the day the earth roared and a baby smiled

on tuesday night, the second night of my trip to vermont, the earth stirred. then it roared.

we missed it, though. didn't hear a thing. didn't feel the ripples radiating out from the epicenter three miles below ground, in the crust of the north american plate, twenty miles west of portland, maine. but much of new england did.

within a minute of the 7:12 p.m. earthquake there was even more rumbling. online rumbling. my daughter's facebook page came to life and vibrated with exclamations: wow, did you feel that? that felt like an earthquake! and we thought our furnace was exploding and sounded like a freight train tearing past the house. a friend of hers from down south knew about the quake before we were able to confirm that it was an earthquake. she wrote just heard maine had an earthquake. that had all of us—my daughter, my son-in-law and myself—checking our iphones for the latest news.

close to the epicenter in maine, hanging lamps swayed to and fro. silverware rattled in a drawer at my niece's house in portland. elsewhere windows shook as if poltergeists had risen out of the ground to cause a ruckus—a little preview of halloween. in freeport ed told me our dog, lille, ran to the door, hackles raised, and barked and barked. people felt and heard the earthquake in boston and new hampshire and in towns south of us in vermont. in the hills above richmond, though, everything was quiet. did the mountains surrounding us, and hills under us, act as a buffer and cushion the tremor?

on the day the earth roared i watched my grandson smile, and i smiled, too, as i listened to him coo his baby songs. the day the earth roared i took care of him while his mother was at work. the day the earth roared i fed him bottles filled with his mother's milk and wiped spit up off his chin and poop off his bottom and settled him in his bassinet and folded his newly laundered baby outfits into neat piles.

on that day, deep under the earth, rocks more than a billion years old—give or take a million—scraped against each other, heated up to the point of melting, split, and made a lot of noise.*

on that day, my grandson had been in this world for exactly three months.



*a scientist was on the maine show "207"after the quake. he brought in rocks found along maine's shoreline that had cracked and melted in earthquakes. they originated deep within the earth's crust, rose to the surface as mountains were formed, and were dragged to the sea when glaciers scoured the land. the rocks were marked with fissures and smooth dark lines where they had melted all those eons ago.

from the top

there it is up there. see it? the catch-it-while-you-can-summer? summer vacation that seems like it was oh-so-many weeks ago, and yet it wasn't really that long ago at all, was it? summer 2012, when the air at 3800 feet was clear, and the warmish/coolish wind naughtily whipped our hair into little tangles and it looked like those steely low-flying clouds might somehow be menacing, but they weren't—thunder storms blew by overnight heading east toward the ocean—as they inched near us and then away from us.

the tram at jay peak in vermont delivered the nine of us, plus a dozen others, smoothly and quietly to the top. and when i say quietly i mean it—not a squeal, scrape or grind from the engine or cables, or from wind teasing the cables, or from the compartment's shifting glass or metal or anything. no sign of gravity, just floating straight up the mountainside surrounded by silence. even the people inside the tram, when they spoke at all, used hushed, unmodulated tones, their voices as well-oiled and precisely maintained as the austrian-made mountain riding machinery.

once at the top we surveyed the vistas in every direction. we looked southwest toward big jay—connected to jay peak by a ridge—where back woods skiers can make their own way down the mountain without the hindrance, the nuisance, of trails. (a few years ago two brilliant, local guys were arrested and charged with clear-cutting a section of big jay in an attempt to secretly carve a ski trail on private land without anyone's knowledge, let alone permission. i ask you in all sincerity, how dumb can people be?)

after viewing some of my summer photos i wondered where did summer go? i know, i know, you're right—summer's not technically over yet so stop acting like it is. go enjoy what's left.

four fourteen

so this is it, this is what it feels like to be the male of the species, a male who's about to become a father. this is what it's like to be standing on the other side, to be on the outside looking in, watching the person you love pass through a range of stages and emotions—bored, uncomfortable, in incredible pain, distracted, apprehensive, jubilant, impatient—not being able to do much to help, and feeling somewhat invisible, useless, helpless.

