The Newport Fish

The note on the scarf says:

DEAR FISH!

WE THOUGHT YOU LOOKED SO COLD SITTING HERE SO WE ASKED GRANDMA L. TO CROCHET YOU SOME FIN MITTENS AND A SCARF TO KEEP YOU WARM THIS WINTER. WE HOPE THIS WILL BE THE "FIRST ANNUAL DRESSING OF THE FISH" IN NEWPORT, VERMONT.

LOVE, YOUR FRIENDS
JANUARY 2008

Shy spring has hied back to the shadows of the snow-heavy trees. This is this morning's picture chez moi:

Signs of Spring

Last week, a flock of birds was wheeling and landing on the grain elevators by the railroad tracks in Newport. Last night, I saw these deer cavorting in a field as the sun lowered. Several days this past week had temperatures above freezing.

Perhaps, we can really think about spring without getting our hopes dashed?

The Border

This is the chorus to "Immigration Man" by Graham Nash:

"Let me in, immigration man
Can I cross the line and pray
I can stay another day
Let me in, immigration man
I won't toe your line today
I can't see it anyway . . . "


But you can!

This is a shot westward on Caswell Ave./Valley Rd, just east of Derby Line. The border is just to the right along the road at this spot. Lake Memphremagog is down there, invisible. Across the lake, that's the southern end of Bear Mountain, with the border slash highlighted by snow. And that where the fence will be, if we keep electing Republican oil executives for president.

The Canadians like us, mostly, but they think we're nuts for electing the people that we have.

Snow

The defining element of reality around here (Orleans County, Vermont) is winter. The most visible manifestation of winter is snow.


Not every winter has lots of snow — some are just plain cold. Snow is good for the dormant plants; it insulates their roots and tubers from killing cold. Lots of it this winter. Blame it on La Niña.

Occult mappings of correspondences equate the season of winter with dying and death. Ultimate interiority. Many people get a little crazy with boredom about now, and that's called "cabin fever." Some are fortunate to have pastimes that can make use of the long winter hours, like reading, or crafts, or zazen.

The joy of spring is never so intense in places that have no intense winter. One unkind friend suggested it was equivalent to the relief one feels when ceasing to hit oneself in the head with a hammer. Whenever I visit California, friends ask me if I've come to live there for good, and are perplexed when I answer "No." Winter is as natural to me as breathing out after breathing in, and I sorely missed it when I lived without it.

One can die here in winter without much carelessness. Once I was caring for someone's house and outside it was thirty below, Fahrenheit (-34°C). Firewood was stored in an outdoor shed. I went out to get some. The storm door slammed and locked itself. All I was wearing for outdoors over my upper torso was a hooded sweatshirt. I thought fast. I might have ten minutes before my fingers were numb and useless. None of the neighbors closer than a quarter-mile away were home this holiday weekend. Didn't want to break a window — then I'd have to deal with closing up that hole and paying for a new pane. Then I remembered seeing a screwdriver in the garage. I ran and got it, and managed to pop the door without any damage. I got to the stove just as my fingers began to ache.

It was a social thing with the high schoolers around here to wear as little as possible in the winter. I've seen kids in shorts and t-shirts pumping gas at ten below. But you never know when a car will break down, and you can be rather far from even a stranger's warm house.

Then there's the roads. Some winters I'd spin out five times, ending up immobilized in a snowbank, waiting for a fellow resident to come by with a tow chain. Got to meet a lot of people that way.

After the middle of February, you let yourself think about spring. Not much longer, and the temperatures will regularly be above freezing in the day, and the vast banks of dirty, crusty, stuff that used to be pristine snow will start to shrink. It's a joy to look at the faces of your fellow human beings, then. You know they feel the same joy as you. Even if it is kind of perverse to prefer living in an icebox like Vermont.

Speaking of, around 1994, the following made it's way around the Internet. I don't think anybody's claimed copyright. It does give one a certain, uh, feel for the place.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~O~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FLATLANDERS DIARY

August 12
Moved to our new house in Vermont. It is so
beautiful here. The mountains are so majestic and
serene. Can hardly wait to see them with snow. God's
country for sure.

