Ellie's House

Late Summer Patchwork

2011-08-25T07:55:00.000-07:00

This is a sort of patchwork blog entry of tidbits stitched together with late summer thread.

I’ve wanted to tweet about how much I admire Paris Hilton, but I don’t want anyone to get the impression that I’m shallow and starry eyed. Actually, I don’t for a minute believe that Paris is vacuous. In fact, she’s a brilliant marketer. How many of us grew up with Barbie dolls? I sold my gown-bedecked Barbie and tuxedoed Ken for good money a few years ago. Paris appeared on Saturday Night Live as Barbie—and she was hilarious at faking dumbness. Nobody is that dumb.

I follow her on twitter—and she posts a lot. Every night (well, the sun is actually peeping over the horizon) she sends a kiss to her tweet followers. She travels around the world marketing her products—which include herself—and hits nightspots in exotic places and posts photos on Twitpic. I long to be there next to her, tossing my arms on the dance floor to the thump of the disco bass and the flashes of the strobe.

There’s no denying it—Paris markets hotness. Just look at the August 1 New Yorker, page 45, the cartoon triptych called “Hotness.” First section: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one marked ‘hot.’” Second section: “I think that I shall never see A poem as hot as a tree.” Third section: “The fog comes on little cat feet. That’s so hot.”

If that’s not Paris, I don’t know what is. Dumb? I think not. A marketing product? Sure. Hot? You bet.

I keep thinking that if I continue to read Paris’s tweets, maybe I’ll figure out how to market my books. Or at least how to acquire a modicum of hotness.

But I wanted to tell you about some of Fern Forest Treehouse guests. Too many since the last entry to dig into in depth, but here are some highlights.

For three nights there was an Egyptian and his Japanese artist wife who live in Brooklyn. He came into the main house at six a.m. for coffee and conversation and one morning made us Egyptian eggs, which he deep fried in olive oil. They were quite yum sprinkled with kosher salt. She appeared at elevenish and ate some melon. One night the five o’clock cocktail hour lasted until ten-thirty. The Egyptian is a bit of a philosopher, and the conversation left my head spinning—or maybe that was H’s rum punch.

There was the flutist and his wife from Boston. I thought maybe he was a flautist and when I looked it up, I found that flaut is Italian for flute. People who play the flute generally like the Italian version of the word, but flutist is the English version. Whatever he’s called, our guest plays flute professionally and serenaded Fern Forest birds sweetly from the deck of the treehouse.

“Your birds sing in the key of D minor,” he said. Well, I’d always wondered. These lovebirds were celebrating their 29^th wedding anniversary, having met when she heard him play in a band. His flute generates love.

Another couple came to Fern Forest in the spirit of adventure. H and I really do have to install a zipline from the treehouse to the tractor shed for intrepid souls. But, then, we’d have to increase our homeowners insurance. Margie, the wife, has trekked through Iceland, jumped out of airplanes, ridden in a hot air balloon and piloted a small plane. Sleeping forty feet up in a maple tree was nothing. Frank keeps his feet on the ground—and keeps Margie grounded.

Just yesterday we said goodbye to a psychotherapist and his school principal wife. Actually, Barbara is retired from being a school administrator and now does educational consulting with principals. Lee advises people how to be self-actualized. For three days I kept worrying that I’m not self-actualized and he’d be able to see right through my thin veil of pretense at normalcy. If he did, he was nice about it and didn’t offer to give me a session. I don’t know about H.

Now we’re deciding about whether or not to head to Maine for a few days. Hurricane Irene is on her way and looks to have both Vermont and Maine in her sights. H dropped $200 on a pair of Red Sox tickets that will surely be rained out on Sunday. So we’re hanging tough to see what the next few hours bring. Stay tuned. And thanks for reading.

"No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn" (~Beastie Boys)

2011-07-27T04:22:00.000-07:00

‘Tis summer and work in the gardens has taken me away from the computer. Fern Forest Treehouse has not taken a break, however. New Yorkers love to get out of the city during the sweltering season, and Vermont is a favorite destination.