a few words—kind, soothing words, softly spoken, mixed with a little humor—that's pretty much it in my bag of tricks, although i suppose that's better than nothing. after all, in the "old days", days not very long ago, i wouldn't even have been allowed this, to be here in the labor/delivery room touching my daughter's shoulder, her head, her hair, trying to come up with the right words to say.

earlier in the day—nine hours earlier, to be exact.....

i hear a ringing sound. ringing—is it that, or is it something else?

my sleep remains heavy and undisturbed on this night and into the early morning hours, the sleep of the dead, as they say. far, far in the distance i hear bells; no it's music—that's it, music, not bells—almost inaudible violins playing beside a river, and the sound is traveling along the water toward me. or is it the sound of guitars, both sad and sweet, that i hear? no, i was right the first time. they are bells, cathedral bells, high above this ancient city built with many hands and heavy sweat and ancient stones.

i stir. sleep lifts. i begin to come out from under muffled slumber and dreams. i realize it's not bells, it's the phone that's ringing, brrrring-brrrring-ing in my head. i have been waiting for this call for what seems like forever—twenty months plus another nine—since the beginning of failed effort, and then when the words infertility and IVF—harbingers of both horror and hope—were introduced, and IVF was considered and tried, failed, and was eventually successful.

when the call comes i am unprepared. i have been prepared for weeks, ready for the call, but now, on this morning when it finally comes, i happen to be in the deepest of sleeps. i am disoriented in my drug-like slumber. why is the phone ringing at such an odd hour? my fingers blindly claw at the table beside my bed. at first i can't find it; when i finally do, the numbers on the dated (translation: ugly—it really should be tossed), 1980's general electric, brown plastic clock/radio/phone shine a bright and cheery four fourteen at me. then i hear her tired, happy, slightly quavering voice. mom, we're at the hospital. my water broke at 1 a.m..... and i wish i had wings and could fly to burlington to be at her side this instant. i am still groggy when i say we'll be on the highway by eight and hang up the phone. but, suddenly, i am wide awake. for me, the world is going to be different from today onward. i am going to be a grandmother.

the drive to vermont feels endless. when we're within a half hour of our destination we have to stop to let alex and kevin's dog, montana, out for a pee, and fill up her food and water dishes before we can continue on our way to the hospital.

and here we are. after many hours of keeping alex company, three of us must leave the labor/delivery room with the bird's eye view of lake champlain—it's time for her to start pushing her baby out. we try to wait patiently. i feel abandoned, left out—once again, male-ish—like fathers must have felt until about 40 years ago when they were finally allowed into the inner sanctum of blood and pain and joy. i wait, staring at the old-fashioned wall clock, watching the second hand's annoyingly perfect round and round promenade, for this most modern of fathers to walk through the door of the waiting room—once he has cut the umbilical cord and done some bonding—and announce the birth of his baby. (i have honestly never glanced up at a clock or at a door so many times in my life.) it will be near sunset when the waiting is over.

i marvel. the tiniest humans, the newest arrivals on this planet, carry with them such small parts—miniature orifices, appendages and limbs—parts that have never before felt the earth's warm air, or their mother's or father's touch. their noses have never smelled this world or any world, nor have their tongues tasted warm mother's milk. their eyes have only known darkness, their ears only muffled vibrations.

in the morning light his eyes open and he gazes at his mother as she holds him in arms that have ached for him. i try to handle my emotions. i blink away tears and blow my nose. i am convinced his infant stare is deep and knowing, like that of an old, old soul. but, of course, that cannot be. that's impossible.

an old soul in a new body. why impossible? maybe it's not such a far-fetched idea. within even the tiniest of newborn babies, under the soft, delicate, brand-new skin, lies the ancient, the unknown, the unfathomable, some small inkling of what we are, where we come from, how we have come to be. hidden inside each infant is a kind of universe, the hint of a thing that is old, very old—the origin of us all—and also a foretelling of what has never been seen, but, in time, may be.

every baby is a beginning, but he also contains the possibility of beginnings—the possibility of life for the next generation—inside him. he is who he is, but he is also the past and the future combined into one. as he journeys into his new world, he brings with him an unbroken link to an old world—those souls in his line who existed before—and an extension into the future, to those who will exist in a time far off, a time which has not yet even been imagined.

welcome, my little boy. welcome.

