What I never told Donald Hall

Donald Hall, by his own estimation, paid more attention to death than other poets.

“It’s well known and kind of amusing,” Hall told me when I called him in August 2014 to talk about his friend Galway Kinnell. “Everybody’s poetry is alike. Love and death. Love and death.”

“I paid more attention to death than Galway,” he said.

Hall died June 23, 2018, at his family farm in Wilmot, New Hampshire.

Hall’s fascination with the theme of death, even as his own neared, is instructive.

When I — a rookie editor who still missed writing — spoke to Hall, the 85-year-old told me he still wrote every day even though poetry had stopped a few years earlier.

A publicist sent Hall’s writing from that final period to my office a few weeks ago in the form of “A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety.” I took the book home, and it now sits on my nightstand.

Hall died before I could finish his book, which has saved us both from my recurring desire to try the phone number for him that I still have in my reporting notes.

I wanted to call him after reading a few essays that I found particularly powerful but talked myself out of it when I thought of the essay “Solitude Double Solitude,” where he writes of writing routine and his “solitary pleasure.”

I also suspected that I, an unpublished poet, was not among those who Hall really wanted to hear praise of his prose. He told me in 2014 that his 60-year friendship with Kinnell was very important. The last time they saw each other five years earlier they were still sharing poems.

“Friends say that this is good," Hall said. "I remember Galway said that about this poem.”

I no longer remember what poem Hall was talking about.

What I wouldn’t tell Hall, I will tell you. Hall stared down death to the end. I loved the essay “Seven Hundred Words” in his latest book.

Suppose I am the 150-year-old maple outside my porch. […] In January the last survivors flutter down onto the snow. These black leaves are the words I write.

His exploration of death urges us to be deeply rooted in the experience of life.

A counter-cautionary tale

I spent the third morning and early afternoon of my vacation in New York City hopping on and swapping trains to get from my friend Ben’s apartment in Brooklyn to the Upper Westside. We’d had the three floors of the museum to ourselves and then had taken a leisurely walk through Central Park. I was feeling downright lucky to be off work for an entire week and to be out in the middle of the day enjoying the few hours of sunshine that broke through late November’s smoky sky.

That feeling fled and panic set in when I reached into an empty coat pocket intending to retrieve my metro card at the Columbus Circle station. Ben sifted through the stack of cards in my wallet and I checked and rechecked the pockets of my coat and backpack. Not only was my metro card missing but so was my membership to the co-op back in Burlington, Vermont, my driver’s license and my debit card — which I kept together in a plastic sleeve.

Ben called the museum to see if anything had turned up, and I logged into my banking app to check for charges. We decided it was best for Ben to head home and me to go back to my sister’s apartment where I could call the bank and cancel my card. I wondered if I had been the victim of a pickpocket. I imagined someone maxing out the credit limit on my debit card at that glass-cube Apple Store on Fifth Avenue.

Alone on the subway, anxious to get above ground where the cell signal would be strong enough to place the call, I distracted myself by using the spotty signal to load my Facebook app. When it opened, I had a message request.

I hit accept and saw a string of conversation bubbles, a few missed calls and a picture of my card sleeve pinched between what I assumed to be the sender’s forefinger and thumb.

“Hi Emilie my name is Shawn did you lose your ID metro and bank card?”

I clicked on Shawn’s profile picture and saw a black man who appeared to be in his 30s posing behind a sound mixing console. I returned to the messages.

“If you are still in the city let me know where you want to meet. Police station, Starbucks, wherever you feel most comfortable.”

Shawn later told me over the phone that he had worried I would think I was being scammed. In fact, he said his wife asked why he was putting so much effort into contacting me.

“I said, ‘You have to. You don’t know what someone else is going through,’” he said.

Shawn went on to say that he found my cards in the seat of a northbound B train.

“I figured you’d be going crazy.”

I felt a pang of guilt that I had been relaxing in the sunshine while Shawn imagined me panicking.

We agreed to meet near his home in Harlem a few hours later. Shawn said he had to pick up his daughter from school, and I needed time to let my sister’s dog out in Brooklyn and retrace my way to upper Manhattan.

I watched Leo sniff a clump of brown grass, and I assessed the impact of what I had left in the hands of other B train passengers (a half-dozen metro fares, a $2,000 line of credit, a morning at the DMV to replace my license and whatever that replacement would cost). All that would amount to a vacation buzzkill when I returned to Vermont. Leo arched into a squat and did his business.

As I set out for the train station again, I wondered if I was doing something ill-advised by more safety conscious people. Based on our brief conversation, I trusted Shawn, but I also remembered recent conversations with my therapist about evaluating information at the same time as maintaining an open heart. The information: I was heading alone to Harlem to meet a stranger who had access to my ID and still-active debit card. Even if everything was as simple as we had discussed on the phone — we would meet outside the 116th St. station — did he expect a monetary reward?

I thought of the time that the building super in Argentina tried to scam my sister and me after thieves ran off with our money and keys. We tipped the super for helping us get in touch with our landlady, which must have given him the idea that we had expendable cash because our electricity went out and he came down to say he needed 1,000 pesos to turn it back on.

