I heard from some friends and readers surprised by yesterday’s letter. Believe me, I get it. I never expected to leave Northern New England and I have always fantasized about a life in bucolic Vermont. That dream now ends. I further address the issues in this morning’s post.
At my age, you’d think I would prefer to settle down. And yet our world is more in flux than it has been since the last world war. Things feel more temporary, truth is replaced by fiction, the economy is shaky, science, medicine, and the environment are under attack. Social programs have been eviscerated in the last seven months. People have traded their minds for social media silliness. AI will only make people less intelligent and more gullible.
And it will only get worse.
The time feels right to strike out, much like Tennyson’s aging Ulysses:
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
I’ve always envied the Lost Generation, so named by Gertrude Stein. How delicious it is to read about Paris in the 1920s. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Joyce, Eliot, Picasso, Dos Passos, Porter, and Pound. They were younger, of course, but everything was fresh. There was a chance to begin anew in a world finding a new way.
To know oneself is a gift, and I finally realized that we need something different. It is strange, though, like leaving a marriage. I don’t get to be nervous all that much, and I’m doing my best to invite it.
We wouldn’t be doing this if we hadn’t traveled, met fascinating people, and extended our chosen family.
Before shunning my phone, I talked to friends on Cape Cod, in California, and in Arizona. I texted with others in Utah, Oregon, and Nebraska.
It feels almost absurd to leave behind the green hills of New Hampshire, but our lives are different, and so is the Mount Washington Valley. We have so few ties here that what binds us to this place is a combination of the past and illusion.
Some of you reached out and are worried about my health. Please don’t be. This desire to change our circumstances is to pursue better health, understand our bodies’ needs, and achieve a better, less stressful quality of life.
During these hotter, more humid summers, we are held prisoner by the abuse I put my body through in my younger years.
Recently, someone wondered how we would handle the crowds of summer on Cape Cod or southern Utah’s dry but high heat. Easy. Our winter coddiwomples will morph into summer odysseys. The idea of the Outer Cape or Kanab in winter makes me giddy. All those lonely beaches and canyons are calling out for paws and feet. It’s a solitary’s dream.
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