How dark it gets in the woods at night, and conversely, the brightness of the moon. The varying greens of the Green Mountains, sometimes gray, sometimes bright blue. The lake surface, smooth as glass, or choppy, the waves pushing toward shore, the white frothy lines that locals whisper might be a sea monster, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t capture any of this in a photo.
The smallness of the town and all of the history, everyone seeming to know each other going back generations. The names and faces I keep mixing up. Which Sara sat with me on the dock and who was the Martha who offered me plants and which of the Lucys is the artist? Who started coming here in 1959 and who climbed all 46 of the 46 High Peaks and who has a dog named Brooke with a darling tag on the collar that says Help! Please Feed Me!
They like to do potlucks here, and for weeks, I can’t crack the potluck code, the dishes I bring, barely touched. I dig out my old cookbooks and flip through ancient recipe cards, the appetizers and desserts that I remember being hits, for whatever reason, fall flat around here. Am I going too fancy? Or not fancy enough? And then I remember a former co-worker’s amazing carrot cake. I follow her recipe to the letter even as I doubt the measurements. TWO CUPS of sugar?! A cup of canned pineapple, plus the juice?! But it’s delicious, and everyone raves about it. (THANK YOU, Rebecca!)
I won two games of Mah Jong! Okay, one of my new friends totally helped me every step of the way, but the second game I was on my own. Probably beginner’s luck, but I’ll take it.
How to find new doctors and register to vote and apply for drivers’ licenses and pick up your prescriptions and get rid of your trash and recycles and compost and yard waste and where is the nearest airport and gas station and ice cream and coffee.
Also, the place with the best deli sandwiches and the hill where you can see the Adirondack Mountains and Lake Champlain, all at once. The beach with the smooth black stones, each with one white line drawn across the center. The theater downtown where they had a story-telling night and one of the story-tellers was my son and I couldn’t get over him up there, holding the mike, how he made the audience laugh, and I was thinking,
Look at us!
how far away from everyone we know, but close too, to the people we love, and all of these strangers who aren’t strangers anymore.
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