I was interrupted by another text from Shawn letting me know that he was back on the Westside after picking up his daughter. I responded that I would call when I got to the station.

It was dark by the time I emerged from the subway. New York’s office workers were bustling home. The fruit sellers in front of the station spoke in patois as they loaded plums into a cargo van. A homeless man sitting by the station exit eyed me suspiciously. I’m here, I thought, and called Shawn.

“I’ll be there in five,” he said. “I’ll have a cap and a blue vest. My daughter will be with me.”

I scanned the groups crossing the street and avenue as the lights danced back and forth. Everyone seemed to know exactly where they were heading, even the homeless man heaved himself to his feet and shuffled away. I thought surely more than five minutes had passed and maybe I had spent the past hour on the train for nothing. Being left for a fool seemed an appropriate price to pay for my carelessness.

My self-ridicule was interrupted by the sight of an attractive man rounding the corner. He held the hand of a little girl who couldn’t have been more than five or six years old. He was taller than I had imagined but smiled and said, “Hi, I’m Shawn.”

We shook hands, and he gave me a white envelope.

“Thank you so much,” I said and knelt down to talk to his daughter.

“Your father is a good man. He saved my,” I paused to search for an age-appropriate word, “behind.”

I stood up. “Thank you again. Please text me your mailing address when you get a chance.”

“Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family,” Shawn said and turned to walk away. His daughter looked back as they rounded the corner and offered a shy wave.

I thought about the courage it takes to be kind when people regard you with suspicion. I had been in that position a few weeks earlier when I had decided combat the onset of my seasonal affective disorder by making a dozen paper lanterns and bringing them to the park in front of my house.

“How much do you want?” a passerby had asked.

“Nothing. I’m giving them away,” I had said as I stood before my candlelit lanterns adorned with paper cutouts of fish scales, lupines, trees, waves and a rooster.

“I’m good,” the man said and backed away.

I reentered the station but stopped on the landing to write: “Thank you again for going out your way to help me out, Shawn. My faith in humanity is restored (for today :)”

“Awwww glad I was the one to restore faith.”

I opened the envelope to find the sleeve with all four cards tucked into it. I took out my metro card and swiped through the turnstile.

Long time coming: Thoughts on anti-racism protests at Mizzou

I watched the full video of the Concerned Student 1950 protest that took place at the homecoming parade of my alma mater. The video makes me feel a lot of things, but one of them is a sense of admiration for their commitment to advancing discussion and policies. These students took their grievances about institutionalized racism to the top and made themselves be heard by banding together (literally linking arms).

Their grievances are serious.

This morning, USA Today reported a story about threats of violence directed at black students in the wake of the protest movement that led to the resignation of the university's president.

The repercussions of these racist acts (past and present) are also serious.

While I was a student-reporter at Mizzou, I remember a discussion I had with a woman working at a mall in St. Louis. When I told her I was reporting a story for the Columbia Missourian (the J-School's community newspaper), she told me that she used to go there. She said one of the reasons she left was that she didn't want to deal with the racist culture. She recalled being a student during the vandalism incident that took place at the Black Culture Center in 2010. Two men were arrested in connection with littering the center's front lawn with cotton balls.

I know that my sister, Claire Stigliani, heard from her black students about the routine use of racial slurs around Mizzou's campus. I know that she was troubled by the incidents that were reported to her.

Today, I am moved by watching what these students have accomplished. I know that much more work has to be done.

I also wonder if that woman I met at the mall has seen this video and if she ever found a way to complete her college degree.

Following Bernie, falling for Iowa

I felt proud and impressed after three days reporting on Bernie Sanders’ first campaign trip to Iowa.

I’m aware that I just typed a four-letter F word in my lede. A journalist referring to how she “felt” stinks of bias — another dirty word in most J-schools and newsrooms. But this admission comes without reservation because my feelings are for the people of Iowa rather than the 73-year-old Vermont senator.

Iowa corn field somewhere between
Kensett and Cedar Falls on May 30, 2015. 

Though Sanders was the focus of my coverage, it was the Iowans, themselves, that captured my interest. My history with Iowa goes back to the fourth grade when my family moved more than 1,000 miles from Massena, New York, to Cedar Falls. It was January when I first saw Iowa’s snow-covered fields spiked with the remnants of the previous summer’s corn stalks. At school, I stuck out as an olive-skinned East Coaster among my blond, athletic classmates whose names sounded Germanic and Scandinavian.

With time, the snow melted and bright green corn stalks grew again. It took several more seasons for Iowa to become my home and for my classmates and neighbors to become my community. Somehow they did. And I realized while covering Sanders’ campaign that Iowans are still very much my kind of people.

With my grandmother, Christine, outside her home
in Cedar Falls, Iowa, on June 1, 2015.

Though I now live in Vermont, my Iowa roots remain intact through my parents and my 100-year-old grandmother, who moved there to be near her daughter, my mother. They were the whole reason I went to Iowa in the first place. Sanders’ presidential bid provided a fortuitous convergence of my past and present.

