I Am Sitting On My Porch, Smack Dab

In the middle of a thunderstorm.  One of those god’s wrath, break of a billiard rack, the dog is under the couch beauties that separates the bag from the pipes and reminds you that MOTHER NATURE IS IN CHARGE, thank you very much.  

Short of an Irene or a winter of ’98 ice storm on the damage scale but still pretty powerful.  Which makes it ideal for sitting through.  Somehow the word rumbling was born of a good thunderstorm.  Crescendo from the Latin crescere to grow or increase.  The third movement of Vivaldi’s Concerto in A Minor.  Currently somewhere over Putney but headed this way, up Westminster West, up and over Hartley Hill, descending on our little hamlet, adding a couple of inches to the depth of the Saxtons River.

As quickly as it hits, it passes, headed north and east.  The rain which at times was heavy starts to soften, reminding metal roofs of their purpose.  The sky remains dark but the threatening nature of the storm has given way to the gentler soaking rain.  Now the only question remaining is how long will it rain?  Will we be lucky enough to have it around at bedtime? 

A late afternoon early evening storm is what you want.  The earth has started to cool and things are sort of settling in for the night.  A storm during the heat of the day often gives way to a hot sun that sends the fallen rain back into the air in the form of a brutalizing asthmatic humidity.  A heading-to-dark rainfall blankets and grays outside and mesmerizes here on the porch.  A good rain is like a good campfire.

Probably should head for the kitchen, the pizza dough may be doubled.  God is good, the eight ball has fallen into a woven leather pooltable pocket and yo dude you can come out from under there, every little thing gonna be all right.

Love you.  Peace.  Peter

I'm Having A Hard Time

Coming to terms with the difficulty this year's winter has had struggling with letting go.  Just last week, I overheard a couple of cabins discussing the extremely high level of fever they've had to put up with for the last couple of months.  I'm one matching set of white belt and pants away from a move south.  So ready for summer I bought a hothouse tomato, slathered it in mayo and pretended I just got back Pete's Farmstand, Rt. 12, Just North of Walpole, NH.

It's been cool.  As in temperature, not temperament.  As in it's frickin' May and I'm still waiting for a forsythia to step up and be counted.  As in I don't have to look too hard to spy with my little eye chunks of glacier clinging to roadside rockwalls.

Even the roads aren't sure what to make of it.  Normally by now we're in the middle of mud season navigating roads all agoo.  Oh, there are pockets of warmth-indicators looking to be recognized.  The other day (let's call it Spring shall we?), I was out for a Spring-Has-Sprung ride up on Davidson Hill Road and found a couple of spots where, if I'd been in my car instead of on my bike I would have been up to my ball joints in it.  But for the most part the ground is still solid.  As in the tarp doesn't need to come off the Troy-Bilt quite yet.

Last night, I opened my bedroom window hoping for a breath of the freshness of Spring (like when your Mom hung a mobile of Irish Spring soap bars over your crib). (HaHaHa.  You thought I wouldn't tell.)  You know how comforting that woodstove-smoke smell is drifting over from the neighbors in January?  It's a spit in the face from Mother Nature on the 5th of May.

Got to go for a run through the woods today.  Running through the woods on a crisp Fall day with the musk of freshly fallen leaves rising crushed beneath my feet always brings up memories of my glory days.  Wait.  Right stimulus, wrong season.

I sure hope they're enjoying a nice lingering summer down Chile way.

Love you all.  Peace.  Peter

This Is Without A Doubt

Spring, one of my favorite times of the year.  I love those moments when we transition between seasons and winter into spring can be so uplifting and revitalizing.  It can also be muddy.

I’ve started cracking my bedroom window at night to take advantage of the freshening air.  You know my bedroom window.  The one that overlooks the road leaving Saxtons River heading south?  The one that overlooks that part of the road where trucks decide to shift as they leave Saxtons River heading south.  Okay so there are not that many trucks leaving Saxtons River headed south but there are a lot of those whatta you call ‘ems?  Oh yeah, 17 year old boys WHO THINK THEY’RE MARIO ANFRICKINDRETTI.  I always wanted to be one of those guys but no matter how hard I tried I could not get my father’s 1979 Plymouth Valiant station wagon to perform the way Nelson Severance could get his Ford Falcon to go from zero to 60 mph in a gazillionth of a second.  Ah 60 mph.  Was not possible in a Plymouth Valiant unless you were coming down Rt. 125 from the top of Middlebury Gap in neutral.

Slope enthusiasts up at Killington have made the equivalent of a gazillion trips down the stairwell of the Empire State Building.  Did you know that in 1945 when a plane ran into the Empire State Building, elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived a 75 story plunge?  No one names their kid Betty Lou anymore but it was the most popular girls’ name in 1946.  

The wicked diehard skiers are not ready to quit, hoping for one more weekend of fun.  As we transition to warmer weather they start to trade pants for shorts, plant themselves in what is called corn and often end up covered with raspberries.  The rest of us, refusing to live in the past, are looking towards warmer weather.

As I look outside my living room window (you know my living room window- it’s right below my bedroom window) I have noticed folks getting back into jogging.  As if trying to nudge spring into showing up sooner rather than later they run by in their underwear dodging the snowpack of yesterday which is now flowing down the road.

Which brings us to the whiteness of March skin.  Vermont is not known as a state with a high percentage of people of color.  This is not so much an issue of race and diversity as it is a situation in which we have acres of flesh that has spent the last 5 months under 5 layers of Merino.  Acres of flesh now blindingly making its way up the road that leaves Saxtons River heading south.

I think I’ll sit on my porch and watch life go by.  It’s supposed to be in the mid to upper thirties.  T shirt weather.

Love you all.  Peace.  Peter