The weather has been decidedly delightful of late. My tulips, slow at first to announce themselves, are hanging on longer than usual, making me happy every day. I love spring and its bursts of life everywhere I look. Flowers that were not there when I went to bed are waving hello in the morning breeze while I have my coffee. I love these flowers.
It’s been a long time since I was editor of The Charlotte News and wrote for these pages. My…
Ikigai—such an interesting word, right? Loosely translated as “a reason for being” in Japanese, ikigai is where passion, mission, vocation and profession all intersect. It’s another way of thinking about what drives us, what provides meaning. I heard about ikigai from a Ted Talk, and it brought to mind a conversation I had with a college student about what provides meaning in his life. After my talk with the Charlotte dad who offered his take on his shifting and evolving thoughts on what brought meaning to his life, I wanted to hear what a young person, just launching into adulthood, would think about meaning and purpose.
I have long been a fan of musical words. An attempted writer myself, I look for those people who can put meaning into language that often goes beyond what she or he thought of to put down on paper. I have said before, I favor Mark Twain, who once wrote that he never knew what he was going to say until he began to write it.
I swear to you, I wait all year for the first week in May. It’s got that Christmas Eve-not-long-till-you-open-your-presents thing going for it, and if you’ve ever been to Ireland, then and only then do you have something to compare the greenery of a Vermont May to.
It’s 5:30 a.m. on Sunday, Mother’s Day, at the old Baptist Church in East Charlotte. The wide-pine floorboards creak and crack as I retrieve my second cup of coffee. The stained glass windows glow with references to the Greek alphabet in mottled yellows, greens and blues. A few early birds are running laps from the newly pruned apple trees to the feeders. My fiancée, the lovely Britta Johnson, rightly asks what I’m doing up so early.
“For the record, my name is Kinsey Millhone. I’m a private investigator, licensed by the State of California, (now) thirty-three years old, 118 pounds of female in a five-foot-six-inch frame. My hair is dark, thick, and straight. I’d been accustomed to wearing it short, but I’d been letting it grow out just to see what it would look like. My usual practice is to crop my own mop every six weeks or so with a pair of nail scissors. This I do because I’m too cheap to pay twenty-eight bucks in a beauty salon.
I am composing for you my bi-weekly missive from the eastern end of Long Island. My daughter Coco and I traveled out here with my former brother- and sister-in-law, Mark and Margaret, to visit with members of the family to which I belonged when I was married the first time.
This February I was diagnosed with early stage, highly treatable breast cancer. I will be fine after the treatment, which began in earnest two weeks ago. In my case, cancer comes with an incredible village of friends who want to help me through this.
There is a fire in the fireplace and two dogs not so subtly reminding me that dinnertime is upon us. If they wore wristwatches, they would be glancing down at them, tapping the glass faces with their toenails. Snow is falling on the lawn outside. Easter has come and gone, and the first day of spring was weeks ago.
I want to thank Peter Trombley for his excellent article, “CVU students travel to Washington to join March for Our Lives.” He captured the tone, the message, the scope and the importance of this very stirring gathering. In addition to the 38 students and five chaperones on the CVU bus, there were hundreds of other Vermonters there, including more than a few Charlotters.
I was in Panera on Shelburne Road the other day, and while I was waiting for my coffee, I looked around at the other customers, many of them sitting two or three to a table. There probably were 15 to 20 people there, of which more than half were devoting their time to some sort of mechanical device—iPhone, iPad, Mac or other portable computer.
I’ve begun to realize changes are happening to my eyes. A few years ago I had two separate cataract operations, both of which were successful and greatly improved my vision’s clarity.
I prepare my weekly lesson plan for the freshman writing course I teach at the University of Minnesota every Sunday. An integral part of the Ph.D. in English Literature program, teaching the basics of writing and research to students majoring in economics, agriculture and biochemistry can be an exercise in dues-paying, the kind of academic scrub work meant to inspire us to become scholars qualified to teach literature courses.
During Easter week what you have is a news editor with very few words. Or, rather, a pastor with a lot going on. Also, while I’m sitting here feeling a little lacking in vision, let me mention that one of us three hospice chaplains who cover hundreds of Vermont miles is out with a broken arm, and I have two papers to write for my Fordham classes.
When I saw the misspelling on the cover of the last issue of the paper my stomach started to hurt and didn’t stop for the rest of the day. Sure, we were under the gun because of the timing of Town Meeting and the push-back of the deadline—the need to get the paper to the printer that afternoon—still, it was sloppy work and there is no excuse for it.
March for our lives The students of Champlain Valley Union (CVU) High School intend to participate in the March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C., on March 24. This march is in protest of school shootings and government inaction. This march is the second action in a series of events CVU has chosen to participate in. Last Friday, the leaders of the Student Justice Committee led a very successful school walkout, but we aren’t done protesting.
I recently had a lovely vacation to Cat Island in the Bahamas. While ultimately my trip was wonderful, the getting there was not. Traveling now, as an adult, is not nearly as much fun or as carefree as when I was a kid. I remember back in the day when kids would actually dress up to go on the plane. Yes, most of the time I was going to Florida to see my grandparents, and I think it made them happy to see me in my flowered dress and Mary Janes. Oh, and let’s not forget the ubiquitous white tights, because, really, every girl needs to understand the laws of thermodynamics at six. What started out with me fresh as a daisy wound up with me looking much like a prom corsage the day after the dance. My grandparents always wiped the damp hair off my face and asked after my health.
Apparently, we feel it behooves us as a society to start at an early age to embrace a military bent to our culture. I didn’t think much of it when I was young and even when I was in the Navy. All I wanted to do was get it over with, and I joined my shipmates dumping garbage off the fantail of our carrier into the Gulf of Tonkin while getting teary eyed as Hanoi Hanna played Scott McKenzie singing, “For those who come to San Francisco…” That was us to be, man.
I am going to Florida soon, and so this afternoon I had a window in my schedule and, instead of heading back to Charlotte, decided to get a much-needed, walk-in pedicure. Luckily for me, the place wasn’t crowded (it often is), and they took me right away. In no time, my feet and ankles were happily soaking in a basin of hot water. Ahhhhh. For my color, I chose gold, something I have never done before and may never do again, but I think I quite like it. I’m not 100 percent sure, but I think it’s okay.