In my regular work life, I’m an editor who spends most of my days in the Burlington Free Press newsroom. I’m familiar with politics only to the extent that I read and edit political stories on an almost daily basis.

My stint on the Sanders beat was the result of a friend and fellow journalist’s encouragement of my interest in reporting and writing. The idea was to cover Sanders early in the campaign before many major news outlets began paying attention. It was also a story that I knew would have interest in Burlington, where Bernie — as he is known — is a household name.

After clearing the idea with my boss, I bought my own ticket to Iowa and began contacting Sanders’ campaign organizers along with Iowa Democrats. Two short weeks later, my mother and I waited for Sanders’ delayed plane to land in the nearly empty arrival area of the Quad City International Airport. A camera crew of two from Vice News killed time playing arcade games. They, too, said their purpose was to capitalize on access to Sanders.

When Sanders and his wife Jane finally walked through security, I welcomed them to the state and told them that they’d be seeing a lot of me over the next few days. Then we all jumped in our respective vehicles and sped to the first event at an already packed auditorium in Davenport.

As I waded through the crowd, I realized it would be impossible to find the venue contact that was supposed to provide me with a private Internet password and camera stand. I asked the first person that looked important if he knew the password. Though he didn’t, he said he would find out and disappeared. I jumped into action and began setting up my equipment to video stream Sanders’ speech.

Bernie Sanders speaks and I shoot video in
Davenport on May 28, 2015.
(Photo credit goes to mom, Marie Stigliani)

Ten minutes later, my impromptu helper returned with the password scrawled on scrap of paper and a stand to steady my camera. When I thanked him for his kindness, he replied, “I’m always happy to help a working journalist.”

I smiled. His generosity reminded me of other Iowans who had gone above and beyond so many times over the 20 years since my family settled in Cedar Falls. I thought of the acquaintances (with a truck) that spent an entire day helping my family haul heavy furniture the last time we moved houses. Of the friends and neighbors who will spend hours searching for my parents’ husky-vizsla mutt when he runs away. And of all the people who stop by the house to welcome me home when I visit my parents.

At the podium, Sanders told the audience that he and Jane were celebrating their 27^th wedding anniversary that night. Jane sat beside the stage listening to her husband and scanning the crowd. I wondered what she was thinking.

Over the next days, I went everywhere Sanders went. He proved a surprisingly cooperative photo subject. In order to get good images, I tried to put myself directly in his path as he entered full auditoriums. On at least one occasion, he did me the favor of walking almost directly into my camera with a big grin on his face. I got my photo and he veered off before we collided.

Bernie and Jane Sanders head to a meeting with Democrats in
Muscatine, Iowa, on May 29, 2015.

I also got the chance to speak with Jane on their final morning in Iowa. Her husband, now raspy voiced, was speaking to an over-capacity gymnasium in Iowa City. I was taking a photograph of people who were barred from entering due to fire code. A crowd was standing just outside the glass doors listening to Sanders over loudspeakers. Jane came over with her iPhone to take a picture of them too. (Related article: Sanders packs gym, stairwells in Iowa City)

“We have the same idea,” she said to me.

I began to ask her about the campaign. Was it her first time in Iowa? Yes. What did she think of the people? They were warm and generous, like Vermonters. Was she tired? No, energized.

Then she looked out over the crowd and tears came to her eyes. She said that watching her husband campaign in Iowa made her feel the way she did when they first fell in love.

“It’s great to feel proud and impressed by a person you've lived with for 27 years,” she said.

I nodded with understanding. I feel the same way about Iowans.

Outtakes from an interview with Philip Levine

When I called the home of Pulitzer-winning poet and Vermont-resident Galway Kinnell in July, I expected a brief conversation with the 87-year-old. I left a message that I was writing a story about the upcoming celebration of his work.

I heard back not from Kinnell but from his wife, Bobbie. She told me that he had difficulty with words and conversation. “That’s why we’re doing the event now.” (Kinnell died Oct. 28th.)

I asked if there was some one else I might speak with to get a sense of who Kinnell was and what was important to him. I expected to speak with family members. Instead, Bobbie suggested that she could put me in touch with some of his friends, but she would have to check with them first.

I said, “Great! Let me know.”

Never could I have predicted whom she had in mind. Within a few days she provided contact information and I lined up phone interviews with three Pulitzer Prize winners — C.K. Williams, Donald Hall and Philip Levine. The latter two also served as U.S. poet laureates.

I feared making an ass of myself and spent several evenings leading up to the interviews reading the poet’s biographies online and a book Bobbie sent me of transcribed interviews with a younger Kinnell.

Levine, 86 at the time, was up first. In my research, I read that Levine was known for blunt criticism in poetry workshops. I steeled myself for a prickly interview, but that was unnecessary.

I liked Levine immediately. He was self deprecating, warm and generous with his time. We spoke for a solid half hour about Kinnell and their friendship. About playing tennis and the Vietnam War.

