Published in The Bridge, Montpelier, VT, January 21, 2010 -
Technically, I suppose, I am a flat lander. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t count that I have lived most of my adult life – since graduating from the decidedly flat lands of a New York City university – in the mountains. Huge, towering, snow capped all year round mountains. Mountains full of grizzly bear and lynx and mountain lions and elk and moose and all of the other creatures that occupy a forest.
I lived in big sky country, big land country. Country that doesn’t mind clear cutting thousands of acres of trees at one time, leaving a cancer of the landscape. Country that doesn’t mind ripping off the cap of a mountain to plunder the riches of minerals stored inside its secret rocks. Country that doesn’t mind pouring the chemical soup of its landscape destruction directly into the rivers that slice through this epic and ancient place.
I lived in the west for many years, first, in the United States, and then in Canada. Neither place offered much restraint or respect for the land when serious hard-core profits were available. The only show of concern for environmental degradation, was when an aluminum smelter sat on the border of the two giant landmasses, almost directly on the 49th parallel. Then there was a big show of law suits and counter law suits. Each government crying that the other was poisoning its citizens. But the truth was closer to the fear that one country was getting more spoils of the land wars than the other.
When I lived up in northern British Columbia, a place I had always imagined as pristine and unspoiled; a place that I thought might still offer the true pioneer experience, I met an oncologist who told me that cancer rates, as a direct result of the poor mining practices, were 1 in 2 in the north, and that soon, they would be 1 in 1. I didn’t think those odds were much in my favor, so I packed my things and headed east.
I should tell you that I came originally from Massachusetts. So accordingly, I can accept the high mountains of Vermont as high and I can accept the somewhat pejorative term of my new land status. I can accept that, simply because of the way the landscape and the people of Vermont have accepted me.
The mountains are gentler here, softer, spread wide apart by long narrow valleys cut with creeks and streams all emptying into long and mellow rivers. Next door in New Hampshire, the mountains have a stark, almost western feel, the exposed rock, the intense majesty. But here in Vermont the landscape feels less austere, less commanding. Here in Vermont, the mountains feel like home. They invite you onto their mossy, secret paths. Only some of the mountaintops offer you gorgeous views for your hiking effort. Grey peaks paling far away into the distance. The tiny towns, spread 8 miles apart are a perfect days walk on a horse, nestled in the undulating fields like children’s toys on a soft blanket.
But there is nothing childlike about the landscape here. The landscape here is old. It is ancient.
There seemed to me, at first, no piece of earth you could walk on, that had not been walked before, by a thousand feet. No mountain pass you could pass and feel the first one passing. The weight of history lay heavy in the mist darkened valleys. But this did not diminish the intense beauty, or even the frequent feelings of isolation. I have walked for hours in a mixed up woods, and never passed a soul, only small birds and chipmunks and butterflies and a skunk. I have a feeling like walking in an old rainforest, or a fairy land, the tall and thick trees, hulking by the side of the path bearing witness to me, as they bore witness to Ethan Allen, to Robert Frost, to George Washington. Old gnarled apple trees still put out their fruit and the apples are deeply sweet. I like to think they carry the history of the ages in their skin, their blood, their flesh.
When does a person finally realize they are home? When do you look out at the skyline, framed by the small window of a bedroom you’ve only slept in for forty days, and feel in your heart that you could look out this window forever? When do the rich memories of indescribable landscapes – the serrated clamshell of a perfect beach, the snow drenched cone of a volcano, the sky biting etched mountains of Gstaad – when do these become simply fond memories?
I say it is today. This morning. This very moment. When I woke up, and watched the mist floating on the freshly snowed fields, arching its back, and wrapping around my cabin. When I tried to decipher the suns rays pressing through that mist, and saw a fistful of optimistic honeybees pouring down into the garden on a ray of sun breaking that mist. When the neighbors rooster crowed, and my small puppy answered in his fancy puppy bark. Then I knew. They can call me whatever they want, these new and good hearted neighbors of mine. I might be a flat lander for the rest of my days. But a rose by any other name, would smell as sweet.
