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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.
It’s 100F in Mexico, and dead howler monkeys are falling out of trees. Here in Vermont it’s only 90F, and nothing is falling other than my spirits at these signs
After waking up from the fishy dream I wrote about last week, I leaped out of bed, flew to the pet store, and came home with a Betta. His tiny
In my prime, my life was full of animals. There were ten hens and two goats in the barn, while in the house you couldn’t turn around without some creature
The last time one of my daughters sat on my lap. The last time my father gave me a violin lesson. The last time I ran five miles. I think
Remember the Tasaday, that tiny Stone Age tribe living in caves deep in the Philippine jungle? According to the 1972 National Geographic article that made them famous, the Tasaday, completely
Recess is over. My fellow first-graders and I line up in preparation for returning to the classroom, but our teacher holds up her hand, “Wait! I see in front of
It’s a sunny weekday morning, and there are four of us at the checkout counter in the otherwise empty neighborhood market. There is a young, Rubenesque register clerk with ivory
The children who, like me, were born shortly after the end of the Spanish Civil War, embodied the hope for a life free from the horrors of the recent past.
It’s 100F in Mexico, and dead howler monkeys are falling out of trees. Here in Vermont it’s only 90F, and nothing is falling other than my spirits at these signs
After waking up from the fishy dream I wrote about last week, I leaped out of bed, flew to the pet store, and came home with a Betta. His tiny
In my prime, my life was full of animals. There were ten hens and two goats in the barn, while in the house you couldn’t turn around without some creature
The last time one of my daughters sat on my lap. The last time my father gave me a violin lesson. The last time I ran five miles. I think
Remember the Tasaday, that tiny Stone Age tribe living in caves deep in the Philippine jungle? According to the 1972 National Geographic article that made them famous, the Tasaday, completely
Recess is over. My fellow first-graders and I line up in preparation for returning to the classroom, but our teacher holds up her hand, “Wait! I see in front of
It’s a sunny weekday morning, and there are four of us at the checkout counter in the otherwise empty neighborhood market. There is a young, Rubenesque register clerk with ivory
The children who, like me, were born shortly after the end of the Spanish Civil War, embodied the hope for a life free from the horrors of the recent past.