HERE IN THE BUBBLE

Porch flowerpots at the end of their season on a foggy morning

A night in late summer is noticeably longer than a mid-summer night, and cooler too, no matter the warmth of the day.  The air near the ground cools rapidly in the early evening–you can feel it–and the humidity increases, especially when the air is already tending to damp; the cool meets the warming air and makes fog.  Around 6 or 7 in the morning it may be as wet as if it had rained. 

Summer to autumn is a transition made of loss and new beginning. 

Things move on.  Time stretches, compresses.  Suddenly (it seems sudden) three grandchildren are in college (St. Lawrence U, Middlebury College, UMass Amherst).  In no time there will be four.  (Only last week Audrey, now a junior in high school, got her driver’s license.  Ben is starting 9th grade.)  

Soon Ken will have been gone a year.  Long ago and not yet long at all.  And when exactly do I put the date of his actual leaving: when he was no longer himself?  Do I add a few months?  A year?  I feel as if I'm looking into an empty crater.  I think:  He hasn’t seen the pool! 

It’s the absence that puts a coda to a way of being.  Certain things have been done.  Completed.  Places, cities, are branded for all time.  He was part of Paris, London, Florence, Taomina, Prague, Novgorad, St. Petersburg; Hanoi, Phnom Penh, Singapore, Kathmandu; Buenos Aires, Ushuaia, Lima, and Iquitos; Cairns, Broome, Darwin, Auckland; Tangier, Capetown, Victoria, Mala Mala; Santa Fe, Banff, New Orleans, Steamboat Springs, Alta, Mount Katahdin, Yosemite, Tetons, the White Mountains, the Green Mountains, the Black Cuillins, the Olgas, the Bungle Bungles.  How can I remember these places without him?  How could I go there again?  Yes, I know: That’s how it is with missing partners; it’s not only me.  I discover what others already know.

Big deal. 

Still. 

Together we saw the lyre bird, the bower bird, the lionfish, the kinkajou, the wombat, the anaconda, the rhea, the oystercatcher, the sloth, the jacana, the moray eels and the sharks, the cheetahs and the elephants––who else can share this?  Our histories are everywhere, in every town, and on every mountain trail.  So it goes.  

Next September I will go to Iceland on the sort of trip we might have done.  It had been an almost-plan at one time, but we chose a different place.  When it becomes a year since the day, the day before Halloween to be precise, I will be away, having decided that being away will be better. Best.

Not that being here isn’t wonderful.  Sometimes I feel like a lord of the manor.  Especially with our pool.  My pool.

The valley I'm in:  all I survey  (pictured are Lesley, Hans, Leah)

It began as a happy distraction, planning the pool.  I could have built a garage that would have kept my car under cover and spare me the need to close the sunroof and windows every day in case of rain or snow.  If I had a garage, I wouldn’t have to clean off snow and ice.  On hot days the car would be in the shade.  (Oh, wait. I would still have to keep the windows and sunroof closed or mice would get in the car and eat things.  They will find their way into all sorts of places when it gets cold.  I trapped eleven this winter in the basement.  I have no idea how or when they found their way in.)  With the same amount of money, more or less, I could make something that would be more fun than a garage. 

Let's face it, better to look at a pond than a garage, even off season.

Fully furnished now with umbrella, table, chairs, and chaise lounge from Lexington days

Here in the bubble–removed from, shall we say, the hurly-burly of urban and suburban life–it is easy to rest one’s eyes on the fields, the mountains, even the pool, and put out of mind all the disgraces and horrors of Trumpism–that leprous malady.  It can feel far away.  But there are realities here on the ground. Many dairy farm workers are migrants, some legal, some not.  A person from Vergennes was written about in our local newspaper recently.  Married to an American citizen, a father of two children and stepfather of four others, with no criminal record, Juan de la Cruz came here illegally many years ago, worked at a dairy farm and eventually became a dairy farmer himself, owning lhis own farm, contributing to the community, well-liked and respected.  He received notice recently that he would be deported, sent back to Mexico.  Over $20,000 was raised locally to pay for legal services.  His case is pending.  

The unleashed hatreds, the willful ignorance about climate change, the lies and deliberate misrepresentations, the discarding of ethical values, the day-to-day tawdryness–I don’t know where to even begin–are hard to reconcile to the beauty of this landscape.  Not that there aren’t Trump lovers around here, although they are probably fewer than the roughly thirty percent they constitute nationally.

A nice day.  What else can I say?

Prolific apple trees this year; plenty of apple sauce coming

I am grateful to be where I am, where there is so much that offers respite.

Respite, a lot of it, from the feelings of loss, for one thing.  And, for now, from events like wildfires, earthquakes and hurricanes. 

Fingers crossed though.  You never know.