“The first day of sun after snowfall, days of it. A foot of white topping on the picnic table hasn’t melted yet, although the roads are clear. The foliage crowd left just in time, I’d say. I’ve worked at home, stoking my fires, anticipating visitors, though none arrived. Too early to claim “cabin fever”, yet I woke today, with the itch to get out. I’ll take the notch road, to see if higher, we’ve broken any records. Putting the truck in four wheel, I go down my road, then traverse the windswept plateau where Ray Grimes used to grow strawberries, and begin to go up again. There are so many triggers, on any local drive. Memories of my oldest child’s home daycare, a bridge over a waterfall & near drowning, the row of mature maple trees that had once been newly planting saplings. A former zendo, my first cabin, a derelict outdoor theater, the dirt track to a remote pond. On top of this, the current overlay: of gardens designed & dug, odd side roads explored & conquered, the entrances to more mysterious places, drawing maps in my mind, as wide as the marshes are never-ending, dividing what is traversable, from what is not. Or so they say. I don’t really believe in being shut out of anything I’m curious about. I’ll still try. I pass groomed estates, shacks jacked up on blocks, suburban ranch houses, and school buses almost bigger than the trailers they belong to. This winter world of absence, when it’s harder to see anyone, and people stay home more than go out, it’s a little depressing. However, this is why we go to town. I’m on an urgent errand: to get a bagel. Nothing in my house was, or looked like, breakfast food, so I “had” to leave. Now, as I crest the mountain, and the elevation begins to dip, and I feel gravity pulling me, and I drive, and drive, I feel almost, like, I may have misjudged the season. Why, in this valley, there are orange trees, fully clothed, on the hillsides, and green grass bursting from the fields. What? How can Vermont be so many things, to so many people? It’s a god damn spring relapse down here. No snow, no signs of impending doom, just a cheerful montage of dry pavement, and normal activity without undo suffering, apparently. Dazed, I stumble into the bagel shop. I can hardly speak. “You’re out of sesame bagels?” I stammer. “Yes”, she says, smiling, looking at me, with a attitude of good sportsmanship. “Then I’ll take 6 multi-grain, and ... and ... “ I can hardly stand the normalcy of what I’m encountering. “ ...and one toasted, with plain cream cheese”. As soon as I can get away, I go to the coffee station. I still know what a cup is, and how to pump, and how to fill. Just like with gas. Maybe I’ll need that too. I’ll have to review my options, when I get back to the truck, now that I know, it’s not always winter, everywhere, at least .. not at the same time.”
