I was born in Rapid City, South Dakota, and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. I went to college in Davidson, North Carolina, and then lived for a year in France. I went to law school in Athens, Georgia, worked for two years in Atlanta, then got married, and agreed to move to Columbus, Georgia–where my husband is from and where I’ve now lived for almost thirty years.
When I was 13, 14, and 15, I went to camp in Vermont–two months each summer. That place was magical. I was hoping to go to college at Middlebury, but…
My junior year of high school I went skiing in North Carolina–in jeans. I was miserably cold and concluded I would never be able to make it through a Vermont winter. I didn’t even apply to Middlebury.
I was an idiot.
I loved every minute of my time at Davidson College but regret the basis on which that decision was made.
A lot of you know that I adore winter. As Robert Frost wrote in his wonderful and long poem Snow, “You can’t get too much winter in the winter.”*
These days, I spend a week a month in Provincetown, Massachusetts. I guess I’m a southerner in fact but I’m a New Englander at heart.
*thanks to the Hopeful Herbalist for this lovely line of poetry.
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I feel like a crazy fly on your wall.. one of them there voyeristics! Seriously… there are many common threads showing up here and there and I look forward to each day as I get to know you bit by lovely bit! I like you.
Hey Loretta, you are not a crazy fly on the wall because here you are writing to me : ) Some days I feel stupid going on about me. So I really really appreciate your letting me know you look forward to the posts. Thanks so so much for your support and friendship!
Cynthia, just wanted to say for you to not feel stupid going on about you ’cause this challenge not only prompts you to focus on figuring yourself out, but for us to share with you what we have in common or don’t and talk about things for us, and then both together. It’s good conversation—that’s what it’s all about—connection, and when there’s something valuable to be gained—yay! 😀
Oh wow, Donna. I’m just seeing this (for some reason, wordpress is not notifying me of all comments), and although I wrote about a different type of connecting, I titled today’s post connecting! But back to the substance, you’re right. Thank you. This is a conversation. YOU ALL save me from this just being about me! Comments are so great.
So then, you are–so far–a New England hippie at heart 🙂
Ha, I thought of that too! : )
As I figured you would!!! LOL This whole “getting to know you” stuff is really making me smile 🙂
Midd’s winter is pretty harsh, and that’s coming from a Mainer. My son is sophomore there and my daughter will be a freshman next year. We encouraged her to look at Davidson too, but she wanted winter. It’s good that you found your second home.
How wonderful to know that you encouraged Gemma to look at Davidson. I thought she had chosen Middlebury too, but I couldn’t remember. When you post photos from your visits there, I can live vicariously. And who knows whether I would still like winter if I had gone to college in it for four years or had to shovel or scrape snow off cars. but I kind of think I still would have…
Ask any Mainer–and this year any Bostoner–and you will hear that in fact, yes, there can be too much winter in winter. I would not have said that before this winter, but get 7 feet of snow in 10 days and you will have too much winter in your winter. Develop an eye twitch b/c you seriously seriously do not have another inch of space for more shoveled snow but they’re calling for ANOTHER FOOT–and you will have too much winter in your winter. Endure a record February that is ELEVEN degrees colder than average… and you will have too much winter in your winter. What I’m saying is this: You picked the wrong winter to brandish that Frost quote!
The southerner/New Englander dynamic is interesting to me, too, given that I was raised a southerner and lived in the south until my late 30s, when I moved to Maine. What a culture shock. But almost immediately I embraced so many things about Maine, and now that I have been here for some time, I fully embrace it. From my perspective, famously self-contained Mainers are actually far more open than what I ever experienced in the south, for the simple reason that here, what you see is what you get. There are no pretty (and, you realize once you’re away from them, stifling) rules for social interaction, no rituals for expressing disapproval (any southern woman knows what I mean by that)–in short, no artifice. Introverted me feels far less pressure to do things “right” here in Maine. I wonder if you’ve experienced any of these differences in Massachusetts, and enjoyed that same room to breathe–either consciously or subconsciously. Or maybe it’s just a response to landscape? The New England coastline is uniquely charming, that’s for sure. Anyway, think of me over your next bowl of chowdah.
One of the reasons I love Provincetown is that people are so open here, so non-judgmental. I wear what I want anywhere and don’t even bring makeup. So yeah, I have noticed that room to breathe.