Walking the Foothills of the Atlas Mountains

     

        “Bonjour, Madame” a young man greeted me as we came out of our room at the Tafti Atlas hotel.  It was 9 a.m. on our first morning here. This must be our Berber guide, I thought.  I have to admit that reading our Inntravel notes prior to arriving in Morocco I had pictured a Berber guide as being an older man wearing a turban and a djellaba or long robe and maybe thick sandals carrying a walking stick.  He’d probably have a beard, graying hair, and tired looking eyes.  (I read too many novels.)

            Standing before us was a man in his early 30’s, with no beard, short hair, dressed in khaki pants, a bright blue t-shirt, baseball hat, and dusty running shoes carrying a backpack.  He could have been from anywhere.

            “Bonjour,” I answered automatically as I shook hands.  “Are you our guide?” I asked.  “Do you speak English?”

            “Non, Madame,” came the answer while I suddenly panicked and turned to Art. 

            “Didn’t the Inntravel notes say that we would have an English speaking guide?” I was sure they had.  “He says he doesn’t speak, English,” I whispered trying not to panic.

            “Of course, I speak English,” the man spoke up suddenly.  “I was just teasing you.  My name is Azou Abdou and I am your guide,” he grinned in perfect English.  I breathed a sigh of relief trying to imagine spending three days hiking while struggling to revive my rusty college French.  Azou, who obviously had a sense of humor, turned out to be at least quadrilingual speaking English, French, Berber and Moroccan Arabic…and probably a little German and Spanish as well.  University educated, Azou told us he had wanted to be a school administrator but there are few jobs in Morocco for young people who are not born to privileged families with money and connections.  So, he turned to working as a guide for a tourist company, which is seasonal work and dependent on tourists coming to Morocco.  He had tried to get a visa to immigrate to the US but had been turned down five times and had given up. His prospects seemed discouraging and simply shrugged and said “that is how it is here”.

           We would learn more about Azou in the next few days as he lead us through Berber villages, on donkey trails, ancient paths, and sometimes simply across fields he was familiar with. We could go at our own pace and stop whenever we wanted to.  We could have never found our own way much less asked our way because we saw few people on our daily walks and most only spoke a specific dialect of Berber language. In larger towns and cities most Moroccans are bilingual if not trilingual with French, Arabic, and Berber but not in small remote villages where we were.

            Our hike began climbing up and down a strange landscape of heavily eroded undulating red soil that is dotted with juniper trees, mastic and oleander.  Parts of this dry arid landscape reminded me of photos taken of astronauts walking on the moon.  With no one around and only an occasional villager passing us on a donkey or on foot we might as well have been on the moon!  We dropped down to cross a river and followed an ancient mule trail up through walnut, pomegranate and plum trees to the village of Anraz.

            Azou suggested we take a break and offered us the option of having mint tea in a Berber house.  We agreed and followed him through the village climbing uphill until we arrived at a simple house on the outskirts. As in all the Berber villages only the very young and old remain – while teenagers and young adults leave to look for work in the cities.  Those that stay behind, work in the fields farming without machinery, using hand plows as has been done for centuries. We had noticed how quiet the village was and how few people we saw except for some young children playing by themselves and occasionally women down by the river washing clothes.

         Azou went to find the lady of the house and then came back to show us in. We walked through an entrance gate and into an open courtyard off of which we could see a few small open rooms with no visible furniture. I wondered if people slept on mats on the floor and shivered because it gets cold in the desert at night. Azou indicated we should take off our shoes and then led us into a majilis or sitting room where we rested on a long bench with colorful pillows to wait for our mint tea.  I had learned from living in the Middle East that a majilis is the room in the house reserved for guests and special occasions and is therefore more decorated than any other room in the house.  This was a very poor house but the room was brightly painted with deep blue and yellow and reds making it welcoming.  There was no one around at all.

