Seasons & Recent Travel

Greetings!

The nights and days have grown very cold here, with the surroundings resembling November more than October. Darkness arrives earlier and I've begun to wonder about winter silence and the late afternoon darkness. I've found in the past few weeks for one of the first times I can remember that there is something so familiar about darkness. It's warm and comforting in ways that you would never think of it, yet in ways that sunshine cannot be.

Earlier this week I woke up before the sun (undoubtedly for one of the first time in months...) and remembered many mornings spent that way. I thought of school buses and early morning travel. As the sun sets earlier, it brings memories that the distraction of longer sunlight doesn't bring. It reminds me of community, of conversation and quilts and homework near lamps on fall and winter nights, of couches and sleeping and seeing the world in a different way, through darkness behind branches and above fallen leaves. Of course the darkness reminds me of spending last fall and winter at a latitude farther north than I am now. I've thought briefly of the constant darkness there, and how as dramatic as it was, I don't remember minding it then, and I miss it now. Winter darkness is different than summer darkness. It's quieter, more common and earlier, stiller, less alive, resting, a pause of movement.

Recently I worked for my internship about an hour and a half north of here, on the Canadian border. I commuted with a co-worker and was pleased I was able to take several photos along the drive. :)

A week later, I went on a train journey to New York City. The trip was smooth, roughly nine hours each way and sprinkled with bright colors and small towns.

Northern Vermont

I think it was near this point that although we were still in Vermont, my phone carrier considered my phone to be in Canada. 

A sunset recently in Colchester, Vermont.

Northern Vermont from the train :)

Western Massachusetts

Manhattan from afar.

I love the two extremes in scenery, it happens so gradually over hours of travel, yet seeing the city suddenly makes the transition feel so sudden, all mountains and most foliage had disappeared by this point.

On the train journey back north, the Connecticut river, somewhere near the border between Connecticut and Massachusetts. 

Western Massachusetts

Western Massachusetts, the sun set shortly afterwards, leaving the remaining journey through Vermont to be quite dark.

Happiness

Soon, I know I will miss these days. I had forgotten about the busy-ness and pace of college life, and many days I feel as if I cannot breathe. And yet, I cannot complain at all. Each day I find happiness. Most days I'm overwhelmed with tests and essays, presentations and memorization, but I think I've found a peaceful state. When skyping with a friend in the U.K. last night, he asked when my work would be complete. The answer is sometime in mid-December, and as far-off as that feels most days, when I'm wading through research and memorization, writing drafts and science labs while trying to recall if my gas tank is full or if I made a lunch for myself, I don't want December to come. This comfortable spot of my final year of college is tough to say farewell to. I know these are the days I will long for someday soon, or far off. Each day I'm learning. And striving to find peace and grow to be better than the day before. I think of the future often, but the present more.

I love this season. October is beautiful. The weather has been warm and the foliage is bright. I attended a poetry reading tonight at a large and beautiful meetinghouse/church at the University of Vermont of former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins. I drove myself and a group of girls from my poetry course. We sat in the back row of the balcony and struggled to hear most of his poems, but there were a few memorable lines:

The 1790s will never come again. Childhood was big.
People would take walks to the very tops of hills
and write down what they saw in their journals without
speaking.
Our collars were high and our hats were extremely soft.
We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs.
It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead.

As usual, I was thinking about the moments of the past,
letting my memory rush over them like water
rushing over the stones on the bottom of the stream.
I was even thinking a little about the future, that place
where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine,
a dance whose name we can only guess.

Saint Michael's College.

My housemate Kirsten, speaking for a better society.

My Mom and I in Boston a few weeks ago.

Boston.

My volunteer program co-coordinator, Meaghan after an evening of allowing children to paint her arms.

My internship workplace, Berlin, Vermont.

Stowe, Vermont.