p e n g u i n d e v i l

I’ve been a bit grumpy here it VT. It’s been too hot (which makes me grumpy) and it was too sunny at the farmers market (which makes me grumpy and a bit naseous) but finally today it cooled down, became overcast and started to rain. It was a beautiful day! I would say that four of my favorite things are, and always have been: solitude, quiet, walking and rain. So once it started to get a bit dark, I finally stumbled on the idea of walking up the road before dinner. It was actually raining pretty hard and this is basically a hard-packed dirt road, but it was a pretty darned good walk, encompassing all four of those things. Though it didnt seem like the safest stroll, with how folks drive down these little roads, it was very calming, as I could feel tension well up in my back and then dissipate. I even made it to the little (very little, maybe a dozen souls) cemetery up a little slope off the road. I could only read one stone in the darkening, “Charles Adams, died 1845”, but it was nice, nonetheless.

I love the rural areas. Being here at the house or on the road or in the villages, I really do love it here. I love the people and the places, the little villages and their churches and the wonderful farmhouses and the streams and the hills. The towns, well… Brattleboro and, especially Montpelier, I do like a lot and I am very fond of Saint Johnsbury, but they do remind of some of the things that I want to get away from, the buildings and the traffic and all that. Though it hardly compares here, it is still the same idea as in a city, just on a much smaller scale. But maybe I was just grumpy when the thought occurred to me. The more we think about relocating here (four years now, we’ve been thinking) and the more time we spend here, the more I begin to get an idea of the changes in store for me. The obvious ones are the weather, the jobs, the movies and pubs and bookstores and record stores, but in a lot of ways it is the people that will be a tough one. Well, not the poeple themselves, as I’ve met dozens and they have been great folks, in a lot of ways I find them much easier to bear than some folks back home, but I am very used to Portland folks. By which I don’t mean the 60% of the population that has moved there, but the remaining folks who are from there. Portlanders tend to have a special little something. Something a little sarcastic, counterculture, resigned, and hermit-like, with a tinge of bemused hostility that I feel I’ll miss being away from. But then again, when ever one moves away from home, I imagine that there is alwasy something one misses, that doesn’t mean that it is not for the better. And I truely do feel that, especially in the long run, it would be a good move.