Thirty years ago this weekend I gave birth to my daughter at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, then took her home the next day to our little cabin on the Houghtonville Cemetary Road in Grafton.  Today, these dear places are battered victims of Hurricane Irene.  Grafton is isolated, with all roads in and out impassable.  Brattleboro is a mess of twisted, washed out streets and stores filled with mud.  Springfield, my home now, has been mostly spared thanks to the Army Corps of Engineers reservoir built in answer to the huge floods of the 1920′s.  Most of Vermont, though, is in turmoil with power outages, ruined roads, homes and businesses and  covered bridges washed away in the flood.  It will be years before everything is made right.

I’m grateful to my friends and family who have called to check on us, and for the wishes of friends and strangers alike in the social media outlets.  I know a lot of you would like to offer some kind of help.  Many of you will contribute to the Red Cross, or the Vermont Food Bank, or any number of other charities offering direct aid to the hurricane victims.  Those contributions are very important as we try to help our neighbors get through the tough times ahead.

I’d like to offer a few other ideas as well.  As most people know, we are just at the beginning of the Fall tourist season here in Vermont.  People from all around the world travel here to see the beautiful foliage and enjoy the Vermont landscape every autumn.  It is truly one of the most amazing things you will ever see.  So, my first gentle suggestion is that you continue with your plans to visit us.  Of course you’ll need to make adjustments if your original destination is no longer an option.  There are many, many places you will have access to and lots of local activities will go on as scheduled.    Here in Springfield the Vermont Apple Festival will be held on Columbus Day Weekend.  The Wellwood Orchard will have it’s yearly Customer Appreciation Day  this Saturday, Sept. 3–lots of fun with a petting zoo, hayrides, apple picking.

Vermont is an agricultural state.  I can’t say what the effects of the hurricane have been on local crops, but my educated guess is that it hasn’t done them any good.  I don’t know how apple picking will be this year.  I don’t know what effects the hurricane has had on the apiaries.  The farm stands will probably suffer (I know my own garden is ragged after all that rain–and we didn’t have the flooding problem).  But if the farms are to live to see another year, we need to help support them.  Remember that most small Vermont farms diversify in terms of production:  they produce maple syrup in the winter, apples in the fall, honey from the bees around the orchards.  And farms consume other local products and services:  fuel, feed, building materials, equipment.  One thing we can all do is buy some Vermont farm products.  Here are a few websites for ideas:

For Vermont cheese: http://vtcheese.com/cheesemakers.htm

For apples:  http://vermontapples.org

Honey:  http://vermontbeekeepers.org

Maple products:  http://vermontmaple.org

All of these websites contain information about local farmers who sell their wares over the internet.  If you can’t come visit one of the farms/orchards, you can order online.  Think about your Christmas lists…

With gift-giving occasions in mind, you might want to consider the work of Vermont artists and crafters.  If you’re coming to Springfield, please stop by the VAULT (Visual Art Using Local Talent) Gallery on Main Street.  It contains the work of local artists and crafters and is a beautiful gallery (http://gallelryvault.org).  Other Vermont artists, many of whom sell their work online, can be found at http://www.vermontdirectories.com/artisan.html.

A small, important gesture you could offer is to buy a little bottle of Vermont maple syrup at your supermarket (be sure it says Real Vermont Maple Syrup!  Even better if it has the label from the local sugarmaker…).  You will help the sugarmaker, the distributer, the tractor dealer, the chainsaw dealer, the fuel company, the truck driver, on and on.

Vermont will survive.  Because we live our lives on such a small scale, gestures on a small scale will be especially meaningful.  I want you to know that this is still the most beautiful place in the world.  There are many very sad scars here today, but when I look at the blue sky and the magnificent trees I know Vermont will be all right.  No doubt the most powerful of gentle gestures are your thoughts and prayers for us as we pick up the pieces.  We are grateful.

Such was my story yesterday.  It was a truly gorgeous summer day in Vermont:  75F, sunny, breezy.  I cancelled my afternoon schedule so I could await the repair person and started puttering around with small projects in the meantime.  I felt a little restless, anxious.  I feared I was wasting time.

I hung linens on the clothesline, trimmed suckers from the tomatoes, watered a few hanging plants, practiced advanced stain removal on a pair of Walter’s work slacks.  I baked bread in the bread machine–twice, because I wasn’t very happy with the first loaf.  I made a curry in the crock pot.  I sat on the screen porch and read the newspaper.  I didn’t turn on the radio; I stayed off the phone (in case “the call” would ever come.  It did not.).  I made lists.  I deadheaded the petunias.  I waited.