“We were both really anti-war,” Levine said in our July 25th interview. “Especially Vietnam. Our students and former students were being drafted to die for corporate America. That was what sort of sealed the friendship. Anti-war and protests.”

We talked about Levine and Kinnell teaching together at New York University and at Squaw Valley writing workshops in California. Levine readily acknowledged the reputation that preceded him.

“Galway was a far more gentle teacher than I,” Levine said. “I told him, ‘When you tear their poems to shreds they laugh.’ He had a solemn approach. ‘If I’m tough on their poems, I make them cry.’”

We also talked about his studies at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. His Iowa connection turned up in my research, and I told him that I too had lived in there. He told me about showing up to start his studies a year late. By that time, his scholarship was gone. He ended up attending classes unofficially. He didn’t pay tuition. Just showed up. I guess that he was talented enough to get away with that.

Levine shared another story of finding success despite turning his back on convention. When he was named U.S. poet laureate in 2011, he remembered that Kinnell said he was surprised. Levine asked why?

“Because of your politics. You're on record as an anarchist,” Levine remembered Kinnell telling him.

When we finally hung up, I felt some relief but mostly gratitude. 

Levine died of pancreatic cancer on Valentine’s Day, according to a Detroit newspaper. I learned of his death on Monday night, nearly a month late. It was mentioned during a writer’s group I attended. Everyone else seemed to already know. My eyes must have grown big because there was a moment of silence.

“I just talked to him for a story,” I said.

He was so alive. Pieces of our conversation have returned to me in flashes.

Today, I sifted through my work files to pull up the notes I had taken during our interview (which I’ve quoted throughout). I wanted to remember it all. And to share the wisdom that Levine spoke. Toward the end of our conversation I asked Levine about aging. He said:

“Some people can do it gracefully and some people can’t…I’m aware that I’m not very good looking anymore. The best looking women are not going to sit next to me. It doesn’t bother me at all.

“I’m happy in my life, and I’ve had a good life. I’ve had more success than I ever would have dreamed of.”

And here are a few final words that I think the world should read:

“When you’re writing, you’re just trying to get the words to be happy together.”

Pasta for Thanksgiving

I didn't celebrate Thanksgiving as a young child in Austria and didn't know exactly what the holiday meant until my family moved back to the U.S. when I was 9.

In those early years, Thanksgiving was an afterthought. As my mother dished out the whopping 3 pounds of pasta she cooked for her brood of six, she mentioned "Oh, today's Thanksgiving."

What's that? we asked with full mouths. 

"An American holiday."

And we dug again into the mountains of pasta blanketed with deep-red tomato sauce.

I ate helping after helping until the top button of my skirt needed to be undone. Until I had to take a nap before I could comfortably move again. This was also not unusual in a household that served one main meal each day, a light breakfast and dinner and hardly ever snacks.

I couldn't find us eating pasta,
but here's a holiday pic from that time.

Pasta was the food that fueled afternoon play. Pasta was what kept us waiting as lunchtime approached and belly's grumbled. 

"A watched pot never boils."

I knew that my mother was right. But not watching in wait while your stomach screams is an impossible ask. 

By the time the pasta reached al dente (and when I was the tester, I sometimes lied that it was there already) the mob of six circled the kitchen, sometimes fighting with each other. We couldn't help it.

When my mother placed the bowl on the table, there was no more will to wait. We held our forks upright ready to revolt. 

"Marisa, you say the prayer," my mother said to the oldest. Marisa was the one who organized our play. She took care of us. She sometimes ruled on who was right and wrong. We would give her one breath. One sentence.

"Thank you for our family, our food and our friends."

"Amen," we all said and then pillaged the pasta.

I am better acquainted with idea satisfaction than Thanksgiving. The gratitude comes afterward. I am satisfied; the meal was good. 

Comfort food

I want comfort. I boil three potatoes in their skins, mash one with the back of a fork, drizzle it with good olive oil, and sprinkle with sea salt. I crawl back into bed.

I'm home sick for the second time in two weeks, and I'm homesick for a distant memory:

Nono (Italian for grandpa) feeds my Jack-o-lantern-mouthed brother from a steaming bowl.  He blows on each spoonful of potato before offering the bite. Anthony gums it down and opens for more. Sometimes Nono tests. Twice, after I beg, he feeds me too.

It's been eight years since Nono died and many more since he weaned Anthony. But the flakey potato tastes exactly like I remember. A lot has happened to to me in between those bites. There have been many times when I wanted comfort. Many times when I've retreated to bed with something that will fill me up or numb me out.

I've gone to bed with a glass of wine at the end of a long work day. Against the recommendation of most any dentist, I never bother to brush my teeth before falling asleep. I also hid a giant bar of cooking chocolate in my underwear drawer while I was studying in Spain. I would peel back the foil at night and gnaw on it. Once a wayward chip melted into my sheet. I tried cleaning it up with tissues and toothpaste, but my host had a keen eye. When I got home from school, the spotless sheet was drying on the line between apartment buildings.

It feels good to be cared for — to be spoon fed or have someone else do the laundry. Others have taught me the pleasure of clean sheets. But the lesson is now mine.