Oct 14
Vermont is the most beautiful place on earth.
Leaves are turning all different colors. Love the
shades of red and orange. Went for a ride through the
mountains and saw some deer. So graceful. The most
beautiful animals on earth. This is paradise!

Nov 11
Deer season will open soon. Why would anyone want
to kill such an elegant creature? The very symbol of
peace and tranquillity. Hope it will snow soon. Love it
here.

Dec 2
Snowed last night. Woke up to find everything
blanketed with snow. Looks like a postcard. Went outside
and shoveled the driveway. Had a snowball fight (I
won). The snowplow came by and we had to shovel the
driveway again. What a beautiful place. Mother Nature
in perfect harmony. I love Vermont.

Dec 12
More snow last night! I love it. The snowplow did
his trick again (that rascal). A winter wonderland. I
like it here so much.

Dec 19
Snowed again last night. Couldn't get out of the
driveway to get to work this time. I'm exhausted from
shoveling. Damn snowplow.

Dec 22
More of that white shit today. Got blisters on my
hands from shoveling. I think the snowplow driver hides
around the corner waiting for me to finish shoveling.
What an asshole!

Dec 25
"White Christmas" my busted ass! More friggin snow.
If I ever get my hands on the son-of-a-bitch that
drives the snowplow I swear I'll strangle him! Why
don't they use more salt on the roads to melt the ice?
Country hicks.

Dec 29
More snow. I hate the stuff! Been inside since
Christmas Day, except for shoveling the driveway every
time "Snowplow Harry" comes by. Can't go anywhere.
Car's burried under a mountain of snow. Weatherman says
ten more inches tonight. Do you know how many shovels
full of snow ten inches is? I hate it.

Jan 1
"Happy Friggin New Year!" Weatherman was wrong
again. Got 32" of the stuff this time. It won't melt
until July. Snowplow got stuck up the road, and the
dumb bastard had the nerve to ask to borrow a snow
shovel. I told him I'd already broken five of them
shoveling all the snow he pushed into the driveway.
Smashed the last one over his head. Stupid ass!

Jan 18
Finally got out of the house. Went to the store to
get food and on the way back a deer ran in front of the
car and I hit the bastard. Did $3000 damage to the car.
Those goddam useless animals should all be killed.
Hunters didn't do their job last November. Next year I
get a hunting license!

May 3
Took the car to the garage in town. Would you
believe the thing is rotting from all the salt they
dumped on the roads? What a bunch of morons. Everyone
knows salt destroys cars. Car looks like crap.

May 15
Moved to Florida. Can't imagine why anyone would
want to live in a Godforsaken icebox like Vermont.
You've got to be crazy to live there!

Pick a Path

I cannot begin to read a volume of the graphical novel Buddha, by Osamu Tezuka, without going all the way to the end. I was midway through Volume 4 at the Newport Natural Foods Store when I thought I'd take it into the "yoga room," a multifunctional space where we also sit zazen on Thursday nights. There's also a small, closed-off office with a door to the yoga room that a red-haired woman of somewhat less than my own years uses to do massage therapy. As her appointments sometimes overlap with preparations for the zazen group, we occasionally have words in passing. The woman, named Karen, was today rather early for an afternoon appointment, when she saw me reading in the otherwise empty room. She struck up a conversation.

I had remembered that yesterday, as I was arranging the yoga room for meditation and commenting on how chilly it seemed, she had suggested we wrap ourselves in blankets. "That's how we did it at the ashram." I asked her about it now. "What ashram?"

She had been involved with the Shivananda yoga organization. A rather unscandaled teacher and institution. We began trading stories about Buddhist, Hindu, and Other teachers, and commenting on the various stripes of spiritual seeker one runs across. We mocked the tone of pretentiously earnest young would-be shramanas, "I am but a humble spiritual seeker, searching after the Truth!" "Haven't found any yet, eh?"

Karen had been to India a few times. She related what one yogi said to some people in her presence: "For goodness sake, pick some path and dig into it! Stop wasting your time asking so many questions! You will only find the answers you are looking for by actually practicing something!"

We laughed. Probably a bit cruel to make fun of such people, but we laughed, anyway.