in springlight

the light of late spring is a fine light—it is a warm and playful light that casts itself about in the right way. of course, that's just my humble opinion. at another time someone—and that someone might even be me—could very well write the same thing about the light of summer or autumn or even winter. the light of those seasons is also fine—it, too, accomplishes the task of pushing away the darkness, of thawing our bones, heating things up, making us feel alive.

the black metal chairs and tables were positioned on a patio amidst tulips in the clear cool mountain light of the trapp family lodge's terraced garden in stowe where my daughter and i had stopped for a good but—as it turns out—over-priced lunch. (the off-season beauty of the place made it well worth the higher price out-of-state and foreign tourists are willing to pay on a regular basis.) there were crowds of tulips in full bloom but hardly any people, and the afternoon arrived as if part of a carefully scheduled program, like the choir of birds were providing musical selections specifically for our entertainment. so we enjoyed the music and being encircled by mountains and sky—for me, mother's day arrived a week early.

the day was a day of capturing the light. the day was a day of being captured by the light. the day was a day of being in love with the light. then the light changed; it was time to go. the afternoon became quieter, the shadows longer. as we walked over the lawn and got closer to the parked car we could see  montana's black, furry head, her chin resting motionless on the back of the seat. as always, she waited patiently, hopeful that we would soon return.

bouquets of dandelions

except for a few small, isolated patches in the deep shade of overhanging ledges, the snow has finally melted from the trails around mount mansfield, the highest mountain in vermont. the melodic songs of waterfalls plunging down from the dizzying height of rocky outcroppings were a serenade to springtime, but the trees looked wintry, gray and skeletal—the buds tiny, embryonic and tightly curled.

on saturday my daughter alex and i played tourist in her backyard and drove up to nearby smuggler's notch after we helped the baby of the family, hannah, start to move out of one apartment in preparation to move into another.

at the higher elevations there was minimal green, but in the rest of vermont there was plenty of it, including bright green plastic bags which were sprouting up like cabbages along the road from richmond to the notch. the first saturday in may is green up day in vermont and many people were out cleaning winter's debris from the landscape. the bags were left beside the road to be collected later. we didn't participate, though. our excuse? we didn't have one, but i could say one of us was too pooped from driving for four hours and helping with the apartment and the other one was too pregnant (but too pregnant doesn't work as an excuse because the girl hiked the pinnacle at 30 weeks of pregnancy). plus we had other plans.

in addition to green there was lots of yellow—enough dandelions in fields and lawns and grassy ditches for thousands of bouquets. i always feel a little sad for the despised dandelion. i think they are very pretty (and useful—how about a yummy salad of dandelion greens and a sip of dandelion wine? no? ok, so i'll admit that to me, anyway, those aren't the tastiest of treats) and i find myself getting upset about the containers of nasty "weed begone" killers people douse them with in search of perfection. i generally have a hard time with unnatural weed-free golf course types of grassiness which leach lakes of harmful chemicals into the environment.

but in vermont the dandelions seem to thrive; people either like dandelions better here or they have made peace with the idea of their existence due to the severe cost to nature of attempting to eradicate them—they are an accepted and natural part of the landscape. the dandelions' sunny yellow faces will continue to keep on smiling until the day comes when lawnmowers are hauled out of sheds and garages and barns and revved up for that first mow of the season.

the winding road into the mountains

 the green mountains with camel's hump in the distance

fog and drizzle mark the beginning of my 3 day trip to the mountains. (but the weekend is supposed to be unseasonably warm and sunny—hooray!).

out on the free and open road, i cruise over the big "yay maine!"bridge—a family tradition, started over 50 years ago by my mother-in-law when the family used to vacation here, is to yell "yay maine!" on the middle of the bridge when traveling back into maine—to new hampshire and zip to concord in the fine company of mpbn's world news, the writer's almanac and concertos by scarlatti  and mozart.

the ascent commences on route 89. a lone, wild turkey flies across the highway. the road leads up and up, curving through the fog, occasionally punctuated by a short, meandering descent but always more up than down in this direction. here is the vietnam veteran's memorial bridge, spanning the connecticut river between new hampshire and vermont.

finally i'm in vermont.