            An old lady brought in a tray with a basic metal teapot and small tea glasses. The favored drink in Morocco is mint tea made by steeping strong mint leaves in boiling water and adding sugar to taste.  She served us, as is the custom, by holding the teapot up high and letting the mint tea cascade into the glass.  Then she disappeared.   Having drunk all the tea, we put our shoes back on, gave the Azou some money to give to our hostess and continued on our hike refreshed.  As we were leaving, a little girl arrived home and I guessed she had been in school for a few hours.  Perhaps she was the granddaughter.  She smiled at us shyly but would not have her photo taken.  No one in Morocco will and so we had to satisfy our photographic urges with pictures taken of people’s backs or with a zoom lens when we were a distance away.

            We passed by bamboo, carob and olives trees, through another Berber village and back down to the riverbed where a few hours later, Azou announced we would have lunch.  Lunch?  I looked around. There was no one around, and nothing except a log to sit on under a tree in the cool shade. We had not been given packed lunches at the hotel but Azou opened his backpack and began setting out three plates and silverware.  He then pulled out fresh tomatoes, carrots, cooked cold potatoes, green peppers, onion, hard boiled egg, canned sardines and fresh crusty whole wheat bread.  I watched fascinated as he expertly chopped up each ingredient arranging them to make an attractive salad plate, which we ate ravenously.   Apples were our dessert.

            “Where did all this come from?” I asked in amazement.

            “The market in Ouirgane, early this morning before I came to your hotel,” he answered matter-of-factly.  The menu stayed the same each day.  I knew he didn’t have a car and asked how he got around from place to place.  He simply answered “By taxi.”  He seemed to know the local taxi drivers in the area who all drove twenty- year-old white dusty Mercedes Benz cars on red dirt roads.

             Each morning Azou came to the Tafti Atlas Hotel, where we stayed for four nights, to meet us. We would set off on foot in a different direction for the day’s walk.  He would consult with us as to what we were “up” for that day and was more than willing to adapt each hike according to how energetic we felt and how much we wanted to climb.

            The second day’s hike took us high up on the Tarabaza Plateau with spectacular views of nearby hills and valleys and by afternoon we could clearly see the newly snowcapped High Atlas Mountains in the distance. (November is when it can begin to snow in the mountains and is supposed to be the start of the rainy season although we saw nothing but blue skies our entire time in Morocco.) It was Saturday, which meant that many of the villagers were traveling by donkey to the  market in Ouirgane to pick up supplies for the week so there was more traffic on the paths we walked than we had seen.  Art tried out “ a Salaam Aleikum” (Peace be With You) in his best Arabic from our years in Dubai and would greet villagers as we passed them on the road.  They looked up in recognition of the phrase and responded.

          Azou again expertly prepared our lunch but we ate it in the majilis of another Berber house where we were also served mint tea.  I defied tradition by asking for my tea with less sugar.  I quite liked the bitter taste of it rather than the cloyingly sweet drink that is more popular with Moroccans. It is surprisingly refreshing when you are hot and sweaty from hiking in the warm sun.

            Our third day with Azou began with an hour-long taxi ride along the Oued N’Fis reservoir river valley, which is spectacularly scenic as it snakes in and out of high barren mountains that come straight down to the water almost like fjords.  Our hike on this day was through peach orchards by the N’Fis River, crossing tributaries that pass through almond groves.  Fields around these Berber settlements are rocky and we occasionally saw a shepherd tending a flock of goats and two women with their sheep in a field.  Our goal was to reach the Tin-Mal Mosque, which dates back to 1155 and is the only mosque in Morocco where Non-Muslims are welcome.  At one time it was part of a thriving town and an important spiritual and cultural center.   Today it is partially restored although there were very few people around when the gatekeeper let us in to take a look.  The inside is completely open but the beautiful arches are spectacular against the cloudless blue Moroccan sky.

            We followed Azou down to the river where he prepared our picnic again. I now understood why he was so expert at this. He had done this many times before.  Yet it felt special each day as if it was being done only for us.

    

            Our three-day hiking experience through Berber villages with Azou is not something most tourists do in Morocco.  What made this unusual was that the paths we walked and the fields we crossed are travelled daily by Berber villagers and have been for generations.  There are no tour buses and no foreign hiking groups in the area.  Azou had no prepared script as most guides do, but we had meandering conversations throughout our days about politics, education, family, customs, history, the United States, and anything we asked about.  He gave us his opinion on things as if we were friends.  We did not encounter a single foreigner anywhere on our walks through the foothills of the Atlas Mountains and so it felt totally special to us.  As if this time we had come close to experiencing life in a remote part of the world as it really is.