At two o’clock my anxiety was mounting.  By three o’clock the anxiety was turning to resentment.  Such a beautiful afternoon, I thought, and I’m wasting it just sitting around, waiting.  Imagine me sitting at the kitchen table, all scowly and cross, with that thought bubble popping out of my head.  Then imagine the next frame:  I’m laughing at myself and the thought bubble reads “You just spent the afternoon most people wish they could have had today,  leisurely picking away at little tasks, no distractions, lovely weather, all the time in the world.”  I reminded myself of something I have to re-learn every now and then:  it’s only “waiting” if you want to call it that.  Otherwise, this condition is merely the passing of time.

The most precious lesson of waiting I’ve ever learned was on the day I had to put my dear dog, Josh, to sleep.  He was very near death, struggling for each breath, curled in the corner of the living room.  I had called the vet and asked to have to procedure done at home because I didn’t want Josh to be worried (he hated the vet’s office).  The vet was on the way.  I sat on the couch with Josh’s head on my lap and waited.  But then I decided not to think of it as waiting.  I decided to think of the time as the last dear minutes I could spend with my friend and that I wouldn’t count them, I would live in the stream of the present.  And that made all the difference.

The repair guy arrived at six yesterday evening.  The range won’t be repaired until next Thursday because he had to order some parts.  I won’t be able to cook the way I usually do.  We’re planning a big party for Sunday that just might be minus the potato salad.  I’m sure there will be times over the next week when that old anxiety and restlessness will rise again, but I’m going to do my best to live in the stream of the present.  I’ll try not to be waiting.

I want to hang on to the things that delight me, but I know I can’t hang on too tightly–the old “if you love something, set it free” bit.  I don’t want a box full of Happy Meal toys on some shelf, or a row of plastic beetles either, but I don’t want to throw them away quite yet so I scatter them around and smile when I happen upon them.  The same is true for my love letters.

I suppose I’ve been lucky in the love letter department.  I’ve received quite a few, from the little notes left around the house to a large collection of fragile blue air mail letters from China.  I can’t bear to throw any of them away, though they may be indicting or embarrassing in the wrong hands.  I don’t want to tie them in bundles with black ribbons or stash them in fancy boxes.  The expressions of love I’ve received in these letters have been various, spontaneous, always fresh, intimate.  So I infuse my life with love letters hidden in books.

This is not a new idea.  I always thrill at the experience of finding an old love letter in a used book.  The sweet, breathless experience of coming upon somebody’s open heart is as humbling as it is exciting.  Clearly the letter had been forgotten–or there wasn’t enough time to rescue it before the next thing happened.  Or, as I, did the book’s owner simply leave the letter there because she couldn’t throw it away, or put it into some visible category?  I can’t imagine the poverty of the coming years when love letters won’t even exist.  How do you “happen upon” a tender email, or God forbid, a “love text?”  That’s a problem for another time.  My heirs and assigns will find plenty of material as they empty my house some day.

Edgar Allen Poe’s story, “The Purloined Letter,” left a great impression on me when I read it in my early teens.  The prize is hidden in plain sight.  My letters, too, are hidden in plain sight.  I haven’t kept track of their whereabouts; there’s no cataloging system.  I’ve probably lost a few in old book sales.  It’s comforting to know they’re surrounding me.  If I push into the little crevices of my life, the books I read a while ago, I might get a whiff of some past sunny day.  It’s enough to know it’s there.

The strawberries are pretty good this year:  we had a lot of rain and just enough sunshine lately to ripen and sweeten them.  The past few days have actually been warm.  Summer is upon us.  I’ve waited a long time for these effortless days–now that they’re here, I encounter something I forget from year to year:  Summer makes me sad.

Maybe I depend on the exertion of the woodpile, the snow shovel, the Advent and Lenten rehearsals, the drumbeat of the academic year, for equilibrium or distraction.  All of a sudden I’m in a broad expanse of Ordinary Time and I feel depressed.  Once again, I haven’t measured up.  My life reads like a series of embarrassing failures.  The bright enduring light of summer seems like too much to bear.  The pair of finches who built a nest in my hanging fuchsia didn’t show up for a few days and my worst fears were realized.  I carefully removed the four tiny dead fledglings and wrapped them in white tissue paper before I buried them.  My eyes were full, but I didn’t cry until I heard this song on the car radio.

My grandmother lived to be 99.  She and my grandfather farmed and raised 10 children through the Great Depression.  She made quilts, had a lovely garden every year, and shyly covered her mouth when she laughed.  I hope someday the story of my life can be told in three such interesting sentences.