past exit 1—quechee, killington—i notice the first of several bright yellow signs placed at intervals along the highway alerting drivers to be cautious: MOOSE CROSSING. DEER CROSSING. BEAR CROSSING. i have only seen deer along this highway in vermont (in maine i have seen moose). it would be a real thrill to see a bear. (a bear could cause a potentially dangerous pile-up of cars, but it would be worth the risk.)

the fog thickens. on this day i am out of luck—no large wild animal sightings. and even if large animals are indeed walking on the side of the road, it is not possible to see them. the fog is as thick as a blanket. at first i can make out about four car-lengths in front of me; suddenly, the visibility drops to one car-length. i feel blind and almost smothered by the fog (but i like the eeriness, too). i drop my speed from around 80 to 55 (the speed limit is 65). in the distance, appearing and then disappearing about three car-lengths away, i see a tall, ghostly form. now it's there, now it's not. as i drive i get closer to it. it turns out to be the back of a huge truck with no lights on.

the fog clears but everything is still gray, a translucent gray giving way to a gray that is transparent—gray upon gray upon gray. a slight drizzle coats the windshield. the shapes of vermont's green mountains are mere one-dimensional  silhouettes—like mock mountains built for a stage set—of generic rocks and trees and dirt. i know they are mountains because i know mountains. (but had i been a space alien, none of these undulations would make any sense.) clouds hover around the towering gray forms and rise up stringily like acrid smoke from thousands of smoldering campfires.

i'm almost there. some mountain bumps seem to follow me, watching over me. usually the camel's hump double bump is directly ahead or just over my shoulder. but not today. i must be patient. i will have to wait until the clouds lift to see it.

my girls live in these mountains, my girls—one a college student, and one, my oldest, with her own bump, a baby on the way.

yes, and i'm so thrilled, thrilled beyond words.

i've arrived at my destination and i'm going to be a grandmama.

the didgeridoo man

man-oh-man, it's a sunny day in burlington and here comes the didgeridoo man with a funny black bird on his shoulder and a carved wooden mask on his face. too cool. he picks a fine spot on pedestrians-only church street and then settles in to play on the long, hollowed out branch, entertaining a large, appreciative crowd of on-lookers. there are a lot of women, youngish and middle age-ish, standing around loving his music and—let's be honest ladies—loving his fine muscles, too. he's good, tapping that rhythm box, shaking that tambourine and blowing that australian aboriginal horn, all together pouring out some of the fantastic sounds of summer.

the little red grocery store

all i can say is, for the most part i vehemently dislike huge stores, you know, the big box ones like wal-mart, home depot, pet quarters, b.j's and other large grocery chains, and some department stores. notice i didn't include bed, bath and beyond in this list. i think that's because i am able to find things i need there owing to the fact that knowledgeable salespeople actually exist and can be located in that store, and it's a good store for young people—and people like me!—on a budget who can't afford 900 thread count sheets but need a few good items for their first apartment.

in gigantic stores i get a little worried and maybe i even start to hyperventilate a teeny bit. the huge quantity of inventory seems, to me anyway, to be messy and disheveled, piled to the ceiling miles above my head and ready at any moment to come crashing down on me and kill me on the spot. oh boy, and the mother ship of all gigantic stores—i had the pleasure to visit this cavern for the first time a few weeks ago—is ikea. don't get me wrong. the merchandise is great as far as low priced items are concerned, and they have so many choices, and it is very clean, neat and organized, but my eyes started to get a crazed, vacant look, and my hands got clammy and i experienced mild tremors and palpitations as i drifted along the marathon course of showroom displays and the infinite universe of warehouse space.

phew, now that i'm outta there, let me relax a minute and then i'll invite you to do some shopping in vermont. this is vermont: fresh air, huge green open spaces, rushing streams and rivers tumbling down from the peaks, fields planted with all kinds of organically-grown veggies.

need some groceries? head on over to a typical small, vermont grocer offering fresh, locally grown/produced organic food. walk in the door of the little red market in "downtown" richmond and you will experience a real, full-of-goodness neighborhood market, almost like the ones in the various ethnic boston or nyc neighborhoods. see, you don't have to travel to the wilderness to get good food, but here's the thing: before you go in the richmond grocery, look at the view and you will be faced with a sight you'll never come across in boston or new york.