Happy Holidays

         “We should order our holiday cards soon.” This was my out loud reminder to myself that I repeated to Art a few days after Thanksgiving.  Sending cards to friends and family is what we have always done.  It is a habit that comes from a lifetime of moving.  So many friends and acquaintances left behind, new friends made, and many years later I stay connected through holiday cards.  It’s like a thread running through our lives. The weeks leading up to Christmas we eagerly check the mailbox daily to see who sent us cards in return.

            Having always sent a photo card we sorted through the most recent photos from our November trip to Morocco.  It gets harder each year to find a photo of the two of us we are satisfied with.  That thought made me hesitate about sending a photo card at all.   Should we keep doing this?  Do friends of our age still send photo cards?  Some do…but many have switched to the grandchildren. I am leaning towards that idea for next year.  After all, our grandson is far more fun to look at than we are!

Still, because time was short we only sorted through Morocco pictures of which there were few good ones of the two of us.  We chose one.

 “Where was that taken?” I asked Art.

And he replied, “Don’t you remember, that was taken in front of the mosque in one of the souks in Marrakech, the day we tried to go to the Ben Yousef Mederasa and the Marrakech Museum.” 

I did remember and it was not the best memory.

“Let’s use it anyway. ”  So, we chose the photo taken in front of a mosque and clicked on the Happy Holidays label to put across it.  Imagine sending a holiday card taken in front of a mosque, I thought.  How ironic but it goes along with our ecumenical philosophy. No one looking at this photo can really tell where it was taken.  Except us, who know the real story.

Art and I pride ourselves on being independent, savvy world travelers…and we are most of the time.  Having poured over the guidebooks and the “top sights to see in Marrakech” we set out on our second day in Morocco to visit the Majorelle Gardens.  These are magical gardens in the middle of the bustling city that were once owned by Yves St. Laurent and have now become one of the top tourist sights.

  

Art had read down to the fine print in the guidebook, which advised not to take a taxi from the gardens to somewhere else because they would inflate the price for tourists.  “Go to the main road and hail a cab,” The Rough Guide to Morocco advised and you will be charged accordingly.  The truth is, no taxi ride in Marrakech is expensive but they don’t have meters.  You must set a price before getting into a taxi, which usually is no more than $2 to $4 a ride. You tend forget all of this when you are caught up in the bargaining culture of a North African country which we were.  No one was going to take advantage of us even though we were visibly Western tourists!

After the Majorelle Gardens we would visit the Ben Youssef Mederasa, which is one of the most beautiful buildings in Marrakech dating back to the 14^th century that once was a Quranic school for boys.  Just a short distance away from that we could continue to the Marrakech Museum and see some antique arts and crafts.

Having agreed on a price, we got in a small shabby taxi that took us through the winding, traffic jammed streets of Marrakech.  It all looked like complete chaos and yet after we had been in Morocco awhile we commented on how we had never seen an accident…not even a  “fender bender” and concluded there must be some underlying order to it all.  Ten minutes into our ride we approached a souk and suddenly the taxi driver stopped indicating in French that cars could go no further.  He signaled to us to just go straight ahead and we would come to the Mederasa…no problem.

We have been in souks before in the Middle East but am not sure wandering around a souk which is literally like a maze is wise without a guide or specific directions.  The narrow alleys go every which way and are crowded with shoppers speaking in Berber, Arabic, and French with occasional European tourists wandering along.  It was not long before I felt completely lost looking for the Mederasa that was supposed to be a short way ahead.  It wasn’t.  Most people ignored us but suddenly a nice looking man came up to us and in fairly good English asked if he could help. 

“We’re fine,” I replied. 

“Are you going to the Mederasa Ben Yousef?”  the man inquired.

“Yes, and the Marrakech Museum,” we answered.

“

They are closed today,” he replied.  “It’s a holiday and a special day for people working in the tanneries.  There is a big festival going on…can I take you there?”

“Closed?  A holiday?”  We were dubious and yet he repeated what he had just said.

