How School Does Not Solve All Problems

At the start of every summer, I focus all my hope on the first day of school. When school begins again, I tell myself, everything will be okay. I can survive those long, hot days of summer vacation because the first day of school will arrive to usher in a new era of sanity. On that day, I will bid a fond farewell to my oldest children at 7:30 AM, and greet them as they thump down the bus steps at 3:20 PM, exhausted and full of knowledge. I picture myself leaving their school after that first morning drop-off like a Disney princess: birds singing sweetly around my head, deer approaching me shyly – maybe I’ll even attempt a twirl for good measure.

And every year I am shocked — shocked! – at how school fails to be the happy ending I’d expected.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Once More to the Water

“It only gets really hot in Vermont for about one week every summer.”

That’s what we tell ourselves here in order to make ourselves feel better about Vermont’s widespread lack of central air conditioning.

It’s not true, of course: This summer, like every other summer since our family moved to Vermont, we experienced at least three distinct bouts of uncomfortably hot and humid temperatures. But, you see, it’s not worth investing in central air because it’s only really hot for about one week every summer.

This summer we did what we’ve done every other summer since moving to Vermont, and we headed for water. We logged numerous hours at Lake Dunmore, a mere 20 minutes from our front door. We took our annual mid-summer trip to Ogunquit, Maine, where we met extended family for a week of seaside vacation. And just this past weekend – the final weekend before the Addison County school year would effectively end summer – our family returned to the Highland Lodge, on the shores of Caspian Lake in Greensboro, Vermont.

Because we make these same aqua-centric outings every summer, they serve as yardsticks for our family’s growth and development. We remember the first trip we took to Ogunquit, when I was pregnant with our first child. We recall our first summer in Vermont, when Lake Dunmore was a weekly escape. And we look back with fondness on our first visit to Caspian Lake three years ago: our first vacation after the birth of our fourth daughter.

This year, all of these trips offered clear proof that my children are growing up.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

In Which I Butcher Some Chickens

“So, what does one wear to butcher chickens?” I asked my friend Courtney over the phone. We were confirming our plans for the following night; I was focusing on the priorities. (The answer, in case you were wondering, is: anything that you don’t mind coming into contact with blood, guts, feathers, and – above all – that chicken smell.)

Courtney had emailed the week before: “Do you want to butcher three chickens with me? Your family could have the three chickens for your freezer. I have a vegetarian friend with three meat birds….”

Who would pass up an invitation like that? Not me.

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column for The Addison Independent.

Marriage, Thirteen Years Later

July 20, 2002, 8 AM

I spent the night with my mother at The Colony Club on Park Avenue in New York City, where the wedding reception will take place.

I didn’t sleep much; I was too excited. Instead, I finished reading The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien’s masterful novel about the Vietnam War: an odd reading choice for a bride-to-be, perhaps, but it definitely takes my mind off of the wedding.

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

A Midsummer Sampler (With Kids)

“I am so bored. I’m bored to death!” moans my 7-year-old daughter.

We are three weeks into summer vacation. For one of those weeks, she attended a day camp at Lake Dunmore. For two and a half of those weeks, her grandparents visited from California; this visit included a trip to the Six Flags Great Escape water and amusement parks, a day at Shelburne Farms, the Ilsley Library summer reading truck touch, and a strawberry picking outing. For two weeks, she took daily swimming lessons at the Middlebury Town Pool.

She has three younger sisters, a house full of books and toys, and 1¼ acres at her disposal.

She is bored to death.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Changing My Mind

It can be humbling to write a bi-weekly newspaper column: Few things more effectively highlight one’s capacity for change – or inconsistency, denial, and flip-flopping. I’m not convinced that this is a bad thing; isn’t the point of individual human existence to grow and change? Isn’t it natural that the ideas expressed in a column should evolve along with the human writing that column?

For some reason, though, we expect writers – particularly writers of regular columns – to emerge with a fully formed set of ideas that remain consistent for the life of their column. Writing, it seems, sets one’s opinions in cement, and to deviate from a previously written opinion is to reveal a weak character.

If that seems extreme, imagine Ann Coulter suddenly begging our forgiveness and espousing the ideology of the liberal left, or Nicholas Kristof announcing that he’s been wrong and human trafficking is really just a natural extension of free market capitalism. One scenario might be wonderful, one might be awful, but each would call into question the journalistic integrity of the writer.

It has been nearly three years since I began writing “Faith in Vermont.” In terms of genre, “Faith in Vermont” is best described as a “lifestyle” rather than a “political” or “opinion” column. But lifestyles, politics, and opinions are all subject to change, and such change has happened in our household:

Last month, we joined the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op.

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

The Moms Are All Right

This column will be published immediately following the last day of Addison County’s 2014-15 school year.

But I’m not going to write about the complex bundle of emotions that summer vacation inspires in parents: the relief of no longer having to get up before dawn to pack lunches and sign reading logs, versus the dread of 71 long days filled with sibling squabbles, sunscreen and bug spray, and the logistical gymnastics of camps and classes and vacations.

I’m not going to write about that, because now I know that the moms are all right. I’m sure that the dads are all right, too, but I haven’t had coffee with them.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Take It Easy

My daughter stepped off of the school bus the other day, handed me her heavy backpack, and – as is her custom – made her way slowly up towards our house by walking on top of the rock wall alongside the driveway. As she neared her destination she stopped, dropped into a squat, and called the rest of us – her sisters and me – over. She’d discovered two inchworms hanging from their invisible filaments over the edge of a large rock. For the next ten minutes, two of my daughters remained there, transfixed, watching the two inchworms “race” up and down their threads.

Yes, I am still taking a summer vacation from The Pickle Patch, but as promised, here is the link to this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Lessons from the Garden

The older I get, the more I love gardening.

I have commented previously in this column about my ambivalence towards gardening — the result of a childhood spent watching my parents slave away each weekend in their garden — and the unfavorable gardening conditions in my own rock-infested, tree-shaded yard. One could quite rightly characterize my current relationship with my garden as “rocky.”

But perhaps in the same way that women are said to always come to resemble their mothers, I find that my gardening behavior is increasingly coming to resemble that of my parents. I attribute most of this change to age; while young gardeners do exist, I consider them a special breed, prodigies, the Mozarts of the soil. For the rest of us, it takes age to teach us the particular blend of passion and patience required for gardening.

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column in the Addison Independent.

American Girl Dolls and the Decline of Civilization

Grandparents get to do whatever they want — that’s my philosophy.

It wasn’t always; like most first-time parents, I tended to be overly controlling when it came to toys, food, and naps. But my children are blessed with four grandparents who love them and respect reasonable boundaries, and I realized that, after the arduous task of raising my husband and me, these grandparents are entitled to spoil their grandchildren. So these days, my default response to grandparent inquiries is: “Sure!”

And that’s how we wound up getting my daughters’ dolls’ hair styled at the American Girl store in Tysons Corner, Virginia. (“You’re doing what?” my husband asked, incredulous, before we left. “Grandparents get to do whatever they want,” I shrugged.)

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont (travel edition)” column in The Addison Independent.