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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.
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
For centuries, in Catholic European countries, as soldiers were preparing for battle a priest would grant them general absolution from their sins. I do the same sort of thing before
My first cigarette was offered to me by my father, the Christmas when I was fifteen. In the Barcelona of my childhood, all the men smoked like chimneys, but none
It begins in November. The local newspaper, the important bill, the handwritten note from a long-ago school friend are engulfed in a tide of mailings from charities to most of
To save energy while I recover from COVID, I’m recycling this post from 2008. My mother and the dog Lexi are gone now, but the words still ring true. May
10 p.m. I am in bed, eyes shut, light off, book closed. Manifesting suddenly out of the dark, the cat Telemann leaps on the bed and burrows into the crook
My little red dog Bisou isn’t who she used to be. At thirteen, there is a noticeable dulling of her spirits, a fading of her joie de vivre. There is
In our apartment in the art nouveau section of Barcelona, my parents, my mother’s two sisters, the live-in maid, and I all shared one bathroom, which consisted of two separate
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
For centuries, in Catholic European countries, as soldiers were preparing for battle a priest would grant them general absolution from their sins. I do the same sort of thing before
My first cigarette was offered to me by my father, the Christmas when I was fifteen. In the Barcelona of my childhood, all the men smoked like chimneys, but none
It begins in November. The local newspaper, the important bill, the handwritten note from a long-ago school friend are engulfed in a tide of mailings from charities to most of
To save energy while I recover from COVID, I’m recycling this post from 2008. My mother and the dog Lexi are gone now, but the words still ring true. May
10 p.m. I am in bed, eyes shut, light off, book closed. Manifesting suddenly out of the dark, the cat Telemann leaps on the bed and burrows into the crook
My little red dog Bisou isn’t who she used to be. At thirteen, there is a noticeable dulling of her spirits, a fading of her joie de vivre. There is
In our apartment in the art nouveau section of Barcelona, my parents, my mother’s two sisters, the live-in maid, and I all shared one bathroom, which consisted of two separate