Welcome to My Green Vermont
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. I got bored with teaching, took up running, and went into higher ed administration. I 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.
My Green Vermont
Latest Posts
Revelation
I am wandering around in our house in Quito—the one my mother chose because it has the best views of the surrounding volcanoes—looking for something to read. There wasn’t much
Drowned Men’s Undershirts
Summer, 1947. My grandparents’ farm, in a valley at the foot of the Pyrenees. In the afternoon, after the siesta, which is necessary because being out in the midday sun
Baby Carriage
The vehicle in which I rode as an infant was a kind of horseless barouche, black as a hearse, with a large hood that could be folded back to allow
Well Running Dry
I was about to post this yesterday, when all hell broke loose in DC, and it seemed like nothing would ever be the same. But now that the election has
Meditation Aid
There is a small dog bed on the floor next to my meditation cushion, and every morning when I fold myself into a half lotus my gray cat, Telemann, jumps
The Mule, the Plow, and the Pen
In the menagerie that usually crowds my dreams—lions and tigers starving in the basement, neglected goats and chickens multiplying in filthy outbuildings, a German Shepherd whom no one’s remembered to
Why I Read Biographies
“I don’t read biographies of musical geniuses,” my father used to say. “The music may be sublime, but the composer usually isn’t.” He was probably thinking of Beethoven, who was
Masked in Winter
As in early childhood, after a certain age the differences between the sexes become less pronounced. Seen from the back, men and women in their golden years are often indistinguishable.
My Green Vermont
Latest Posts
Revelation
I am wandering around in our house in Quito—the one my mother chose because it has the best views of the surrounding volcanoes—looking for something to read. There wasn’t much
Drowned Men’s Undershirts
Summer, 1947. My grandparents’ farm, in a valley at the foot of the Pyrenees. In the afternoon, after the siesta, which is necessary because being out in the midday sun
Baby Carriage
The vehicle in which I rode as an infant was a kind of horseless barouche, black as a hearse, with a large hood that could be folded back to allow
Well Running Dry
I was about to post this yesterday, when all hell broke loose in DC, and it seemed like nothing would ever be the same. But now that the election has
Meditation Aid
There is a small dog bed on the floor next to my meditation cushion, and every morning when I fold myself into a half lotus my gray cat, Telemann, jumps
The Mule, the Plow, and the Pen
In the menagerie that usually crowds my dreams—lions and tigers starving in the basement, neglected goats and chickens multiplying in filthy outbuildings, a German Shepherd whom no one’s remembered to
Why I Read Biographies
“I don’t read biographies of musical geniuses,” my father used to say. “The music may be sublime, but the composer usually isn’t.” He was probably thinking of Beethoven, who was
Masked in Winter
As in early childhood, after a certain age the differences between the sexes become less pronounced. Seen from the back, men and women in their golden years are often indistinguishable.