In the past week we've had back-to-back Brooklynites. Josh is from L.A. and Laura’s from Florida, but they drove up from New York in a rental car with Texas license plates. Josh works on the television show “Law and Order,” and Laura fundraises for the Tribecca Film Festival. She’s also a musician and has played clarinet in orchestras. They’re quiet folks. And they like to sleep.

Both work until 7:00 or 8:00 at night, then they go to the gym and finally have dinner at 10:00 or 11:00. They’re lucky to get to bed by 1:00 a.m. and use weekends to catch up on sleep. When we got them the latest reservation at the Bobcat, they were a little appalled at having to eat as early as 8:30 p.m. H and I eat at 6:00, dishes washed by 6:45, and by 8:00, he’s nodding in front of the Red Sox game and I’m tapping away on the computer. By 9:00 p.m., we’re done in.

But, then, one acclimates to one’s surroundings. After a night in the treehouse, Laura wandered into the kitchen by herself. Josh was exhausted and wanted more shut-eye. We sat her at the table and brought her breakfast—H’s cheese omelet, freshly made cranberry scones, yogurt, homemade granola and fresh blueberries, and half a grapefruit.

“Would you like me to sit with you?” I asked. There’s a lovely shyness about Laura. She’s like a seed, quietly self-contained with beautiful blossoms waiting inside.

“I have my book.” She patted her novel, which looked like beach reading. I was not offended. Making conversation with strangers is a practiced art, and neither of us cared to practice that morning.

While she ate, I packed a basket for her to take out to Josh with a thermos of hot coffee and a mason jar of orange juice, scones and omelet wrapped in foil, the grapefruit in Tupperware. The basket was given to me for some occasion I forget and had a frilly bow on it. I left the bow on. Josh needed some frivolity.

H and I had to run errands, and when we came back a couple hours later, the couple had brought in the basket and washed the dishes. The kitchen was slick as a starched sheet.

They went to Burlington for the day and came back late, and we didn’t see them until the next morning. Josh managed to pry himself from the loft bed and came in for breakfast. I love no-fuss guests, and these two asked little of our time and left the forest with hardly a leaf overturned. Sweet.

Coming up next: Brooklyn Redoux.

Superhero Tiny House Builders

2011-06-28T06:53:00.000-07:00

George Carlin said our houses are nothing more than places to keep stuff while we go out and get more stuff. Why do we need so much stuff and so much space to hold it? I read about a guy who pledged to own only 100 items, including a toothbrush and a pencil. I’d like to try that, getting rid of one thing each time I bring a new thing into the house (other than Ben & Jerry’s, of course—but, then, that’s not hard to get rid of).

I started thinking about space and possessions when Deek Diedricksen came to stay at Fern Forest with his wife Liz, four-year-old son Jonas (Deek calls him “Jones”), two-year-old daughter Angie (she calls Deek “Magic Dad”), and big black dog Orzo. I worried that a 90-square-foot treehouse would be a little snug for the family, especially since Deek is well over six-feet tall. But no. Deek loves small spaces. In fact, he builds them. Check out his website www.relaxshacks.com. You'll also see Deek's take on his weekend in the treehouse.

Deek has been written up in the New York Times, ReadyMade and Make magazines, and he’s been on NPR and Boston’s Chronicle TV show. The New Yorker has courted him, as has (hush-hush) Microsoft. He even has his own TV show, Tiny Yellow House.

He must be onto something.

Is it the teeny houses he builds out of reclaimed materials—windows made from wine bottles and wood from, well, anywhere and everywhere? Some of the houses are big enough for a small party. Others fit just a body, albeit as big as Deek’s. Some are solar heated. All are utterly charming and quite romantic.