I go to the kitchen and mash another potato.

Out of my mind

There's a lot on my mind but not much I can shape into words. And even less I can say on the public platform of this blog. 

I've been wallowing in snot and self pity this weekend. The flu's onset happened swiftly on Friday afternoon. I went from scarfing down an entire box of sushi as a late lunch to sneezing and filling my trash can with Kleenex. I went home from work early and spent the next 36 hours in bed. 

Too much time in bed in my case is the fastest trigger of an emotional decline. I woke up this morning feeling sorry for myself. My head still felt like a watermelon, but the thought of another day in bed just about made me cry. And just like that, my friend Harum called. 

We talked about all the things that matter in the lives of single 20-somethings — the high- and lowlights of dates, the stresses of work, plans for future trips, riding bikes, being outside. And suddenly I was outside in the sunlight walking barefoot up and down the sidewalk in front of my house, still in my pajamas. The sun felt good. It felt good to laugh. 

I got off the phone and got in the shower. I dressed and went to the coffee shop around the corner to answer emails and write this blog. My head still feels heavy but my mind is a lot lighter. 

Creative burst

I've got a head full of schemes and a blistered right hand — both the result of the weekend's tiny house building workshop.

In three days, I learned the basics of framing a tiny house from floor to roof.

The result of three days' work.

I got home late last night (from dinner with the people who hosted the workshop) totally inspired and also painfully aware of my lacking skill and the limitations of my strength. Hammering floor joists, wall studs and plywood was hard for me. It took me five swings of the hammer to everyone else's single swing.  But I stuck with it.

What I found inspiring was the process of turning drawings into an actual structure. I returned home each night of the workshop exhausted and still spent an hour looking at pictures and reading about what other people have done. The model that most appeals to me is that of Dee Williams (see video below).

I left the workshop with a half dozen phone numbers of people I could call to bounce ideas and perhaps to drive a few nails for me. 

Last week brought another creative highlight. I got to do some writing for the newspaper. Best of all, the topic was one I liked. I wrote about poet Galway Kinnell. For the reporting process, I attended a reading to celebrate Kinnell's contribution and life and spoke with his cohort of poet friends.

Galway Kinnell, 87, at the reading honoring his life work
at Vermont's Statehouse

The poetry and the conversations have stayed with me. They affirm that a life in pursuit of creativity is one well lived.

Living ‘The Little House’

Growing up, my mother read aloud to us every night. This continued well past the time that I could have easily read to myself. 

Mama warmed up with picture books chosen by the younger kids and then dove into the chapter books. The younger ones listened to those too. We covered considerable literary ground. We read “The Chronicles of Narnia,” “The Arabian Knights,” “Brother’s Grimm” and much more. We read “The Little House” series at least twice. 

Much of what I knew about the United States, as a child in Austria, was based on the lives of the Ingalls and Wilder families. My sisters and I were obsessed with hoop skirts and bonnets. We played at churning butter with buckets of mud in the backyard. 

Above all, the journey west in a covered wagon captured my imagination. We built covered wagons out of chairs and sheets and filled them with everything we could think of — a tea set, blankets, pillows, the chest of dress up clothes. My destination was always Montana, where my make-believe husband grew up. 

When we finally moved to the United States, I learned that no one actually lived and travelled in a covered wagon anymore. That life was limited to historical reenactment museums. But the idea of a small mobile dwelling has never left me. 

In my early 20s, I learned about eco-minded people living in tiny houses on wheels, and I have dreamed of building my own tiny house ever since. I like the idea of living in a home where each object is considered. A home that doesn’t tether me to a mortgage and promotes a lifestyle of limited environmental impact.

I feel ready to do more than just think about tiny houses. Next week, I’ll take my first concrete step. I’m registered for a tiny house building workshop. I hope to track my progress here.

Picture stories

I'm enrolled in a five-week data-visualization class. The idea is to learn the mechanics of telling stories with numbers and pictures, which happens to be quite tricky.

I woke up in the middle of last night, restless and thinking about my latest assignment. I tinkered for hours with a map component. This evening, I finished. I'm damn proud of these visualizations that explore the top baby names in Vermont.

Learn About Tableau

Time to take flight

June and now half of July have rushed past. I’m afraid that summer will be a distant whistle before I get the chance to acknowledge her presence.

Still, I’ve enjoyed all the things that have kept me from those long, do-nothing summer days. The weekends have been packed with family, friends and weddings. The days filled with work, coffees, drinks, dinners and travel — all at a pace out of sync with the slowness of my writing. I need an expanse of time to form complete thoughts from words. For me it cannot be done during the 30-minute ferry ride across Lake Champlain or the 45 minutes between yoga class and my workday.

I’ve thought about slower and too-slow times in my life and wondered where the balance lies with my current constant state of motion.

I think of summers in Massena, N.Y., during my adolescence. The town had very little to offer me at 14. There were trips to the library and the beach on the shores of the Saint Lawrence River. But I didn’t care much for reading then and the river was far too cold for more than a dip. In the evenings I crossed the road and the park to my grandparents’ house to watch “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy” and on Saturday nights, “The Lawrence Welk Show.”