We expect so much of ourselves when, actually, all we need to do is live the life than unrolls in front of us.  Summer is daunting in its sweetness and intensity.  But oh, the sadness of having only 100 summers.

from the Anoka, Minnesota, Yearbook 1972, courtesy of Jane Bartlett

Thirty-seven years ago this month I was sitting in the clammy Anoka High School gymnasium with Michele Amble (now Bachmann) and about seven hundred other sweaty graduates waiting to lumber onto the platform to receive our diplomas.  Since then we’ve gone out and done the things any group of seven hundred people might do:  Bob, the Valedictorian, became a cold-climate physiologist and spent time at the South Pole, Mike is a Dean of Engineering in Illinois,  Tim (my old boyfriend) shocked me by becoming a Financial Planner, Jean has had a long career as a Protestant minister, Dave joined the Navy, Mary Jo (the saint in the group, by my reckoning) has spent the intervening years teaching middle school math.  And Michelle Amble (now Bachmann) has become a Presidential contender.  That one I never saw coming, despite the prescience of the Yearbook editor.

Michele (seated, center, in the photo above) and I were friends in high school–by no means best friends, but people with similar interests and many mutual acquaintances.  I remember Michele’s beautiful long hair and bright blue eyes.  She was friendly (some might say “perky”), positive, energetic, and…average.  I don’t mean that as an insult, rather as a startled observation given what was to come.  If I had been asked to predict which of the students pictured in that Yearbook would run for President, Michele would have been at the bottom of the list.  (Sorry, Michele)  So many of my classmates were smarter, more ambitious, more politically-minded.  Or so I thought.

I moved away from Minnesota thirty-one years ago and didn’t follow Michele’s political career until she came onto the national scene.  By then we had reached opposite ends of the political spectrum, though I’m sure we were quite closely aligned as high school students somewhere to the right of center.  I’m now in Socialist-Senator-Bernie Sanders-Vermont and she’s pouring for the Tea Party.  Strangely, though, our political differences don’t interest me much at this point.  The most interesting element of my Michele Amble Bachmann story is the (rather corny) American Dream angle.

So my friend Michele–friendly, polite, peppy, average Michele–has managed to meet people, build coalitions, research positions, manage alliances, swallow unkind words, take chances, overcome adversity, charm, cajole, and bully when necessary, her way onto the national political stage.  I’m sure she’s had some good luck, good timing, good advice along the way, but I’m also sure she’s worked very, very hard.  It’s this lifetime of accomplishment I’m impressed by.  Somebody I know is actually going the political distance.  At my age (OUR age, Michele) I have some idea of what that entails.

I’m impressed.  Until recently, I would have imagined a future meeting with Michele (maybe at a high school reunion?) to include a few giggles, exchanging stories about our children and grandchildren, talking about the problems of menopause and our plans for retirement.  Now–she’s on her way to becoming a political icon, for better or worse, and I’m on my way to another day of practicing chamber music and watering the tomatoes.  The energy and beauty of the American Dream fascinates me.  This really is a place where anything can happen.

I probably won’t vote for you, Michele, but I’m kinda proud.

Now the weather has turned cold and rainy and my house is empty.  Sonja’s lovely bouquet of Baccarat roses and white lisianthus is faded and droopy.  The leftovers are all gone.  We’ve made the last trip to the airport for a while and now it’s time to return to “normal life.”  As each hour carries me farther and farther away from the wedding, I try harder and harder to keep a bit of it alive in my memory.

You see, I’m starting to understand that these Big Events really ARE big and that there are so few true milestones in life.  I realize there are many people I saw on that day I will probably never see again.  I met people whose lives, the next time we meet, will have drastically changed.  I most likely will never have a beautiful white tent in my yard again.  Little details:  Nuno’s tie arriving at the last minute, Sonja’s old red shoes under her fancy gown, the way Paulo slept so peacefully through the whole ceremony, the flowers in the yard–seem precious already.

I’m caught up in a whirlwind of happiness, regret, exhaustion, pride, relief, and–suspense.  I hadn’t realized how much mental energy I’d devoted to this project until it ended.  Now there’s a wide open space in my brain, a big intimidating blue sky of possibility.  My first inclination when faced with such openness is to fill it as quickly as I can.  I hate this feeling of wistfulness, these shadows and ashes of emotions.  I’m trying, though, to let the aftermath take its course, to watch the tide ebb until it’s finally gone.  For, I realize, these quiet moments of reflection are big events as well.  I don’t need to rush.

