First of the Season

Back in Vermont, getting ready for a business meeting at 9:00 am. (Of course I prepare for my meetings by blogging. Doesn't everybody?) Yesterday's drive down was another gorgeous trip through summer. First were the cornfields of Canada, where we actually stopped and bought the first sweet corn of the season (it seems really early for that) from le Ferme Reid, a large operation that has a farmstand and even a fenced petting area with lambs and calves. Even though it was a very hot day, the piles of freshly-picked sweet corn were still cool and damp in the shade of the awning. I asked for laitue (lettuce) and was told there were only tomatoes, cucumbers, corn - bi-color - and raspberries - the latter of which we bought and devoured before I thought to take a picture. Outside the city, few people speak any English, and there was something wonderful about the farm wife's fast French and the fact that I had no choice but to understand it and answer back in her language. No lettuce, only sweet corn, as it were.

We crossed into Vermont and stopped at St. Alban's, as we often do, for gas and a cup of coffee or tea, and when I looked back over my shoulder, getting off the highway, the farm perched on the hill looked so different and so Vermont - the sprawling, low red barn and outbuildings, the black-and-white holstein herd arranged in the hilly pasture, and beyond it, the green hills and blue mountains and white cumulus clouds in a blue summer sky.

We didn't have any milk this morning when we got up, so J. ran over to the mini-mart. He came back shaking his head and saying that the local papers all had pictures of cops pointing guns at people. It is a culture shock, this weekly travel. Even in our small Vermont town, if one doesn't resist, your entire attention can be focused on things to be afraid of: there are sirens and police and frightening articles on the media, and friends and family and neighbors who seem preoccupied with health and security and what can go wrong next. How much weight we give this version of reality is really up to us. I just left a city where people are realistic about the world we live in, but not freaking out. I just drove through beautiful land that was peaceful and which people are trying to preserve and care for; I'm sitting in a room filled with books, a piano, plants, color. There's a bird singing outside. It's a lot to be grateful for.

Comments

[Robert]

I sometimes wonder if our morbid fascination with violence is tied to our dualism of secular and religious lives. But my experiences in Canada (which seems to me far more secular than the US) thow that thought into doubt; they just don't seem that culturally different, at least on a superficial level.

My suspicion is that they are just smarter than us, and have better priorities.

[karen]

Beth, I so appreciate this beautiful photo of corn, and the attention and love that would feature a photo of corn, something 'ordinary' and almost taken for granted. Right from the start of this war which, as an American, I do not support, I've felt that I want to continue to appreciate the gift of peace wherever I can find it. The beauty of plants, the wonder of wholesome and beautiful food,as catalogued here, the sight of a Vermont farm (I've been there, and I know how magical it is), and the presence of books and a piano in a room. Thank you so much, Beth, for re-affirming these realities, and for continuing to value them.

And 'Amen' to the grateful part.