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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.
(Written during this past weekend) There is a block party in my neighborhood this afternoon, and I’m not going. I have not made this decision lightly. But it is causing
I am banging on her bedroom door, yelling “Let me in! I want to see an Indian!” But the door stays closed. Behind it my mother’s sister María, whom I
The year I turned five I began to think of myself as being six. Being six meant starting school and having my First Communion, so six seemed a good thing
It’s laundry day afternoon, and my mother and her sister are folding sheets. They each hold one end of the sheet, fold it lengthwise in half, and then in quarters.
While my uncle harnesses the horse to the farm cart, my mother and her sisters gather cutlery and linen. They fill baskets with food and the big porró with wine.
These days I walk around with two entities inside my head. The first is a governessy, head-mistressy, bureacratish person obsessed with getting things done on time and averting disaster. The
Before dying at the age of 51, the French writer Honoré de Balzac published over one hundred novels. Every day he would eat an early supper, go to bed until
She was born on Bastille Day, and in her youth she embodied some of the rowdy spirit of the masses that stormed that fortress. She was a little flame of
(Written during this past weekend) There is a block party in my neighborhood this afternoon, and I’m not going. I have not made this decision lightly. But it is causing
I am banging on her bedroom door, yelling “Let me in! I want to see an Indian!” But the door stays closed. Behind it my mother’s sister María, whom I
The year I turned five I began to think of myself as being six. Being six meant starting school and having my First Communion, so six seemed a good thing
It’s laundry day afternoon, and my mother and her sister are folding sheets. They each hold one end of the sheet, fold it lengthwise in half, and then in quarters.
While my uncle harnesses the horse to the farm cart, my mother and her sisters gather cutlery and linen. They fill baskets with food and the big porró with wine.
These days I walk around with two entities inside my head. The first is a governessy, head-mistressy, bureacratish person obsessed with getting things done on time and averting disaster. The
Before dying at the age of 51, the French writer Honoré de Balzac published over one hundred novels. Every day he would eat an early supper, go to bed until
She was born on Bastille Day, and in her youth she embodied some of the rowdy spirit of the masses that stormed that fortress. She was a little flame of