I have for some time now felt a small churning fire within, an awareness that I have something more to share, something additional to offer. For years these embers of truth have lain almost dormant, a few flickering coals resting in the hollow beneath my beating heart, above my gnawing stomach. At thirty-five earthly years of age others are now throwing on the kindling, a result of my first published piece - a story depicting the connection among humans, food, and forest in the context of a moose hunt. You can find that essay in the Vermont Almanac, Volume Five. As I tend to the growing inferno within, I stumble in conversation. Oral storytelling has never been my strong suit. I turn instead to a blank page and my camera as a means to communicate. And so I invite you to join me, as I birth “Through Seasons.”
“Through Seasons” is an offering of stories and photographs, focusing on the landscape and the beings it holds, on self-sourced food, and the seasons of life we find ourselves in. I myself am an adept outdoorswoman and grower of food, a newer hunter, a dabbler of foraging, and an experienced nurse with a small photography business. Born and raised in a rural impoverished town, I grew up close to the land. As an adult I live on a dead end dirt road in a fixer upper house with eighteen acres I have the privilege of tending to, adjacent to forty-four thousand acres in Vermont’s Green Mountains. Despite this location’s rural character, I find myself a mere forty minute drive to the “city”, where I long worked at the bedside. The people of the “city” always found it surprising that I do not own a TV, and that I heat my home solely with wood, cut walking distance from the woodstove and split with an axe by yours truly.
Hence, I’ve found myself existing within a crossover of cultures. I feel the push to conform, to continue to chase what our society casts around as “a better life.” But race as I have, I’ve found that track less than fulfilling, the finish line continuously propelled further ahead, the mirage of “success” still riddled with uncertainty. Perhaps you might relate. As a nurse I’ve had the privilege of caring for the living and the dying, to witness the human experience of countless others, to see how their own races are playing, and have, played out. Their lessons peel back the veil on many twenty-first century illusions. Studying illness lends itself to looking more closely at systems at large, at our ecosystems, and the power we hold within them. I see there is much room here for conversation and action, for growth in our culture. And so I continue on another path, finding solace in the woods while connecting with the land, fueled by an expanding community over the sharing of rich meals.
I invite you to join me, with a cup of coffee or tea in hand, to savor relatable stories sprinkled with new flavors. “Through Seasons” will share monthly writings and images in a more complete form than I have on other platforms. You can subscribe for free, or you can kindly pay to subscribe in support of me doing more of this work.
I’ll leave you now with a piece of past writing so that you may get to know me more. Welcome, and thank you for being here.
The Woodpile
There is a dirty little word in healthcare, and American culture at large, called “productivity.” If you’ve come in contact with our medical system I am sure you’ve felt this underlying concept embedded within your care. Because of this pressure our rushed staff have to give up time somewhere. True healing is most successful when a patient feels a provider’s full attention, empathy, and patience. Yet these difficult to measure variables become compromised as we hustle along to the spilling over pot of measurable tasks at hand.
In my fifteen years at the bedside I’ve noticed that this concept has crept, or maybe galloped, into my everyday existence. At the cost of creativity, fulfillment, and deep thought, I chug along obeying the pressure of measurable outcomes: tasks completed, money made, boxes checked. Art, which for me comes in the forms of writing, photography, cooking, and the growing of food & flowers, gets rushed or abandoned entirely. With that comes loss of joy, and loss I know, of the potential I feel in my heart as a human being.
For three years now my home has been heated solely with wood. My part in the process is to split, stack, and help move said firewood. At times my partner, a mechanical engineer, has floated the idea of a splitter. It surely would quicken the process, giving me back time for other things. It would increase my productivity.
The thought though, hits me like a punch to the stomach. In a world pressuring me to rush around being “productive,” I find a small sense of rebellion in my hand splitting of wood. The process is full of choices and small challenges that engage my mind and body in a way a splitter never could. The satisfaction felt in my muscles from this human powered labor cannot be replicated with weights or a machine. And there is a deeper reminder as I hear the lovely crack of wood splitting under my very own feminine force.
Rushing has no place here.
Good things in life, the very best things, take time.