’, then on to the valley this afternoon, where I’ve got some massage work waiting for me, I think. I definitely have friends waiting for me there, and that makes me real happy. Old friends, good times, good snuggles and love.

More soon, maybe. I’m getting less and less inclined toward blogging/ emails/ phone calls the further into my trip I’m getting. If I haven’t returned your call, you’re not alone. Spotty reception and busy and feeling free and oaty don’t bode well for phonecalls. But I feel the love in your messages, and I’ll be back on the radar in another few days, once I’m done with valley and boston and NYC (hee haw!).
Xs and os. e

all the way home.

I am sitting on the bottom bunk in the bedroom in the old stone house where my Dad lives, the first of many bedrooms I’ve called my own. I am pretty sleepy. Amanda and I pulled into the Upper Valley this morning, after a long haul drive yesterday from Ohio to upstate New York and one last night of camping together.

We had a good run, Amanda and I. When I dropped her off today at her brother’s house, just a few miles from my Dad’s, we both felt bittersweet: it’s been a fun trip together, but we both were ready to get off the road and to have some quiet time alone. Of course, when I drove away from her, my excitement at the alone time I’d been lacking quickly faded away, and I felt a little bit lonely.

One of the things about traveling is that it’s not easy. Vacations are sometimes easy, but this really isn’t a vacation. It’s travel, it’s work of sorts, it’s a practice, it’s an inner journey as well as an outer one. Driving across this big wide land of ours, with silent hours to contemplate the shit that just doesn’t get mucked through at home, with all of home’s distractions, is no small task.

For me, possibly the most difficult element of this eastward odyssey has been really feeling, in a temporal and visual and tactile manner, how very far I am from New England. As we drove, I felt homesick, but it was a strange sort of homesickness because I wasn’t sure exactly where it was I was homesick for. This is a big, wide, lovely land, folks, and it took us nine days to drive across it. I feel settled in Portland, and happy, and rooted, and comfortable there. I feel at home there. But when the land begins to change in New York State, when the hills start rounding soft and small and blue, looking all fat this time of year, when we get out of the car and smell the grass and it is familiar in some old place deep inside of us, when we cross into Vermont and pass Killington on Route 4, and come down the mountain into Woodstock and see the barns we saw when we were small, I feel at home here, too.

It’s a little confusing, to be honest.

Anyway, Chicago was cool. Huge. We walked around and got kicked out of a public park because Vesta was with us. Then Vesta took a poo on the park, and I didn’t have a baggie, only a tiny piece of cellophane wrapper in my purse. So I picked up the poo all careful-like, but the cellophane was so small it would have appeared to any passing pedestrian that Miss Emily was carrying a log of shit in her bare hands! Unfortunately, this was quite a busy sidewalk, and the nearest trash receptacle was quite a distance away, so many Chicagoans are under the impression that I am a bare-handed shit-carrier.

We found, thanks to Roadfood, a spectacular drive-in lunch place called Superdawg, where we ate red-hots with relish and mustard, fries, and vanilla milkshakes, served to us while we sat in our car. I felt very American as I enjoyed this rite, if a bit of a lardass. After our Superdawgs, we drove onward through the rest of Chicago (did I mention Chicago is a BIG city?), and into Indiana.

Indiana was mostly a blur, because at this point we were on the get-back-to-VT mission. But one noteworthy interlude, with a noteworthy character, demands mention. With no imminent rest areas and full bladders, we got off the highway and found a KFC at which to relieve ourselves. While leaving the single-stalled bathroom –together, I should add, but only due to extenuating circumstances—we must have caught the attention of the aforementioned "noteworthy character." Naïve to this, we returned to our vehicle and were puttering around, getting a soda out of the cooler, whatever.

"Holy Shit!" the noteworthy character screams as he walks toward our car, "Hooooly SHIT!" He is talking to his wife, who is sitting in their older, boatlike Cadillac, smoking a cigarette, with curlers in her hair. "These people are from Ore-gone."
Then the noteworthy character engaged us in some chatter about holyshithowlongdidittakeyoutodrivehere, and so forth. Then the noteworthy character got into his boat and began to leave, as I put Vesta on her leash and began walking her in KFC’s greenery.
"If my wife weren’t here," he yelled out the window, "I’d ask you to put me on a leash!"
I feigned a smile.
"But don’t worry," he added, "That’s just a fantasy!"
Indeed.
So that was Indiana.

We camped that night in a town called Milan, doesn’t that sound swanky? It’s in Ohio. We stayed at the Milan Travel Center. The very sweet boy at the counter said dogs aren’t usually allowed in the tent area (see pic), because people don’t pick up after their dogs’ "mess." I told him about the cellophane incident in Chicago and said that if that doesn’t prove I clean up after my dog, I don’t know what will. We got the site, of course.

While at the Milan Travel Center, we met an old man and his dog. The dog had purple barrettes in her hair. The dog’s name is Jolie Le Fille. And if you speak french, you’ll know why this is funny.

The rest of our trip was pretty uneventful. We talked a lot, and last night camped at the Glimmer Glass Lake in Cooperstown, NY. We made one of those delicious, only-think-of-this-if-you’re-camping meals, and drank the second bottle of champagne from Becca and Eric, and then we went to bed early.

On homeward, we stopped quickly at the VT border before busting out the rest of the trip back to the Upper Valley.

My Dad's house is a great pitstop, chance to get laundry done, car cleaned up, rested, and fed. I met Amanda and her brother Marcus for a drink at Jesse's after work, and met his fiance Erin! I haven't seen Marcus in years and he is all grown up now, with a lovely wife-to-be. So nice to see them.

Then it was home to a delicious dinner with my pops, and some hard talks about aging and the future. Still simmering on that stuff, more on that later. I love you all!