“Come with me and I will take you and show you the mosque and also you can come to the tannery festival.”  And he started to lead the way.  Art followed  talking with the man and inquiring again about the holiday.  I hung back more cautious, not sure about all of this.

We were once again in the maze of the souk following along through the narrow, dark covered lanes that twist and turn.  I was not having a good feeling and yet when I tried to pull Art back he kept whispering to me “It will be fine…don’t worry.”   A ten-minute walk and suddenly our pick up guide in perfect English pointed to the mosque, which we could stand in front of but couldn’t go in.  Mosques are not open to non-Muslims.  Before I could protest, the man was reaching for our camera and offering to take our picture in front of the entrance.  Which he did.

I was feeling angrier as the man was getting more pushy and suddenly I  stood my ground and said to Art,” I’m not following this man any further.  We need to find our way back.”

Of course, the man wanted payment and Art gave him some coins, which infuriated him because he expected more. We started walking fast.  How we found our way out of the souk, I’m not sure but we hailed a taxi having aborted our plan.  We went back to our Riad (hotel) to rethink what we would do next.  We asked the woman at the reception desk if it was a holiday that day that we did not know about.  She looked at us puzzled and said no.  We told her the story of our mishap and she made a quick phone call or two.

Turning to us she said, “it’s a regular day today…no holiday.  The Mederasa is open as is the Marrakech Museum.  I will arrange a car to come and pick you up tomorrow morning and take you there and wait for you.  No charge to you.”  And that is what she did.

I am still puzzling over how that photo in front of the souk ended up being one of the better ones of us.  How could I have imagined it would be on our Happy Holidays card for 2015?

          

             

            

“Austinese” … and Fun With Language

The sun shone on a picture perfect fall day in Washington D.C. last Sunday morning as Jessica and I walked with Austin down the sidewalk alongside the Mall.  Hayden and his Dad were way ahead of us deep in a father and son conversation. The Mall sidewalks are wide and the city blocks, that parallel the National Gallery of Art, the Natural History Museum and the American History Museum, are very long.  Austin, at nearly 20 months wants nothing to do with riding in his comfy stroller,  preferring to walk between us.  His little footsteps skip along, probably three to one of our strides, and he is content even if he is seeing the world at knee height.   Suddenly he cries out “bydible” which in “Austinese” translates to bicycle.  Sure enough, two cyclists pass us.  But then he adds “two bydibles” and Jessica and I look at each other in amazement.  Did he really just say two bicycles?  “He’s a genius,” we exclaim, and to Austin we cheer, “Bravo, Austin” in encouragement. 

            Austin’s latest phase is absorbing, parroting, and practicing new words he hears all around him.  This goes along with imitating anything he sees us doing such as walking, wanting to hang on to Jeter’s leash and walk him like his Dada does, and signaling with his hands in his own yes and no gestures. He loves “”riding the bydible” which means he rides in the seat behind Jessica on her bike wearing his large kids’ helmet.  He is just plain having fun learning to express in words and gestures, all he sees around him..  If I asked him “where is Jeter?” he would look around and not seeing the dog would simply put out both little arms, turn his palms up, and shrug his shoulders in the classic body language of “I don’t know”.  His Mama does that all the time and he has learned it well.  When he does something well his Mama and Dada instantly reward him with “Bravo, Austy!”.  And so on Sunday afternoon when we were in the back yard playing while Hayden washed the car, Austin looked up and simply said “Bravo, Dada!”  I suppose he heard one of us and was complimenting his Dad on this chore.

            Our long weekend with Austin began with a trip to the National Zoo, which we walked to from Mary Rojas house.  Not quite sure how he would react to the crowds, the big exhibits , and the distances, we needn’t have worried.  Austin was engaged instantly.  We went to watch the sea lions as they were swimming vigorously and entertaining a group of youngsters.  As they swam quickly by in a huge aquarium Austin ran up and down roaring out loud.  After all, he had heard us say lions. Lions do roar even if sea lions don’t.  It was very cute and he didn’t tire of trying to catch them through the glass…and make a big roaring sound.  There were no tears at the petting zoo and close ups of the Moo cows, the Baa sheep. the Cocka-Doodle -Doo rooster.   He took it all in, in the serious way he has of studying the world. He is cautious but not timid and yet he isn’t aggressive either.  Jess describes him as the “perfect mini Hayden” and in many ways he is.  His clear blue eyes and serious expression seems to be his way of taking in something new as if he’s studying it  deeply first.   We saw elephants at the zoo and Austin raised and lowered his arm as if it were an elephant’s trunk because that is what elephants do.  I’ve seen his Mama teach him that and he does it very seriously before he breaks out in a grin of delight.

