Voices from Vermont

Original Post: 8/25/2015

Mist hung in the crevices of the hillside as we headed to the Burlington Airport. Could it be that my time in the insular world of Vermont College of Fine Arts had ended so quickly? The ghosts of a week of rich writing, conversation and experience echo still.  

Readings about one-legged lovemaking and a baby by Father John, mingled with the image of a gun to the head of a black man and the morays of mattress buying by a single woman. The voices of poets and narrative nonfiction writers stirred together with fiction's creativity. From the benevolent to the vitriolic, words lit upon the creases of gray matter in my head and provoked images of the human experience I will not soon forget.

On a  velvet green knoll, ten minutes out of town, we gathered in light’s last glimpse, surprised by artichokes growing far from central California. Flames of a campfire licked the night air, the glow softening our warts and insecurities. Waiting for the bathroom to be free, I spied a cook book that made me smile: Jewish Food, by Matthew Goodman. He was the catalyst for this journey to Vermont.  Thank you, friend, for words of encouragement. 

Filters are a funny thing. When I read the manuscripts of my workshop mates before arriving in Vermont, I made assumptions. They laughed at me when I told them I’d googled them to find out what I could about each one of them. After reading some of the intimate details, the risky revelations of their lives, I wanted to see them, look in their eyes and warm to them, all before I met them.  

I am reminded of Tibetan monk throat singing when I think of the words that jumped off the pages. Ethnography and Titicaca mingled with sounds of silence, babies brought into a world, and language of recovery. The colors of story climbed into my mind and heart, and has yet to leave. Words resonate as if bouncing off one mountain cliff and landing on another far from the origination of the writing.  Sounds not always distinguishable but there, reaching into my heart.

We are scattered to the four winds now. Writing has taken on new hues. Library checkouts await. My box of books from VCFA has arrived. How could a week be so rich and so full to bring me back again and again, to all things writing? Learning about point of view, snock snarls, and hermit crabs, continue to feed my writing life.  And a stoop waits in Vermont for friends, wine named Backstory, astounding rainbows and meteor showers.