I remember being moderately depressed in the mornings by the expanse of time that lay before me. I tried to make the most of it. I read “Gone with the Wind” one of those summers and knit half an intricately patterned gray wool sweater. I also obsessed about irrational fears. After seeing “The Exorcist” at a friend’s house, I grew terrified of being possessed. And despite having a healthy dose of sex education, I worried that by pressing my bellybutton in just the right (or wrong) way I’d become miraculously pregnant. Without more engagement and structure, my mind roamed to dark places.

Bread Loaf blooms

It wasn’t until my mid-20s that I found the happy balance of purpose, structure and time. I started Vermont’s Bread Loaf School of English after a year of scattered work and unfocused writing. I got to the mountaintop campus in June as the fields bloomed with color. I took classes and worked as a server in the dining hall. The coursework nudged my mind away from obsession. Serving breakfast, lunch and dinner separated my days into workable bocks of free time. My writing took flight in the sunny, Adirondack-chair hours between lunch and dinner service.

My writing has come to a standstill in the past months, but thanks to those Bread Loaf summers I understand what I’m missing. Although I don’t regret the activity, I need more Adirondack-chair hours. I need to remove some structures from my day. I need to clear a runway for takeoff.

Bread Loaf path

Dragon Mama

My mother nursed all six of her children. She spent twelve years breastfeeding, sometimes two babies at once. 

In my early memories, Mama always has one of my siblings latched on for “baa baa” (like the sound of a bleating sheep). This was a name my oldest sister came up with and it stuck.

Mama was efficient and managed many things simultaneously, which was necessary with so many children and no shortcuts. She homeschooled, baked bread, sewed clothes, entertained friends. There was baa baa and spelling lessons. Baa baa and bedtime stories. Baa baa and adult conversations while her friends griped about work trouble and took comfort in beer and cigerettes. Mama listened. She never smoked and hardly ever drank.

Mama’s friends regarded her as an incarnation of the Madonna. And she could certainly be painted as the Holy Mother in broad strokes. But having been her child, I know that depiction to be too simple. While it shows Mama’s nurturing, it disregards her wrath.

Her anger came on swiftly and was over as soon as she made her point. Mama nursed us all through our teething phases and beyond. Inevitably, each of us tried out our newly cut teeth by biting Mama. 

Her reaction was always the same. She pulled away and unleashed the roar of a waking dragon. I witness the startled expressions on my younger siblings faces that gave way to scared cries. In a matter of seconds the dragon disappeared and the babies were comforted with the offer to nurse once again. They went back gently.

We were smart babies; we learned quickly and early how not to use our teeth.

Mama was a natural mother but not a saint. When I went to college, I studied Spanish in northern Chile. I learned about Incan culture and their mother goddess who reminded me of my own Mama. For the Incas, the aptly named Pachamama often appears in the form of a dragon. She invokes fertility, oversees planting and harvesting — and causes earthquakes when she feels disrespected

On fear

I dreamed last night that some one was spying on me while I lay in bed. They were peaking in my mailbox and then directly at me through a gap in my curtains. 

Upon waking, I wondered why that scenario arose. It's not one I expend much anxiety on anymore. As a child, I was much more fearful of people lurking just out of view. I spent a good bit of mental energy worrying about kidnappers. After my parents went to bed, I would sneak downstairs to make sure that the doors were locked. 

My mind could be particularly cruel. It created the Toilet Witch. She looked much like any other witch — long nose, green skin and warts — but was unusual in one regard. She lived just below the toilet bowl. The flush was her doorbell. When summoned, she would emerge and pull children down into her underworld. I got in the habit of opening the door before I flushed, and then sprinting from the bathroom like a hunted animal. 

I now tell stories about the kidnappers and the Toilet Witch. I laugh about them like they were silly juvenile preoccupations.  And they were. But those feelings of terror and anxiety have never left me. They've simply reattached to threats that seem more real to my adult mind. Current fears are always more difficult to discuss than the ones I've pondered, calculated the likeliness of and then moved to their rightful place in my hierarchy of things to fear. For example, the Toilet Witch no longer figures into my schema at all — she's not real, I've learned. And kidnappers appear near the bottom of my list. I'm well past the age of their target group. 

What's more difficult for me to discuss are the fears that have replaced those earlier ones. At 29, I'm afraid of discovering that my mind is in fact vacuous and of dying from suffocation. Both are tied to real experiences. As an asthmatic, I've had horrible, sleepless nights where I simply could not get enough air. The vice grip around my chest would not ease. I know that sweaty terror, but have always rebounded. I'm afraid that one day, especially when my body is old and weak, I  won't.

But my greatest fear lies in the suspicion that my mind is dull. This figures into the trouble I have starting big writing projects. I worry that I'll get halfway into the project and find out that I actually have nothing interesting or original to say. This anxiety drives me to avoid writing. It sends me in search of distractions like Facebook. It's the voice that tells me when I get home from work to be satisfied with just watching a movie and going to bed. 