            At home we gave him with a new board book we brought called “What Do You See?” and he went right to Art to have him read it.  That was the first of maybe 30 times he asked to have that book read over the weekend until he had the words for “turtle”, “tiger”, “parrot”, and even “ladybug” memorized.  “B’s” and “t’s” are easier letters to pronounce than “l’s” and others but it doesn’t stop him from trying. And he wanted Pa-pop to read it, which is his word for Grandpa…started by Fred Huber his other grandpa. “Kick it? “ became his way of announcing “let’s play ball” He has a very coordinated soccer kick whether he’s maneuvering a balloon or a  small soccer ball.  “Bye de ball” means he wants to shoot baskets and he can do it outdoors with his pint sized basketball hoop just as he has watched his Dada do.  He can swing a tennis racket with some confidence and has his own now.  Hayden has given him several tennis lessons and he loves swinging at the ball.  Of course, we all think he’s a natural at all these sports!  Sometimes Jess despairingly says “we are raising a “dumb” jock!”  I tell her, " I used to say the the same about Hayden and that didn’t happen."

            We kicked balls and ran around on Saturday morning at the Arboretum while Austin would stop every now and then to kneel down and smell a flower as he’s watched his Mama do.  He does it very gently, sniffs and then grins.  He loves being outdoors and luckily has a small back yard to run around in with his own plastic slide and balls of all shapes and sizes.  He is a big helper and while Hayden washed the car he handed Austin a sponge and showed him how to scrub away.  He loves to help fill and empty the dishwasher in his own way, or take the Swiffer and move it around the hardwood floors downstairs as he’s seen his parents do.

            “La Macarena” is his favorite dancing song and Jess will put on the CD and he goes to it “shaking it up” big time.  He loves music, clapping to his own beat, grinning from ear to ear with the joy of it all. When we all get up and move to the beat with him it’s even more fun.  Tickles bring giggles as does the game of “Peek a Boo” which he will play forever.  I just like hearing him laugh out loud in sheer delight.    Sometimes he breaks out in a conversational tone with words that makes no sense and his Mama will quickly retort “Oh, yeah…I didn’t know that…” or some such thing.

            There is nothing more joyful than Austin who wakes up in the morning with a smile eager to embrace his world.  He absorbs everything around him faster than you realize and parrots it all back.  He is a calm, happy, and contented child with two parents who simply have fun being around him as we did.  Of course, we kept exclaiming “he’s a genius” and to us he is.  Isn’t that what grandparents are supposed to think and to say?

            I carry Austin’s words and voice around in my head now that I’m home.  I see him looking up at me with love or grinning when something has delighted him. I remember his little legs running down the sidewalk and my holding my breath hoping he won’t trip and fall.  So much of being a child is the not knowing what could happen if you did trip and the security that comes from being embraced by loving parents as Austin is.  I am already looking forward to my next visit and I’ve only been home a few days!

               

Another Birthday...

             “Are you going to change the name of your blog?” Hayden said to me on the phone last week when I turned 70.  “Of course,” I assured him.  And so I am transitioning to “Views from My World”.  Forget about the decades!  Whose keeping track anyway? In a birthday card from my German friend Heidja she simply wrote, “Age is irrelevant!” Another of my birthday cards says “The Older I get the Older Old Is…”Another card says “Young at Heart at 70…”  I like them all.

            My birthday began with a phone call at 7:30 a.m. from Jenny in London who always calls on special occasions.  In her very English sing-song lilt I heard,  “Hello, Kris, Happy Birthday.” At 8 a.m. I was off to my first Core Fitness class. Why not begin this decade with a new kind of exercise regimen?  The day ended with a surprise elegant dinner planned by Art at the Inn on the Biltmore Estate with friends Ayla and Bruce.  Throughout the day in between came all the birthday cards, emails, flowers, gift packages, and phone calls. I was regaled with attention.