I keep asking the question, why do we like small spaces? Rabbits huddle in cozy warrens. Bears like their winter dens. At parties, everyone crams into the kitchen. Our own house is about 1200 square feet, which feels capacious to us. We have a city condo in Burlington that’s 370 very cute square feet that enlarges another 60 SF in the three seasons we use the covered porch (thanks to Plexiglas over the screens). The pull-down Murphy bed makes the back room feel much larger than it is.

Small spaces suggest a specific, deliberate set of meanings. They’re designed to be used instead of just inhabited. Blogger Joey Roth says, “The smallness I love so much in a space might be the small number of different ways it could be interpreted due to the richness and completeness of the world it creates.” We like built-ins and bookshelves and color on the walls and lots of windows to let in light and breezes. At the condo we have exposed brick and refinished old wood floors. And we keep things tidy.

That’s the trick. A sink full of dirty dishes makes a small space feel crowded. I keep surfaces free of clutter. We recycle and compost and burn paper products in the wood stove, even in the summer—in the cool hour of early morning. We live outside a lot, both in Burlington (which has a gorgeous waterfront) and in Fern Forest (where I can happily pull weeds for hours and then take a soak in the spa).

Buckminster Fuller said, “Our beds are empty two-thirds of the time. Our living rooms are empty seven-eighths of the time. Our office buildings are empty one-half of the time.” And yet there they sit, gathering dust. And, worse, costing us money.

As the recession takes hold and people worry about money and jobs, it becomes more and more important to use what we have efficiently. And to use less of everything. Having a smaller space and fewer items of junk saves us dough, uses fewer resources, and burns less fuel, which helps the environment. According to some figures I stumbled upon, in 1973 the average house was 1525 square feet and had 3 people per household; in 2006 the average square footage expanded to 2248 with only 2.6 people per household. Appliances have gotten more efficient, but the cost of heating and cooling a larger home offsets any green savings.

But there’s hope. Liz told me that one day she caught Jonas stuffing wads of crumpled paper under the couch.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m insulating,” he said.

When he grows up, Jonas would like to be a superhero. Or maybe a builder like his dad. His favorite TV show is This Old House. He fashions a compressor out of the vacuum cleaner and builds lovely and solid structures from blocks. Structures where a family of four can sleep comfortably and cozily. With even room for a big black dog named Orzo.

Moonshine redoux

2011-06-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

This morning I went to a homebrewing supply store to purchase some materials to make moonshine, purely for book research, of course. The shop was not large and was packed floor to ceiling with all sorts of accouterments for making brews of one kind or another. The smell inside was warm and earthy, caramel sweet, like a deep, mossy forest. As soon as I walked in, I forgot everything. Why hadn't I brought a recipe? Why hadn't I written down the things I needed, the mash fermenter, the boiler, the worm pipe, the slobber bucket (whatever that is), the hydrometer (what does that do?)?

The guy behind the counter looked friendly enough. There were two customers ahead of us, one of which was in a concentrated monologue with the clerk about putting his boat in the water and sailing around the world. Was he planning to brew beer on the boat? Another guy came in, bought a bottle of something.

"Credit or debit?" the clerk asked.

"Whatever's easier for you," the guy said.

"Want a bag?"

"Don't need one."

Purchase finished. Beer brewers are basic folk.

My turn.

"I want to make some moonshine," I said. "What do I need?"

The clerk took a step back so that he was against the wall behind the counter and crossed his arms. "I have no idea."

"That's what everyone says." He nodded.

"I know it's illegal," I said.

"Yes, it is."

"I can buy a still on eBay," I said.

"Then that's what you should do."

I explained that I was doing research and needed to make just a little to be sure I understand how it's done.

"We sell equipment here," he said. "What you do with it is your business." He said some guys come in with no idea how to make hooch and expect him to demonstrate. "They know nothing. They haven't done any research." He looked around, checked the door.

"For all I know," he said, "you could be from the ATF."

"I'm not from the ATF. I'm doing research, as I said."