I realize that fear will find me no matter what. It finds me in adulthood and in the world of my dreams. I think it finds everyone. It's customized. For me, it takes great courage to pick up a pen. I confront fear with every sentence I start that I don't know how to finish.

Party like the Medieval times

My favorite artwork in my childhood home depicted a Medieval wedding scene. The poster showed an entire village with a handful of weddings underway. A regal lady decked in white sat in a carriage on her way to the castle. Another couple was entering a church. But my favorite scene was toward the bottom of the poster and showed a Gypsy wedding.

A caravan was parked at the edge of town and colorfully dressed participants were roasting a pig on a spit. They looked like they were having the most fun to me. This image of community and a giant hunk of roasting meat has occupied my imagination all these years.

When my sister announced her engagement this Christmas, my first thought was that we needed to order a pig and roast it whole just like the poster. She agreed and my mother ran with the idea and ordered a rare-breed pig from an Iowa farmer. I can't wait for the celebration in June.

In the meantime, I dreamed of more meat-roasting festivities. Easter presented the perfect opportunity to buy a leg of lamb and invite friends over to partake. A week ago I started researching local Vermont farmers who were raising and selling lamb. I found the 3 1/2-pound half-leg of lamb that I was looking for at the Ayer Family Diversified Farm about 20 miles from where I live.

The farmers left the store, attached to the barn, unlocked so that I could pick up my lamb after work.  With only the light shining in from outside the window, I managed to find the freezer. Through the darkness I could hear animals trodding hay and breathing. Their nearness reminded me of biblical stories of thanksgiving and celebration associated with the slaughter of baby beasts. While many Bible stories don't make sense to me, these do. The death of one thing to nourish another. And the importance of amplifying the generosity of a young calf or lamb by generously sharing its meat with others.

I left with my lamb and spent the rest of the week plotting with a friend and soon-to-be dinner guest how best to prepare it. We settled on a simple preparation of garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper.

The carefully seasoned lamb went into the oven at noon on Easter. My guests and I cooked side dishes and drank wine while we waited for the meat to cook. A delicious smell of filled the room. When the lamb's outside was brown and inside still juicy, I sliced slabs from the bone and served. We toasted to friendship and spring — and then dug in.

When we disbanded hours later, all that was left was the bone.

Taste the world

I'm 29 today. Yes, that's 29 revolutions around the sun. The same number of years since I made my entrance into this world — tongue out, ready to taste it all, I'm told.

Here's documented evidence:

In that same spirit, I've been traveling to see and spend time with friends over the past few weekends, which also explains my absence from this blog.

There was a trip to Washington D.C. Although I missed the cherry blossoms by a week, I got to see my dear friends, Kevin and Harum, as well as the magnolias.

Then an overnight in Montreal with my friend Christine. We walked 10 miles through the city and ended the day eating cake in bed. 

Twenty-eight has not been all play either. It was also the year that I learned to stand on my own two hands.

I'm looking forward to 29 — to travel, friends and learning new things. Here's to passing go, and starting another revolution.

The voice of admonishment and comfort

I imagined a voice that sounded much like my mother's saying, "This is what happens when you overdo it and don't get enough sleep."

She's right of course, but I felt frustrated with that all-knowing voice rather than my lack of ability to scale back plans and let some things pass. There are times when self-loathing comes easily; this was not one.

In order to earn my sore throat, achy muscles and alternating sweats and chills, I woke up at 4 a.m. on Saturday morning to make the hour-and-a-half drive around Lake Champlain so that I would arrive in Essex, N.Y., in time for my friends' sunrise vernal equinox party. The bagel shop was open when I left and I bought a dozen fresh from the oven. Just as I drove into Essex there was a hot pink sunrise and my Uncle Louis was walking down Main Street toward the gathering. I picked him up and we went together to enjoy food, poetry and friendship — all well worth my while.

The rest of the day was spent with my uncle and aunt. We visited the local bakery where you can always find familiar faces with which to sip coffee and snack on cinnamon buns. We lounged back at their home in front of the wood fire. We watched "Kinky Boots," inspired by a drag show that my uncle attended on a recent trip to Florida. There is no time better spent than with this couple that has known me forever and with whom I've shared laughter, tears and many many hours of conversation.

In the late afternoon, I caught the ferry (which hadn't yet started running during my early morning commute) back over to Vermont and made plans with a friend to see a live band play at an area music venue. We danced until the lights went up and the band stopped playing. By the time I climbed back in bed, I had been up for nearly 20 hours.

Sunday passed quickly with my usual routine of yoga class, meeting friends for a late afternoon drink and catching up on household chores. It wasn't until mid-afternoon Monday when I was back at work that I started to feel hoarse and shivery. That's when I heard that voice telling me that I should have done less and gotten more sleep.

But when I got home from work at midnight with a bone-aching weariness, I wanted only one thing — to call my mother and hear her tell me that I would feel better in the morning.

A quartet

I spend a quite bit of time for work and pleasure thinking about how stories are made. I learned most of what I know from reading and writing, and some from just listening.