            For a birthday I had dreaded all year, it turned out to be one of the best because everyone I care about remembered me in some way. What I missed was Mother’s “Happy Birthday” and the recounting of the story of my birth. “It was VJ Day (Victory over Japan) in the Santiago, Chile maternity clinic where you were born,” she would start, “and all the nurses and doctors told me I must name you Victoria for Victory because the War was over.”  “But,” she went on, “I knew you would become a Vicky and I didn’t like that nickname…so we named you Kristina Ingrid instead.”  And then she would relate that day putting in all the details like the storyteller that she was.  She did that each year for my brothers and me and we took it for granted. This was my first birthday without her and it was hard.  I wanted to hear the story again.

            Instead I found one of Mother’s letters to me on my birthday a few years ago when she could barely type on the computer any longer.  She had birthday stories to share as always…

I remember you as a plump little baby crawling on the floor in our house in Santiago, Chile.  And then in the straw hat your Daddy brought you from a trip to when we lived in Lima.  Your 5^th birthday was in Washington D.C. in a house we rented a few months before getting on a ship for three weeks to travel to our new life in Buenos Aires.  By then your little brother Rich, was toddling.  Then the birthdays in that big city (Buenos Aires) were special.  One birthday we took your little girlfriends to an elegant tea shop, another to see a play for children.  Your 15th, or was it your 16^th birthday you had a very grown up dinner or was it a luncheon in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  How I loved you through all the years.  And here is another birthday, and I want you to know you have added so much to all my years.  Mother 

          

            Now that I’m over the threshold I am letting go of what it means to “be in your 70’s”.  For months I had been checking in with myself, kind of like feeling around in your mouth for a cavity or loose tooth and then having the sense of relief when you find out you are fine.  How am I, and do I feel any different?  A few sore muscles occasionally from hiking or biking but nothing to dwell on that won’t go away. Am I slowing down? Less productive?  No, but maybe the freedom I have at 70 allows me spend time on things that are meaningful. Do I look back to the past more than I used to?  Not really, unless prompted by a particular place like our recent return to Vermont.  Everywhere we went brought back past experiences, memories of people who are gone, and calculation of years gone by.  Was it really 45 years ago that I worked at Proctor High School?  Has it truly been 16 years since we were at Hayden’s UVM graduation?  Has it really been four years since we moved to Asheville? Where have the years gone?

             I have often been drawn to essays, memoirs, and poems written about growing older -how it feels, what it means, how to accept it as if there is a “how to” way of doing it. Entering my 70’s, I know that getting older is personal and everyone does it differently.  Mother was my role model of how to do it gracefully. I think of how she lived her last years and so much of her “way” has influenced me deeply especially now that she is gone..  She passionately disliked people who spoke only of health problems and focused on aches and pains.  She developed a strong positive outlook on life and her phrase to wipe away the unimportant stuff  became “No importa” and “No hay problema”.  ( It doesn’t matter…and there’s no problem.)  This came out of all the years she was the diplomat’s wife directing a house full of servants where she dealt with many “problemas”.  She always told family stories wanting to impart that history to us and the the grandchildren would know who they were and where they came from. Her grandchildren were more important than anything but she didn’t brag or talk of them to strangers.  She was very private. She was an intellectual and in her later years read and reread the classics while she could and took an interest in what was going on in the world every day. She did not dwell on “where have the years gone” but lived in the moment, never adding up the years that might be left.

            Now that I’m in my 70’s I’m inspired to live more meaningfully each day.  I love the freedom to pick and chose how to spend my days and not fill time to stay busy.  I have my Mother to thank for that.  Most of all, my recent birthday reminded me how blessed I am to have  friends I’ve known for decades who care about me, as well as nieces and nephews, cousins and brothers, a son, daughter in law and grandson whom I love dearly.

          I hear people say, “the seventies are the new sixties” which is just a different way of saying “it’s all irrelevant”, as my friend did.   It’s possible the 70’s could be my best decade ever.  Who’s to know?  But perhaps I can make it so.           


 

          

           

            

Going Back to Vermont...