"Right." His arms were still crossed. He was looking down his nose, protecting himself.

"Well, thanks," I said. "Maybe I'll be back for ingredients."

When we got back in the car, I told H, "This is going to be harder than I thought."

"It smelled good in there, though," H said.

"Yeah. Maybe I should make beer instead of moonshine."

Stills on eBay go for a couple hundred dollars. And it's complicated. Copper is the best material, so I've read, but the copper oxidizes and has to be cleaned each time it's used. And there are other dangers, like ergotism, methane poisoning, and several other kinds of poisons generated in the distillation that can make you blind or psychotic or kill you. Which makes me think my moonshine ancestors had to be pretty smart to get a still up and running and sell the stuff at pubs. I have a lot to learn.

I didn't post a picture of Tania and Damien yesterday. Tania is the Greek beauty who grew up in Queens. She's planning a "big fat Greek wedding," and why not. Damien is an only child, and his mother is jumping for joy that he's found the love of his life. Their wedding will be a joyous celebration.

I also promised the answers to the comma practice exercise. Let me know how you did:

1. Her hand zoomed out and grabbed hold of my wrist. [no comma]

2. On one side of us was a small grocery, and on the other side was a pay-by-the-week motel where a few old bachelors lived year-round.

3. She had found a small twig and pressed her thumbs together to spin it between them. [no comma]

4. When the women came out, Daddy and Charles Asher carried chairs down from the screen porch and sat them up in a circle near the clothesline.

5.“Templeton, if I ever catch you poking-oking-oking your ugly nose around our goslings, I’ll give you the worst pounding a rat ever took.”

6. Underneath her rather bold and cruel exterior, she had a kind heart, and she was to prove loyal and true to the very end.

7. Everything on the farm was dripping wet. [no comma]

8. Charlotte, sleepy after her night’s excursions, smiled as she watched.

9. The children answered their cheer, and away went everybody to the Fair.

10. When the wind had died down, and the barnyard was quiet and warm, the grey goose led his seven goslings off the nest and out into the world.

Moonshine in Kentucky - and Tehran

2011-06-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

I’ve taken a hiatus from blogging, and with good reason. First there was the ten-day residency for the Spalding University MFA in Writing program in Louisville. I’m on the faculty there and mentor writing students in fiction, creative nonfiction and writing for children. My lecture this time was on the use of the comma for restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses. I tried to make it fun, but as with most things, you can’t please everyone. A few students found the lecture helpful. Others thought a grammar lesson was beneath them—this is grad school, after all. One student who complained about the elementary quality of the talk admitted that she did not get a perfect score on the final quiz.

I’ll post the quiz here. Check back later for the correct answers. The sentences come from children’s literature: E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting, and Silas House’s Eli the Good. Place a comma where you think it should go.

1. Her hand zoomed out and grabbed hold of my wrist.

2. On one side of us was a small grocery and on the other side was a pay-by-the-week motel where a few old bachelors lived year-round.

3. She had found a small twig and pressed her thumbs together to spin it between them.

4. When the women came out Daddy and Charles Asher carried chairs down from the screen porch and sat them up in a circle near the clothesline.

5. “Templeton if I ever catch you poking-oking-oking your ugly nose around our goslings I’ll give you the worst pounding a rat ever took.”

6. Underneath her rather bold and cruel exterior she had a kind heart and she was to prove loyal and true to the very end.

7. Everything on the farm was dripping wet.

8. Charlotte, sleepy after her night’s excursions smiled as she watched.

9. The children answered their cheer and away went everybody to the Fair.

10. When the wind had died down and the barnyard was quiet and warm the grey goose led his seven goslings off the nest and out into the world.

The residency ended with a garden party at Tirbracken Farm in Goshen, Kentucky. Nana Lampton owns the estate and lives some of the time in the 18^th century stone farmhouse with fields that roll down to the Ohio River. The food was very fine. The bar was stocked. The vistas were divine. The music was uplifting. But best of all, I gathered some stories for my latest writing project—moonshine.

