As a Vermonter I know what you will be thinking next year, January 15th at 4:45pm.
You’ll be thinking: "It’s lighter today than it was yesterday!"
And that will make you glad. And you will smile.
And think: in three weeks comes ground hog day. I can make it that far! Then
you will leap forward hopefully in similar blocks of time: town meeting,
sugaring, green up day, planting peas, lilacs in bloom and then …(you’ve made
it!) the longest, most wonderful day of the year – June 21st..
And (ohmygod) tomorrow will be shorter and winter begins.
Vermont is two thirds hope and
one-third nostalgia.
"April", T.S. Elliot once said, is "the cruelest month."
" Breeding lilacs of the dead land.
mixing memory and desire
stirring dull roots with spring rain."
Vermont is a perpetual April!
And we should be glad. For April’s hope sustains us together in this
northland of cold, muddy, cloudy, windy, summer-challenged, forested granite.
Together in our beloved little Republic
of Vermont.