            Crossing into Vermont from New York State several weeks ago, every sentence we uttered began with “do you remember when…?  Turning onto Route #7 towards Rutland we sailed past the big Hannaford grocery store that triggered “do you remember when that truck crashed into our car while we were shopping in Hannaford?”  Turning onto Route #4 and down Route #100, so familiar that I put the maps all away, I recalled, “Do you remember when we slid off the road right here?  We had to call a tow truck to pull us out and we didn’t get up to our house till past midnight.”  Driving down Route #73 to Maple Hill Road reminded me, “do you remember all the times we parked here on the roadside to ride our bikes out to Bingo Road?”  

            As we drove up Great Hawk Mountain on the familiar dirt roads, avoiding the potholes and the steeper sections that so quickly turn into a rough washboard, I wondered what had happened in the intervening years since we’d been gone.  It felt like they had simply evaporated.  Yes, we had sold our Gt. Hawk house and moved on July 29, 2011. We had left for Asheville and bought a townhouse in Biltmore Lake on Aug. 17^th, 2011. Yes, our Vermont neighbors had experienced Irene, the worst hurricane and flooding in 100 years just 3 weeks after we left.  But here we were again on a sunny summer afternoon driving up the mountain just as if we had never left. All was peaceful and calm as it had always been.

          On the Access Road I asked, “Do you remember the name of the people that lived in that house?”  Art replied, “yeah, he was on the Board but I can’t remember the name. It will come to me….that house is for sale now.”  I added, “Look at Peggy Schwartz’s old house, someone has fixed it up and is living there now…it’s nicely landscaped.” Or “look they redid the tennis courts and painted them blue.”  “I wonder who lives in the Breu’s house now since Connie died?” Except for a few memory lapses on our part, and the friends who have passed away recently, nothing seemed changed. I was reminded of all the times I’d come “home” to this place and had the same thoughts.  It’s all just as I left it.  And then I’d be reminded that I was the one who had changed…not the place.

            Habit might have lead us straight to Sparrow Hawk Road but this time we were to spend several weeks in a neighbor's house on Falcon Loop East, just one road below “our old road”.  If I were keeping track this would be the third house we’d stayed at on Gt. Hawk - the first being “Hawkwood” which Mother and Dad built in 1971 and sold in 1980, and “Hawkcrest” which we bought in 1990 and lived in ,off and on, for more than 20 years.   Getting out of the car the first thing to hit me when I would come home to Gt. Hawk was the silence. This time was no different.  There is a kind of total quiet on Gt. Hawk which I have never experienced anywhere else.  It is simply the sounds of Nature and nothing else - the leaves rustling in the trees, the birds twittering, squirrels rustling in the underbrush, and cicadas and crickets announcing their arrival especially in August.  There is no hum of car traffic in the background, no airplanes flying overhead, no cars driving by except a few times a day.  Occasionally there will be the sound of a weed wacker or a power saw in the distance.  The silence is what envelops me completely and what I miss the most.

            It was an unexpected gift of the loan of a neighbor’s house, that led us to visit Great Hawk this August.  The timing was right and all fell into place. We moved into the guest room and not the Master bedroom that had been offered us, because it was identical to the small bedroom at our house where we had slept for 20 years.  Waking up in the morning, still with eyes closed, I had the oddest sensation of never having left for my mind could roam around this bedroom picturing every detail just like it was my own.  Within an hour or two of arriving we left the unpacking for a walk around the mountain before dark wondering who might be here that would remember us.   Judy, out walking her Siberian husky, remembered us. We drove to town to buy groceries and Zeus in Mac’s grocery came right over “Kristina & Art!”.  I walked into the Rochester Library and Jeanette, the librarian looked up, and said hello without missing a beat.  Stopping at Sandy’s Bakery to pick up a loaf of bread, Sandy looked up from a meeting she was having with a few workers and smiled to say “Hi, Kristina,” as if I walked in there every day.

            The joy of waking up each day to the quiet and going to bed at night with windows open to the masses of stars in the blackness of the sky was enough.  But all the in between hours of visiting our favorite haunts was a delight.  We sat at a table on the terrace at Simon Pearce restaurant with a view of the rushing waters at Quechee Gorge, remembering all the “special occasions” we had celebrated here. Making the big decision to buy a house in Vermont, bringing all the friends and family who visited us over many years to this favorite place for lunches. All the birthdays, new job opportunities, graduation, retirement and all good things that came our way were marked right here. We were doing just that a few Sundays ago celebrating our return after four years away. 