Kentucky, which was once part of Virginia, has raked in a lot of money on moonshine. Seems everyone in KY has a moonshine story—either handed down from ancestors or a more recent run-in with white lightning. If you’ve got a moonshine story centered in VA, WVA or KY, let me know (and don't worry about getting the commas right).

Before I left Fern Forest, we entertained guests from New York City. Tania is the daughter of Greek immigrants, and her fiancé Damien is the son of an Iranian father and a Boston mom. His father died when he was young, but he visits family in Iran on occasion. In casual conversation, I learned that moonshine reaches its seductive hand all the way to the Middle East. Iran is a Muslim country, and drinking alcohol is forbidden. But many Muslims distill their own liquor—they call it arak—at home or in backrooms of warehouses. It’s fermented with raisins and “is really smooth,” Damien says. The potion he tasted had been distilled three times and run through a carbon filter.

A true Iranian experience is a supper of roasted liver and heart sliced and skewered on a kebab. When the meat is tender, the kebab is folded into a broad piece of flatbread held tightly while the kebab is extracted.

“Delicious,” Damien says, “especially chased with a drink of arak.”

A surprisingly large number of Muslims indulge in moonshine. “The way it was during American prohibition,” he says, “is the way it is in Iran today.” Public drunkenness is rare, and Muslims who drink moonshine do so in their homes. The penalty for being caught with illegal liquor is severe—sometimes death. In spite of the danger, those who imbibe do so with great enjoyment, Damien says.

I suspect that danger is part of the flavor. By the next post, be ready for the answers to the grammar quiz—and an update on my own moonshine making progress.

Word Girls

2011-04-25T06:58:00.000-07:00

For a writer (which is what I sometimes call myself), there can be no better guest than another writer. Nicola came solo from Cape Cod for a retreat to work on her novel-in-progress. When she arrived in Lincoln, H and I were in Kentucky, where I had a week-long gig as guest author in the Spalding University BFA program. I taught two four-hour classes to advanced writing students, gave a morning presentation to fifty high school girls from local Catholic institutions, and had an hour-long radio interview. It was a full teaching schedule, but H and I managed to sneak in an afternoon trip to the Maker’s Mark distillery, thanks to my friend and former student Sylvia. If you haven’t tried bourbon flavored coffee, I suggest you order a bag pronto.

Anyway, because we were gone, Nicola stayed at Firefly B&B just up the road and owned by our good friend and neighbor, Issy Link. Nicola is English and Issy is from Germany, and they got along famously, talking about “the old country,” as Issy says. Nickey spent three nights in the rustic Firefly cabin, getting through the first revision of her novel (over forty chapters of it). Then she came to Fern Forest for her last night of solitude.

When she emerged from the treehouse, we had some good conversations. We found lots of common ground. We both teach creative writing; we're both working on books; we each enjoy a balance of company and solitude; and we each have two sons with whom we're madly in love. And we both exercised restraint about pinning each other down with a detailed summary of our writing projects.

Most of the time, though, she holed up in the trees to work on her writing. There’s something about seeing a runner running that makes me want to run, too, even though I’m slow as a slug and graceful as a hyena. And there’s something about knowing a writer is at work that makes me want to work, too. I had been contemplating a new project, a book about making moonshine, including a few vignettes about my enterprising Virginia ancestors, but I hadn’t gotten around to setting the wheels in motion. Nickey was just the thrust I needed. In the short time she stayed with us, I drafted a satisfying intro and an outline of chapters. Working title: Hooch. So far so good.

It’s always a delight when writers inspire each other. I’m grateful to my Facebook writer friends, one of whom rises at 3:00 a.m. and posts that she’s beginning her writing day. I love hearing that someone is giving a reading or has just had a poem accepted or is courting an agent for a young adult novel. They get me going.

