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I was born in Barcelona, where I went to a school run by German nuns, studied solfeggio, and played the violin. When I was ten, my parents and I moved to Ecuador, where I had a number of exotic pets and strange adventures. Four years later, we landed in Birmingham, Alabama. None of us spoke English, and the strange adventures continued. (Many of these appear in My Green Vermont.)
Survived high school. Got B.A. in French and Biology, Ph.D. in Romance Languages (French and Spanish). Gave up the Church and the violin, got married, had two daughters, taught at a liberal arts college in Maryland. Also grew veggies, made bread, kept chickens, milked goats, and wrote for newspapers and magazines. Got bored with teaching, took up running, and went into higher ed administration. Was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), and learned to live in a totally different way.
I started My Green Vermont when we moved to that state. For ten years I lived with my spouse, three dogs, twelve hens, two goats, and assorted passing wildlife in a house on a hill, surrounded by fields and woods. In 2014, we moved to a cottage in a continuing care residential community near Lake Champlain. Gave up livestock and vegetable gardening in favor of wild birds, honeybees, a little red dog, and a gray cat.
My Green Vermont is a fertile compost pile made up of stories about the weirdness of growing up in three countries and three languages; portraits of beloved animals, both wild and domestic; and reflections on aging, being kind to the earth, and staying as calm as possible. I hope you will visit often, and add your own stories and reactions.
I never thought I would agree with Sarah Huckabee Sanders, formerly Trump’s press secretary and now governor of Arkansas, on anything. But when she banned the word Latinx from the
One, two, three, four…where is #5? It’s laundry day, and I’m counting dryer balls, those woolen, felted spheres that are supposed to shorten the time it takes for clothes to
As the first pimples of puberty appeared on my face, my moods took a downward turn. While all around me my classmates were morphing into butterflies, I was stuck in
Maybe it was the light, which by mid-February in these northern latitudes really starts to put in an appearance, but last week I had a sudden spurt of energy that
You may have heard about the third-world immigrant who, newly arrived in the U.S., suffered an anxiety attack in the bread aisle of the supermarket. Accustomed to having a single
“It’s the size of a communion wafer, doctor! I only found it this afternoon,” my mother said as she undid my braids and located the bald spot that had caused
In a snit, I have decided to get rid of most of my books, which sit untouched year after year until I pick one up and am appalled at the
One night last December I put some Vicks VapoRub under my nose to help me breathe, and I failed to experience that familiar hit of camphor, eucalyptus, and menthol that
I never thought I would agree with Sarah Huckabee Sanders, formerly Trump’s press secretary and now governor of Arkansas, on anything. But when she banned the word Latinx from the
One, two, three, four…where is #5? It’s laundry day, and I’m counting dryer balls, those woolen, felted spheres that are supposed to shorten the time it takes for clothes to
As the first pimples of puberty appeared on my face, my moods took a downward turn. While all around me my classmates were morphing into butterflies, I was stuck in
Maybe it was the light, which by mid-February in these northern latitudes really starts to put in an appearance, but last week I had a sudden spurt of energy that
You may have heard about the third-world immigrant who, newly arrived in the U.S., suffered an anxiety attack in the bread aisle of the supermarket. Accustomed to having a single
“It’s the size of a communion wafer, doctor! I only found it this afternoon,” my mother said as she undid my braids and located the bald spot that had caused
In a snit, I have decided to get rid of most of my books, which sit untouched year after year until I pick one up and am appalled at the
One night last December I put some Vicks VapoRub under my nose to help me breathe, and I failed to experience that familiar hit of camphor, eucalyptus, and menthol that