hello friends

hello dear friends! hello? is this thing on? ha ha. welcome.......!!!!!

this post brings you to a little town in the northeast kingdom of vermont, to the tip top of a grassy hillside, a few hours after sunset. the moon this evening was a sliver of waxing crescent, fresh on the sun's tail after the two met yesterday. the stars are out, as the night is clear (though tomorrow i hear there will be rain).

i am sitting in a cabin that is temporarily "mine," in a chair that does indeed belong in a dorm room, but that's okay, because it's a nice place to sit. warmed by the heat of my wood stove, which last saw a fresh burn about fourteen hours ago, right around the time my parents left following a weekend visit. it is still very warm here, as the insulation in this cabin is good.

a view of my cabin the day of the total solar eclipse - april 2024

this morning at dawn, my mother saw a porcupine lumbering about not ten feet from the steps. we believe it was the same momma porcupine who, several evenings ago, we heard scratching at the earth beneath the floor, in hopes of building a burrow for her soon-to-arrive young. there also remain tracks of several other animals, to be glimpsed and revisited before the last of the snow melts. we thought perhaps they could be deer, birds, a dog and their human, maybe even a wolf here and there. a fox too. i wish i had a better eye for figuring them out. i do like knowing that you can tell how quickly a mouse is changing direction by the imprints of their tails.

i've lived in this space for nearly two weeks now (two weeks this friday). before being here i was in burlington briefly, and before that i saw my friend isabel in her new home, and we walked for a bit in the fields behind the farmhouse, squinting at mountains that beckoned us to clambor up them, feeling i think some combination each of relief and trepidation. before being here i was waking up again each day at five thirty, a second now-familiar and beloved stint, and rousing myself to the good mornings of several dozen goats, who alternatingly sought my attention and ignored each and every of my affections towards them (sometimes! sometimes they were adoring and would come up to say hello and sit with me, and this was very wonderous). before this i was at home in massachusetts, going through a rapid cycle of unpacking-re-packing to move, yet again, as i feel i have done so much these past few months, as a select some of us readers have. before THAT i was in burlington briefly, the first time, going through the second of conversations that, as it would happen, impelled the eventual big change (though perhaps not the biggest). before that, I was two and a half weeks at the same old good goat farm that very first beautiful time, and the night before that I was cutting most of my hair off in what I hoped resembled a Winona Ryder-esque chop, but maybe it's just short now and easier to keep neat. before that i was leaving a very special and beautiful place and all its serendipitous circumstances, otherwise known as the city of Wheeling, west virginia, which i miss rather a lot.

my days are those of a farmer now, and this is a very big shift. plan, what plan?! rain or no rain? sandbags to fill, wet mulch hay to haul, dead marigolds to cut back, summertime lessons to plan. spring to wait for (i saw snowdrops today!). things are always changing, in my work life now as well as all the rest, and perhaps this is good. i heard someone on the radio talking about the key to navigating change as being adaptable, being open, being willing to alter course accordingly, taking a moment or two to adjust and recenter before continuing down the new path. they were talking about disaster planning and humanitarian relief, but. it still compelled me.

i wonder what i might have written had i put together this blog post a week ago (in the thick of some pretty intense loneliness, of a novel and strange sort) or a week before that (in the company of a new friend and many ruminants, in a place that feels of home) or a week before that (preparing for several reunions of various natures) or the week before that (at peace with the movement of my days) or weeks and weeks before (on the eve of all the shifts that were coming, playing catan with my friends, and eating vanilla cake). all these little epochs have been interesting, but march was also one of the harder months in recent memory. i do think that things will continue to be hard, but they will also continue to grow more familiar, and they will remain (i hope) interesting.

thank you for reading and see you soon!