Saturday night, my friend Rick invited me to attend an Extempo storytelling event, a Vermont-version of "The Moth." Rick who is a poet and teacher also likes good stories and has studied their construction for more years than I.

The event was held in a coffee shop in Barre, Vt., and featured nine storytellers of various ages and abilities. The culmination involved a panel of judges choosing their favorites. Between Rick and I, we correctly guessed the second-place tie as well as the overall winner. 

Although not a winner, we both agreed that another storyteller had been successful. The heavyset, suspendered man had attempted the unconventional form (at least for this event) of offering a quartet of vignettes from his childhood. The scenes represented important moments of intimacy and personal truth.

Though none of the four stories attempted to illustrate large life lessons, Rick and I agreed their seeming simplicity disguised the storyteller's skill in selection and delivery. Though not a winner, he did a damn good job.

Here's a quartet of my own inspired by events from the weekend.

She carried lipstick and gum in her purse, and I loved her for painting my lips pink in a bathroom in Budapest. She showed the four-year-old me how to rub my lips together and then gave me a stick of gum to chew. I felt sophisticated for the first time as we rejoined my mother and baby sister at the tourist lookout. The lipstick eventually wore off and I'm still chasing the feeling. 

This particular path of devotion was a two-hour trip down a one-lane road to the town of Rutland, Vt. She suggested we meet for lunch at this halfway point between her home and mine. Delayed by a slow-moving truck, she was there when I arrived. Still taller than me, still wearing lipstick.

I went with the waitress' suggestion of cookie a la mode. She brought it in a cast iron skillet with two spoons. She took a scoop, then me. She, then me. I wasn't particularly hungry after the BLT, but still savored the sweetness.

Coffee done, bill paid, we walked up the street to her car. She pulled from it a western-style feather coat that had been her mother's. I tried it on. It felt warm and the silver buttons were engraved with patterns. I pulled up the fur hood and felt small and cozy in the puff of the coat, in the presence of this woman who will always be taller, always carry lipstick. 

Me and Marla

New plates, still a flatlander

I am now the owner of a car, with all new tires, registered in Vermont.

My parents generously transferred the deeds to the car I drove east when I moved, which gave me a month to get it registered. The process involved a morning at the Department of Motor Vehicles and then a trip to my local mechanic for an inspection.

Duncan's is owned by a woman named Kelly, who is rugged and kind. The combination of strength and softness that I admire. She wears Carhartts has short cropped hair and calls me "Em" or "Bud," and once "my little chickadee."

I left my car with Kelly, and when I came to pick it up the next morning found out that it would not pass inspection unless I had all my tires replaced. I went with the cheaper of the two tire models that Kelly had priced, and came back the following day to pick up my car to the tune of $400 — reasonable, I think, but a good chunk of my monthly earnings.

Affixed to the front and back of my car were green Vermont plates. Kelly gave me the old, dust covered blue Iowa plates in an envelope, which I mailed to my mother.

Still, I plan to keep a piece of the flatlands from where I came — all that is humble and close to the earth.

I find my ski slope, with a little help

Vermonters tell me that winter goes more easily if you pick up a hobby — mainly downhill, Nordic or snowboarding.

I guess that shifts the paradigm. A snowstorm represents the potential for fresh powder skiing rather than the dread of having to shovel out your car. The cold ensures that snow stays on the ground instead of being a nuisance.

With just one skiing experience under my belt some 17 years ago, I had the impression that it was not for me. I had spent most of that day on the bunny hill with kids half my age and when I ventured on an official ski lift, I fell off at the top and caused the entire lift to stop while I clumsily attempted to get up.

So when I listened to co-workers talk about the joys of skiing, all I felt was trepidation about coughing up something around $100 to be the bumbling overgrown bunny of the kiddy hill.

One of my co-worker, however, offered to take me Nordic skiing, which seemed like more my incline and price. Plus, she was a ski instructor. Instead of signing up for a class with 10 year olds, I could learn from a friend.

So we made Saturday plans. She reserved a chariot for her infant son, and I put off a trip to visit my aunt and uncle. We arranged to meet at noon. In a matter of 10 minutes, the baby was bundled and safely fastened in the chariot and we had clicked into our skis and were off on the trail.

There was a minute or two of clumsy wobbliness, which I liken to a baby calf adjusting to the use of its legs. My friend told me to take the worn tracks. I fell into a rhythm. We climbed a little hill and I skidded down without much control but also not too fast.

I asked for tips about gaining more control. She told me to press me the outer parts of my feet flat and to make a wedge with my skis.

We climbed a bigger hill, and I confidently started on my way down. I picked up speed. Panicked that I was going a little too fast. Made a wedge to help slow down, plowed into a drift and came to a stop on my butt. My friend said that was the most controlled fall she had ever seen. I felt good about that, hadn't hurt myself, and we kept on.

After more than two hours, I was thoroughly sweaty and the baby had woken up from his nap and was chattering in the chariot. We pulled toward the start. My friend asked if I wanted to head straight for the lodge, or should we do one small final loop.

I chose the loop.