Category: Life

Curse of an Overactive Mind

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So, Amazon shamed me recently. Yeah, that Amazon—that online orgy of toys, electronics, music, movies, books, groceries, this, that, and everything else. Apparently, they still want to sell books and decided to shame customers by sharing a list of 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime. The list is from the folks at goodreads.com, a website for readers by readers, so not all the books are classics or even literature—just books that readers think readers should read. For Amazon, the intent was likely to get the folks shopping for frivolous junk to pause and think about books. And I did.

You see, despite having an MA in English & Publishing, I… Read More ➤

Vermont Being Vermont

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So this winter seems a bit closer to how I always imagined Vermont. Snow started before Thanksgiving and has been on the ground ever since. It’s always been a little here, a little there, without any big snowstorms to speak of, though we came close this past week.

Thursday night through Friday we finally got a pretty big one, totaling about 14 to 15 inches here in Waterbury. Sure, we occasionally got bigger snowstorms in Delaware—I recall one storm that dropped 23 inches in two days. But here in Vermont, the snow lingers and becomes… Read More ➤

Riding the 6

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Back in 2006, a sharply-dressed, elderly black woman sat across from me on the number 6 DART bus. During the 40 minutes we shared on that long cross-county ride, I wondered who she was, where she was born, and what she had seen in her many years.

Maybe she was a Delaware native and witnessed the Wilmington Riots—they weren’t quite riots. Perhaps she grew up in Christiana, one of the only rural towns in New Castle County that had a thriving black community, dating back to the 1850s. Had she moved to Delaware from the South in hopes of a better life? I wondered all these things, but… Read More ➤

Sitting One Out

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The annual orgy of consumerism has come and gone. Every year, Americans presumably give thanks for the blessings in their lives on Thanksgiving, then go out to actively participate in one of the weirdest displays of materialism the world has known, beginning on Black Friday and continuing right up until December 26. Every year, I’m more turned off by it all.

Don’t get me wrong, as I love a good deal! I’m a crazy bargain shopper myself—I kind of have to be. I even enjoy shopping, for the most part, and like Christmas shopping in general. I pore over the Christmas candy and decorations at every turn, just to see if anything new shows up … Read More ➤

Magical Mystery Tour

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Anyone who knows me knows that, despite my Southern upbringing, I’m not a religious person. I do have spiritual moments, though, typically about the beauty, magic, and mystery that life sometimes holds. Last month, I had the good fortune of enjoying a good dose of all.

We were down in Worcester, Massachusetts, to attend an intimate wedding of my good friends Carla and Deb. The wedding itself was rife with beauty and wonder, perhaps amplified in the absence of any ostentation or needless formality. The ceremony was everything a wedding should be: two people in love formalizing their commitment to each other in front of a few good friends. The minister was… Read More ➤

That’s “Mr. Huffnpuff” to you!

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Despite being surrounded by nature that often seems boundless, I haven’t been able to hike much since moving to Vermont. For most of the summer it rained every weekend, and weekday afternoon hikes aren’t so easy, since most trails here are pretty hardcore. As I’ve learned, so are Vermonters.

Every time I’ve gone for a hike, I’ve been shamed by at least one person nearly twice my age. At Hunger Mountain, a few women in their 70s darted past us up the steep trail. They climbed the mountain so quickly that they later passed us going down…while we were still trudging up! At least one of them was close to 80, bless her soul. That hike is about two miles each way, with a climb of over 2,000 feet. Vermonters are… Read More ➤

Breaking Comfort

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Leave it to a Google+ discussion about American candy imports in the UK to get me thinking about cultural comfort zones, branching out, and embracing the unfamiliar. It seems that his local Tesco now has an endcap dedicated to “quintessential” American imports like peanut butter Snickers, strawberry Fluff, PopTarts, and Butterfinger bars. The prices were quite ridiculous on some items and the selection was, well, strange. He couldn’t understand why such common and random items were imported at all, especially at those prices. I decided it must be because people like to seek out something familiar when in an unfamiliar place, and Americans make… Read More ➤

About Face (Or Why I Left Facebook)

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As someone whose brain is almost always running at full throttle—even when I’m exhausted—I’m always thinking of change. How can I get more out of life. How can I remove roadblocks on the road to something better? What’s holding me back? What’s worth the hassle and what’s not? And what helps me be a better person?

There are many answers to all of these, but one common thread of late is Facebook. Ah, Facebook, once the tool of the college crowd, now the playroom of grandmas, celebrity-hounds, and businesses trying to sell us something. I’m not knocking any of these, mind you, but they do help me see that Facebook has lost its value in my daily life. Sure I can keep up with… Read More ➤

Life in a Northern Town

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I’ve been in Vermont for just over two months now, and it feels like I’ve been here my whole life. It’s comfortable. It’s peaceful. It’s home.

What’s it like for the outsider though? First off, I’ve yet to meet a cranky person. People here are relaxed, friendly, and welcoming. Even the tourists here are happy and easygoing, a far cry from the chain-smoking screech-owls common at most tourist destinations I know.

What’s it like for me? Well, I walk the half-mile to work each day. I pass by a coffee shop, useful when I’m running late, and a supermarket or drug store if I need something on the way home. I can … Read More ➤

Recalculating Route

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Most people think of me as fairly laid back and tolerant. For the most part, I am. But what they often don’t see is that I’ve spent my entire life fighting, and what appears as calm is more often mental exhaustion.

Over the years, I fought for love and affection. I fought for respect. I fought for opportunities that weren’t really meant for me. I fought for a better life than the one I knew in adolescence. I fought to stay afloat financially. I fought for truth, when people didn’t want to hear it. I fought for everything I have and everything I am. Nothing I have was handed to me.

Imagine running a mental marathon for 40 years. That’s what it’s been like, and I was exhausted. Need for escape from the fight had reached urgency.

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