            Heading west over the mountain from Gt. Hawk, we revisited Brandon and savored lunch at Café Provence, still serving gourmet food in rural Vermont cooked to perfection by the Montreal chef who opened the restaurant when we still lived there.  Who could argue that Vermont is not a “foodie” state?  We found Middlebury in its summer vacation mode, too early to see students walking around and mostly catering to tourists passing through. We could not miss the scenic drive from Rochester to Middlebury past the famous Bread Loaf Summer School and the Robert Frost trail we enjoyed so many years.  

           One of our best days was the long drive South on Route #7, along the Western Vermont border to Bennington and into Williamstown, Mass to the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Having read in the Wall Street Journal that the Clark was newly renovated in the last few years we were eager to go.  The Japanese architect Tadao Ando designed the minimalist building attached to the traditional white marble museum that is a dramatic, all glass Visitor Center, Café, and special exhibition area.  There is a large white marble reflecting pool outdoors contrasted against the Berkshires Mountains in the background.   The special Van Gogh Exhibit of paintings created towards the end of his life was worth the two and a half hour drive to get there.

            A day in Burlington was another of those “do you remember” days as we recalled the years we went back and forth when Hayden was at UVM.  I could picture driving Hayden as a freshman to Burlington, unloading the packed car at his dorm and his turning to say a quick good bye leaving me an “empty nester”.  Memories of going to UVM tennis matches flooded back.  Passing the Flynn Theater downtown I could see myself standing in the park across the street on a warm May afternoon with Hayden in cap and gown, Mother and Dad with us, and me sobbing with the emotion, my only son having graduated from college! It seemed one of the biggest milestones of my life.  What had come over me that day?

 Walking up and down Church Street on a sunny summer day is just as festive as it always was and we, who had been there so often, were looking for all the familiar landmarks. The Ben and Jerrys is still on the corner, my favorite kitchen shop, and the Frog Hollow Arts & Crafts Gallery are there. Why was I not aware that the church at the top of Church Street is actually a big New England Unitarian Universalist Church.  I looked at it with new respect. The street musicians were lively the day we went and outdoor restaurants were packed with tourists and the Burlington lunch crowd. The lake was brilliant and sparkly in the sun as we walked down to take a closer look stopping on the way to get ourselves a Maple Creamee, a specialty down by the waterfront.  The wind was blowing in great gusts and many of the boats were tied up as if it was too rough a day to be on the water.

            The afternoon we drove to Proctor to visit the Vermont Marble Company Museum was a day of remembering but the memories went back before Art.  I needed Mother to be there with me to fill in the blanks the summer I spent in Vermont with her.  I fell in love with Vermont and declared I would stay to live there when Mother reminded me I’d need a job.   So I drove into Rutland to the Supervisory Union without an appointment, walked in to ask if there were any librarian openings.  Yes, they had one in Proctor.  I filled out forms, produced my MLS and I had a job for fall at the all-marble Proctor Jr. Sr. High school.  I stood in front of that school the other day and calculated it had been 45 years since that late August day I’d started working there as the librarian.  Did I remember that far back? Some of it but Mom would have verified it all for me.

            Our last day in Rochester, we visited the town cemetery, something we had never done.  But several of our beloved neighbors and “old timers” we had known for so long have passed away and we wanted to find their graves and pause to remember them.  And we did.  It was then that I realized what a long connection I have with Vermont and with the village of Rochester – longer than anywhere I have ever lived in my life.  And it continues… What has changed is me because despite the warm welcome and the sense of being “home” I do not want to live there full time any more.  I watched my neighbors spend part of August stacking wood in preparation for the winter to come, and heard conversations about the coldest winter on record they had just lived though, and remembered the long drives to the grocery store.  No thank you…my pioneer days are over.  And yet I came home with the realization that Vermont is my true spiritual home and the place where memories of more than half my life rest.  It only takes a visit to bring them to life…but they are always there for me and I shall go back to find them again.