witness the incredible mountains all around! admire the twin peaks of camel's hump towering beyond the entrance and then go get some fresh, no-preservatives, whole-grain vermont bread, baby spinach, tomatoes. enjoy the view again on your way out......

a vermont fourth of july

as we drove along past mountains, rivers, fields and forests on friday morning, we looked forward to a nice four-day, fourth of july weekend in vermont which actually turned out to be one of the best, and busiest, independence day holidays we've had in recent memory. we helped one daughter move into her first apartment and another daughter build a railing on her new deck. we barbecued, enjoyed street performers in burlington, saw great fireworks. we did a lot of walking, talking, hauling, lifting, trudging up and down stairs (to the second floor apartment), unpacking, shopping at bed, bath and beyond and the hardware store, laughing (and laughing some more) and eating.

one night when both daughters had other plans (one scooted off to a party, the other, a wedding), ed and i went out to dinner in burlington. after dinner we took a long walk and, as the sun set, listened to some live music in the park on the waterfront, then watched the sunday fireworks on lake champlain. we were staying at alex and kevin's house. at 10 p.m. alex called and asked where are you guys? she said they were already home from the wedding—were we going to be home soon? we laughed and said we'd be home in an hour or so. they were in their pajamas when we got back to the house. funny to have your kids worried about you and checking up on you if you're not home before they are!

the weekend went by far too quickly. now the real lazy hazy days of summer begin.....july and august in maine are absolute bliss.

the baker street ghosts

(after a few weeks away i'm back in town and i will start posting regularly again in a couple days.)

back in 2009 my oldest daughter, alex, and her fiance shared their apartment in vermont with ghosts. i thought that was awfully nice of them.

the ghosts lived—if you can call it living—upstairs on the third floor in the dusty, unheated, unventilated, spider-infested attic of their duplex. where else would they live? you never hear about ghosts occupying a nice, clean kitchen or laundry room or dining room, now do you? it's always attics, cellars and closets.

when my daughter called me on the phone the morning after the night she discovered the others who also inhabited their apartment, i asked her are they nice? are they polite? respectable? as with any neighbor, if you have to have ghosts residing nearby you want ones who are relatively pleasant, who do not throw beer bottles in the yard, who are not too loud, and who absolutely don't sell drugs out of the apartment.

my daughter muttered i'll have to think about that.


honestly, her response made me just a little bit peeved.

what do you mean, you'll have to think about it?


i heard a quick release of air through not-too-pleased pursed lips heading loud and clear toward me over the phone line and then i got hit with her snappish response.


slow down. don't ask so many questions, mom. i really didn't get much sleep last night with all the noise going on directly over my head and down the attic stairs, and i'm really not in the mood.....


noises? the ghosts were noisy? that's awful. how rude! what did they do?


resigned to the fact that she'd never have any peace if she didn't fully answer my questions, she fed me the details she knows i love to savor.


let's see. at first they just spoke quietly among themselves for a while, you know, mom, like little whispery murmurings. but THEN they started creaking around up there. and THEN they decided to jiggle the attic doorknob, the one with all my marathon and other running medals hanging on it. THAT is what upset me the most, all that clattering and clinking. and another weird thing. beer bottles have been turning up in the yard lately. it's all kind of frustrating....


during the next few weeks all i could picture from alex's description was a bunch of ghosts drinking beer and having a helluva good time partying up there on baker street. i heard a few other details about my daughter's ghosts, then complete silence. she didn't want to talk about the ghosts anymore. i couldn't blame her. what else was there to say? she bought ear plugs for sleeping and went about her business. in fact, she got very busy indeed, planning her vermont country wedding and deciding where to go on a honeymoon.

one day soon after alex and her husband returned from their honeymoon i got curious. i decided to ask her if there were any new developments with her attic visitors.

no new developments, mom. the ghosts are still up there but they've been pretty quiet lately. anyway, we're hoping to buy a house. we've made an offer on one.


so the newlyweds bought a house and moved to the other side of town.

as far as we know, the ghosts still reside on baker street. if you don't believe me, go ask alex.


{this is a true story. well, everything except the part about the beer bottles....}