Sunny River Writings

A muggy evening, it was a Friday in August, in central Illinois. It was late when the phone rang. The nurse on the other end was telling me it didn’t look like my mom was going to make it through the night. Mom passed away before the sun rose the following day. After she was laid to rest, after all the family and friends went back to their lives; but before I tackled the job of settling her estate I headed to Vermont.

Packing only a few things I drove the sixteen hours from the golden cornfields of Illinois to the lush alpine ecosystem and the mountains of Vermont. Remembering very little about the drive. Just focused on arriving at this most wonderful piece of earth. Needing the peaceful beauty that is the Green Mountain state. This was not my first trip to Vermont. Four times in the past I traveled to the northern part of the state. My oldest son, three years earlier, had attended college in the quaint village of Craftsbury Common. The small village of old homes, green pastures and straight white birch trees. I remember the trees so vividly, the white bark in contrast with its emerald green leaves, so different from the browns and yellows of the Midwest.

It is now August 1997 and my son, having graduated from college, is working at a Quaker camp in southern Vermont. The camp was closing for the season so the place was quiet. The night I arrived it was late so we tossed our sleeping bags in the middle of a meadow. Being dark when I arrived you can imagine my surprise in the morning at the view. We were surrounded by mountains. I felt I was in a thumbprint, held in a hug. The first frost settled in during the night so everything was crisp and green. The sky, the bluest I had ever seen. The air smelled clean and fresh and was a little chilly. The sorrow which had fueled my drive was gone. It was a new beginning. The world I had left was outside of the thumbprint. Here I was safe. I found peace and beauty.

The camp is nestled along the 150 acre Woodland Reservoir. Here I spent time watching numerous birds. Song birds in the trees, raptors gliding on the thermals, shore birds and water birds who had come to play in the reservoir. I learned that seventy-seven percent of the state is forest, mostly spruce and fir trees. As I explored the next few days I came upon a moose grazing along a stream. Once a black bear lumbered lazily across a field. The roads, I discovered, seemed to follow along side the rivers. How comforting to be by oneself, have time to reflect, but not feel alone. I treated myself to the thick, dark brown, sweet maple syrup. Vermont being the leading producer of this sweet delight. I bought a quart to take home and share with family.

Mt. Killington, the second highest peak in the Green Mountain chain which runs from north to south along the center of the state, was just a few miles away. A short twenty miles to the west of camp is the Appalachian Trail and the Long Trail which run together. The two trails join together about two-thirds of the way down the state and run together until just before reaching the Vermont/Massachusetts border. Here is where the Long Trail ends. The Appalachian Trail continues on to Georgia.

The motto of Vermont is ‘Freedom and Unity’. I felt so free, free to leave my worries behind. I also felt the unity of the citizens who have kept the cities and country side as it was hundreds of years ago. No billboards lining the roads. No big box stores at every corner. The white-washed homes with picket fences in front, cows grazing without a lot of fencing. What fencing there was came from the earth, split-rail or stone. Properties divided by trees and bushes that have been there free of man’s ax. Gardens everywhere. Views wide and open not cluttered by tall buildings.

At the end of my visit, I returned home, refreshed and ready to tackle the dismantling of my mothers life. I returned a new person. My head was clear. I brought back a memory, that I carry still vivid today, of the morning I awoke in the thumbprint of the earth surrounded by the green mountains in a state called Vermont.