Remember your early twenties?  Mine were messy years full of failed romance, late nights at bars, career disappointment, money trouble, all the usual growing pains.  This Chicago Symphony rendition of the Ravel “Valses Nobles et Sentimentales” stays in my memory as the medicine of those years.  Somehow these boozy, edgy, elegant, almost-out-of-control waltzes carried me through–not that I noticed it at the time.  They come back to me like the shape of ashes after the years burned away.  I really love these little pieces.

Scroll forward about fifteen years and you come to me writing my thesis at Dartmouth.  I was still a frenzied mess, but enjoying it a lot more.  Lou Reed’s 1978 version of “Sweet Jane” was on a loop for days while I sweat out the last few pages of the short story collection that would be my culminating work.  This is still my favorite version, and really the only Lou Reed cut I like at all.

The first time I heard the Morten Lauridsen ”Lux Aeterna” was on September 11, 2001, when an NPR journalist played it in tribute to those who died in the World Trade Towers that day.  This piece is a smooth stone I’ve carried and stroked for the past decade.  It has been a sturdy accompaniment to all kinds of challenges:  untimely deaths of several friends, spiritual crises, family drama.  Sometimes I just need a “good cry” and this Agnus Dei always obliges.

I was seriously injured in October of 2005 and by the summer of 2006 I started to wonder if I’d ever be able to play the piano again.  My back and shoulders were nearly immobilized and my left arm was out of commission with pain and dystonia.  I made myself hack away at this Bach invention (#8 in F major) day after day.  It is a compact little piece and though Glenn Gould makes it sound like the easiest thing ever, I advise you it is not.  However–it saved me.  Bit by bit my shoulders became more mobile and my left hand simply went along for the ride.  I know the reason I’m able to play now is that I held onto Bach and wouldn’t let go.  I still play several inventions whenever I sit at the piano.  They are truly my life’s tonic.

In the winter of 2009 my life was at its nadir.  I couldn’t work and was nearing two years without any income; my house was a shambles after a burst water pipe ruined the kitchen and the electrical wiring; I was tired, cold, and discouraged.  One day everything changed–just a little bit, but enough for me to see some light at the end of the tunnel.  I had just received good news from my lawyer when this “Serenade for Strings” came on the radio.  The bright, bright opening phrases were sunlight pouring into the room.  This piece radiates hope for me and has come to be my theme song for this part of my life.  It promises joy and maybe even some lightheartedness.  We all need these moments of sunlight–life is pretty hard without them.

When I was I China I spent a lot of time on trains in the countryside.  It was the middle of the summer and the fields were bright green with rice and squash.  I loved to observe the beautiful landscape, complete with water buffalo and those characteristic terraces that give the place such distinction.  One of the things I found most satisfying was the way the Chinese used every available inch for growing food.  Little places we might ignore, such as traffic islands and boulevards along streets or the sides of drainage ditches, were alive with vegetable vines and trellises.  I have often thought about how much space we take for granted and how different our diets would be if we would cultivate food crops instead of lawns.

Anybody who’s known me for more than five minutes has heard about how I can’t grow any vegetables because my yard RECEIVES NO SUN!  Except for this tiny strip next to the driveway, which until recently has been overgrown with weeds.  It’s a problem area:  Reggie, the snowplow guy, scrapes it and piles snow on it all winter long so you can’t have grass or perennials there.  We used to pile wood along the driveway, but it became too much hassle with the snowplow.  What to do?  I decided to go Chinese on this one and cultivate it for hill crops and pole beans.

I realize there are few neighborhoods where this course of action would be acceptable.  It looks pretty funny to see my heavily mulched cukes, squash, and pumpkins (never mind the “rustic” trellises for the pole beans) right out front along the driveway.  Our neighbor next door is actually excited about the veggies.  We’ll see how he feels when the ninety-fifth zucchini hits his doorstep.  If the experiment is a success, we’ll have pickles and slicers and fresh beans…and Halloween Jack O’Lanterns.  And I’ll feel virtuous making good use of formerly wasted space.

One of the best things about gardening is there’s always next year if this plan doesn’t work out.  I’ll let you know…

Ken Davenport, my first orchestra teacher, probably saved my life.  He gave me real music to play and took me seriously as a musician, so I started to believe in myself.  I could write a book about all the difference that made in my life.  Instead, I offer this witty performance of “The Elephant” from St. Seans’ Carnival of the Animals, the first piece I played as a 13-year-old accompanist for a soloist (in my case, the soloist was Mr. Davenport himself, a fine double-bass player).  “The Elephant” has been immortalized in family lore as the piece I hummed for HOURS on a plane trip to keep my antsy baby daughter subdued.  It worked.

