“I was very close to someone in my dreams. I could feel it, when I awoke. Then, not wanting to, but shaking it off, I oriented my thoughts towards a workday over the mountain, and all the things I would have to put in place before I left home. Gauging my departure based on a scheduled stop at Sandy’s for breakfast, and, also on the way, I’d swing in to Central Supplies to see about mulch. My client had already texted to tell me she wouldn’t blame me if I didn’t show up, due to the heat. It was a kind gesture, for sure. I’ve grown to love these folks. But I’ve also trained myself to keep working. It has something to do, I suppose, with having been a single mom for a decade, or shipwrecked in relationships where I did all the heavy lifting, regarding family matters. You wouldn’t know it, looking at me now. I’m all about creative productivity. Yet, behind the scenes for so many years, I launched my beloved progeny in increments, weaving their care with my own pursuits, only if and when that could comfortably co-exist with raising children. It’s why I am dogged. Navigationally, a bit of a bird dog. I always aim and just go. Obstacles, be damned, until they bring me down. At which point, I dust myself off and get back on track. No more sobbing in the fetal position, for me. That’s long gone. I’ll work until the tornado hits, which it did yesterday, although I only saw one downed tree, blocking Button Bay Road. So I went to the next road, which was Jersey Street. Just like a sight seer, gawking at the rows and rows of wet GMO corn. Way past knee high, by the fourth of July. A good crop, by the looks of it, but scary because the corn I remember from childhood no longer exists. I drove taking turns that might work, to bring me some understanding, of territory new for me. The steamy, rolling farmland, hot with thistle and wild parsnip, cut by pot-holed dirt tracks, that amble down to Dead Creek. Washed out of work by the thrashing rain of a summer storm blowing in off the lake, I guess I was seeking the solitude of my own lost parts, or consolation. A truck, my tools, and a deeply, encumbered sky pressing in on itself, using massive, thunderhead clouds. How these four wheels do roll for my soul. Passing Goodrich Corners, & farms drenched in the heady saturation of mid-summer vegetation. Past the barns with tethered veal calfs, so innocently gathered for one purpose, sun beating onto white plastic, and straw, or a bit of dirt. The rank smell of manure piles wider than a barn, sporting poly & old tires, as pickups speed by, kicking up dust. And there, the swinging, familiar, VT-fashioned metal sign, quietly addressing access to some body of natural import. I feel the pull, as the honeysuckle crowds the fence line, as I ride slower, judging by the bumps, and slower still, sort of reduced to molasses ... and stop once, to photograph weeds. Kind of like today, when we were around the back of the truck, too hot, too early, unloading material, and she said “what’s the difference between a “Dead End” and a “No Outlet”, I said, I dunno exactly, but I maybe can feel my way into it. We kept weeding, admiring the blooms of coneflower, a drift “Susans” the black eyed kind, mixed up with phlox and obedient plant and yarrow, pretty color popping & I decided to go pick off the stone pile, and make some more steps. I said “I think ‘No Outlet’ is where you thought you might have gotten through, like the road used to go through, but now ... it’s not what you expected, it’s no longer passable for some reason”. She said “Why would anyone choose ‘Dead end’, I mean, really, why?” I couldn’t do much better than what I’d said, I guess. We both seemed to prefer “No Outlet”. At least in this case, there had been a way. There was still the ghost of what didn’t dead end, what might have not wanted to end, & what never had supposed to have ended.”
