“We stood, truck to truck, mine blue, his red, the conversation stuck somewhere between past and present, as he leaned on his and I on mine, scuffling gravel with workman’s boots, in the Bristol Beverage Center parking lot, to make up for lost time. “I got married again”, he said, perhaps worried that I’d be jealous of his happiness, but instead, I felt relieved. Funny I didn’t recognize him at first, when he’d called out my name at the check out, but I felt qualified to say he hadn’t aged in 30 years, or basically, looked the same. Time is funny that way. You pick up where you left off, for better, or for worse.You sort of know what you left behind, yet coming back to it, you realize how much you didn’t see. Like Vermont. You say you know “all the roads”. No, you don’t. Anyway, what counts for a road? Is it the gravel two-track working four wheelers grind and pit out of necessity, or someone’s black-top, cruising up from CT for the weekend? If your aim is to expand your understanding of how little you are, amidst portals of infinite dimension, Vermont should be on your preferred, mystical destinations list. Looking for my western boundary of my property, and finding only the traces of an old goat yard, I had to stop short, one foot mired in muck and marsh marigolds, the other seeking clumps of drier moss and tree roots. My eyes drawn to a yellow electric fence stabilizer pinned to inadequate, twisted pine, I tried to imagine the family who tried to pen their animals into such an enclosure. Odd, random fence posts, representing years of struggle to contain rambunctious animals, probably only partially successful, or could it be a make-shift ski trail? Walking further, and eventually slogging out of the saturated, lower pasture, we reached another trail of some seniority, established, forking thru spacious sugarbush, obviously cared for by invisible elves, my neighbors I think, marked by hand painted signs, and curling up to a house, bland, almost suburban, unimaginably remote. Why would you dream such a dream, drag your building materials a mile up into the wilderness to an off grid, unstable platform of forest soil, to build on a north facing slope, fashioning a chimney out of local fieldstone running both cook stove and fireplace, with pipes and pumps running overland from a frigid, sunless mountain stream for water, a whimsical porch swing, even, hung from the joists of your makeshift bridge, a middle finger, I guess, to the white water below. Putting your retirement pension and every last dime on the line, to brave all four elements in all four seasons: your little “get-a-way” four bedroom camp abutting the National Forest, and then ... you die?!! There was such a dentist, who did so. Granted, I don’t know all the details. But if I didn’t already have an enormous amount of respect for my dentist, this jacked HIS cred immensely, by association. What is it about dentists? So amazingly tolerant of their patients who hate them intrinsically, yet continuing on regardless, appearing facile, competent, fully equipped with sociable chit chat and broad, charming smiles. How I wish my phantom dentist had been able to time out his dotage as my mad-max neighbor. There are plenty of other neighbors, eccentric and equally propelled by both unattainable and attainable goals. But this one dude ... god rest your soul, dear dentist.”