I liked the role of accompanist (I still do).  My first gig with a REAL opera singer was with a soprano in this Handel aria.  I learned a lot about ensemble playing–and about following a soprano through forests of arpeggios.  I have to confess it didn’t irk me as much then as it does now.  I guess I’ve had to follow one too many sopranos.  At any rate, I’ve probably accompanied vocalists, especially opera singers, more than any other category of musician in my life.  I’m always thrilled with the voice and truly admire people who sing.  And I’m a sucker for the opera repertoire, corny as it may be.

“The Sting” came out while I was in high school and I performed “The Entertainer” for a pops concert.  Learning ragtime was fun.  It’s loose and happy and quite technically challenging.  I also played piano and violin in pit orchestras for “Fiddler on the Roof,”  “Hello, Dolly,” and “Bells Are Ringing.”  I went to a huge suburban high school with a fine music program and will be forever grateful for these experiences.  My biggest musical moment as a teenager, though, had to be the final concert of my high school career when I played the Beethoven Piano Concerto #3 with full orchestra.

This performance by Emil Gilels (be patient–the solo part doesn’t appear until about 3:25 into the video) is exactly like the one in my head.  This is a muscular piece I’m sure I couldn’t play at this point in my life.  I’m glad I did it when I was young and healthy.  It is also the only big piece I’ve ever done as a soloist.

Other big pieces:  massive choral works, tough chamber music, complicated oratorios…were yet to come.

Stay tuned!

I was about ten years old and had my ear pressed against the scratchy cloth cover of the console stereo speaker.  My mother had allowed me to turn on the radio, a rare treat, but the volume had to stay at “3″ (out of a possible 20–you get the picture).  I listened to the classical station, a choice influenced by my parents’ acquisition of FIFTY GREAT MOMENTS IN MUSIC, an album given away with a qualifying gasoline purchase.  Add to that the fact I was starting to study the classical repertoire on the piano and you see a music nerd in the making.  I was a product of what’s come to be known as “Middlebrow” culture–the movement of a post-war middle class to expose itself to great books and great music.  For many, including my parents, a Great Moment in Music was enough.  For me, though, the first taste only gave rise to a ferocious hunger.

On that day I heard the Bach Double for the first time.

I don’t know how to explain to you what that experience meant to me.  My Rubicon?  The Road Less Taken?  The Food of Love?  It was truly profound.  I heard the Largo and could hardly breathe.  I was flooded with sweetness.  All I could think of during that experience was that I had to hear it again and again–forever, maybe.  As soon as the piece ended I went to my mother and begged to get a recording of the Bach Double Concerto (I had carefully memorized what this magical thing was called) for Christmas.

I don’t remember how close we were to Christmas at that point, but I remember it seemed an eternity away.  I was willing to wait, however, as long as it took to finally possess that gorgeous music.  I would remind my parents frequently of my desire.  Their responses should have tipped me off about the likelihood  of getting the record:  “We don’t know where to get something like that.”  (I suggested Schmitt music in Minneapolis, where my piano teacher bought my sheet music)  “It’s probably not available around here.”  “You don’t really need that.”  Etc.

Looking back I realize my parents were intimidated by the whole classical music milieu.  Listening to an album you pick up at the gas station is one thing.  Walking into a big music store in the city and asking for a strange record album is another.  Needless to say, they didn’t come through.  When they told me “We couldn’t get it because it was out of stock,” I knew even then they hadn’t tried and would never try.  I gave up on the idea.

Not long after Christmas I went with my parents and my holiday loot to a record store at Brookdale, a new mall not far from our home town.  I found an album featuring Robert and Gaby Casadesus playing the Bach Concerto for Two Pianos.  I knew this was not the Bach Double, but it cost 99 cents and I had the money.  Despite the stern counseling of my mother (“How do you know you’ll like it?  Do you even know what that is?  You probably won’t listen to it enough to justify spending the money on it.”  Etc.) I made the purchase.   It was the first record album I ever bought and I almost wore it out.  From that point my life filled with recordings, rehearsals, performances, background and foreground of classical music and I never looked back.

Now, 45 years later, I can have whatever music I want whenever I want it from about a thousand different sources.  Interestingly, I don’t own (and I never have owned) a recording of the Bach Double.  It has become, I guess, my Holy of Holies–that place marking the meaning of existence where you can never go.  I listen for it in the ether–a chance broadcast on the radio, a serendipitous performance, the background music at a bookstore.  Even posting the link for this blog I only listened to the first few bars of the Largo.  Some things are too precious to be consumed, posessed, controlled.  Romantic, isn’t it, that I believe I’ll hear this Largo someday as I sail toward heaven.