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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.
When Sister Mary Ruth assigned T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, I was puzzled by the lines, “I grow old…I grow old…/I shall wear the bottoms of
It has come to the attention of members of the porcine nation that you abused a news vedette using “piggy” as an epithet. Simple, feckless, ignorant man! Don’t you know
The medal that my grandmother gave me for my First Communion has been sitting in my jewelry box for a long time. As a child I wore it on special
August, 1950. We are all lined up, squinting into the sun, by the shrine of Our Lady of the Orchards, outside my mother’s village in Catalonia. I have just made
I used to look askance at parents who bribed their children to do things, such as taking out the trash or finishing their homework, that they were supposed to do
I don’t know where the American medical establishment got its idea of the Mediterranean diet, but it doesn’t bear much resemblance to the Mediterranean diet of my Catalan childhood. Our
“Stand up straight, like little lead soldiers!” Mater Maria says in her accented Spanish as we file into the playground. I am in first grade, and am quickly learning that,
For some of us, gifts of flowers, books, chocolates, or jewelry constitute our love language—how we express and want to receive affection—while others may prefer an intimate conversation while gazing
When Sister Mary Ruth assigned T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, I was puzzled by the lines, “I grow old…I grow old…/I shall wear the bottoms of
It has come to the attention of members of the porcine nation that you abused a news vedette using “piggy” as an epithet. Simple, feckless, ignorant man! Don’t you know
The medal that my grandmother gave me for my First Communion has been sitting in my jewelry box for a long time. As a child I wore it on special
August, 1950. We are all lined up, squinting into the sun, by the shrine of Our Lady of the Orchards, outside my mother’s village in Catalonia. I have just made
I used to look askance at parents who bribed their children to do things, such as taking out the trash or finishing their homework, that they were supposed to do
I don’t know where the American medical establishment got its idea of the Mediterranean diet, but it doesn’t bear much resemblance to the Mediterranean diet of my Catalan childhood. Our
“Stand up straight, like little lead soldiers!” Mater Maria says in her accented Spanish as we file into the playground. I am in first grade, and am quickly learning that,
For some of us, gifts of flowers, books, chocolates, or jewelry constitute our love language—how we express and want to receive affection—while others may prefer an intimate conversation while gazing