Br’er Cat and the Heat Tape
When I came to Vermont I only planned to stay a year. It was an adventure at a moment in life when I had the time and wherewithal for life-changing adventures. I was at that fondly remembered, footloose stage in one’s life when a thousand doors are open and you simply have to step through one. I’d never lived north of the Mason Dixon line so I chose door number three—Vermont. I ended up at Stratton as I needed work and Stratton needed labor.
I worked at the First Run Ski Shop and hung out with the other ski bums though I guess technically I was just a bum since I couldn’t ski, but for me the experience was about doing something unexpected—classic postgraduate “find yourself” behavior. One night I was sitting at the Red Fox and in walked a girl with red pigtails and striped socks. Apparently door number three held the jackpot. One year turned to three decades.
When Mimi and I first came to the conclusion that we were going to spend our lives together, we bought a tiny deer camp back on the backside of Stratton in the town of West Jamaica, which technically is not much of a town. Jamaica is a town. West Jamaica is a name on a map. There were a few camps around like ours, but our nearest full-time neighbor was a couple of miles down the road at the time and I figured if she could stand living with me as the only other human for miles, this just might work. If anything she was more suited to this lifestyle than me, as prior to moving here she rowed back and forth to work from an island off the coast of Maine.
We lived there blissfully at first with a Newfoundland that doubled as a quilt during the winter. The cabin’s only source of heat was a woodstove and was never designed to be occupied year round, but we couldn’t afford better at the time. Anyway, it was home and with the woodstove glowing, there was no better spot in the world—just the two of us and a wilderness blanketed with snow outside. At night we would stoke the stove, crawl into bed under four or five quilts, depending on whether you count the dog, and sleep like children. No real responsibility, and the quiet only a white wilderness can provide.