I have miles of mountain road ahead of me to make my moonshine story unfold. If Nickey comes back with her novel manuscript and hangs around a while, I just might be motivated to get the job done.

Lesson of the Red Sox

2011-04-09T07:07:00.000-07:00

After college Mike traveled the world with his sister. He’s a Boston boy but lived in Maine for a while. Then he made a smart move to Montreal. There he met Liane and fell hard. But he needed a job. He was trained as an accountant, and Liane found him a position with the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, close enough for them to meet on weekends either in Stowe or Montreal, where she works as an administrator in a child advocacy firm. When they came to Fern Forest for a night in the treehouse, they held hands while we got to know them, declining cheese and crackers and wine because “We don’t want to spoil our dinner,” Mike said.

Lianne asked about the spa, what time it’s open. She didn’t want to disturb us. It’s open all night, I told her. Help yourselves.

They had no requests or restrictions for breakfast. "We’ll eat anything," Lianne said. "Except mushrooms," Mike added, looking at Liane. Apparently she’s not keen on mushrooms. But I imagine she’d eat them if we served them—just to be nice. She’s Canadian, after all.

Mike is a Red Sox fan, of course, and was at the 1978 game with his father when Bucky Dent hit the homer for the Yankees that crushed the hopes of the Red Sox. With the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox tied for first in the American League East at the end of the 1978 season, the stage was set for a one-game playoff between the two rivals on October 2.

Shortly after Dent hit the game-winning homer, rumors circulated that Dent had used a corked bat. The bat disappeared, and Dent denied the accusation, but the win held. Mike doesn’t remember the game, but he remembers being in the stadium. He was seven years old.

I remember a game at Fenway a few years ago. H had bought four tickets in the grandstand along the third base line. His brother came with a cousin. The cousin and I chatted, and brother Jim kept a running monologue about work, baseball, the Philosophy of Life. We’d gotten there in time to see Johnny Damon lead off with a single to right—back in the days before Damon jumped ship and he was still a Red Sox darling. The Sox were playing the Mariners, and it was midseason, but every game counts. Many beers were consumed along with bags of peanuts, shells littering our feet

In the bottom of the ninth, the Red Sox were down by two. The bases were loaded with two outs. The thing about Fenway is that no one leaves before the final out. Every game is a party. But by the final pitches, people were distracted, chatting with neighbors, chalking the game up to experience. Then David Ortiz came up to bat. When Papi’s at the plate, people pay attention. Five pitches—three balls and two strikes. The crowd rose to its feet for the disappointing end.

With the next pitch, Papi made contact and the ball popped up high. An infield fly, it looked like.

Then it happened.

Whether it was the wind or the will of the crowd or the hand of God, the ball hung in the air for just a second. And then it began to move. The crowd grew quiet. Every eye was on the white orb as it traveled toward the outfield. The right fielder punched his hungry glove, but the still the ball floated, over the first baseman, over the grass mowed in wide strips, over the outfielder’s head. And, finally, over the fence, where it dropped into the front row of the bleachers.

Papi was still standing at home plate. It wasn’t until the silence broke and the crowd roared that he started his slow lope around the bases. Suddenly I was part of a huge family, strangers hugging strangers, all of us witnesses to something unexplainable. Something miraculous.

Mike and Liane took a soak under the stars that night before they went out to sleep in the treehouse. I suspect they practice what I learned from that game—that nothing is more important than living in the moment, and every moment is astonishing. Every moment is a blessing.

Brit has a crush on Miss Piggy

2011-04-01T09:40:00.000-07:00

“I’m Florence,” she told my husband. To me she said “Florencia. Like the city of Florence.”

“Don’t you say Firenze in Italian?” I asked.

She frowned. “No. It’s Florence. But I am Florencia.”

“Aren’t you Italian?” I asked.

“I am from Argentina,” she said, clearly annoyed.

Her hair was dark and she had an exotic look, sort of like the Italian actor Vanessa Ferlito. Actually, more like Salma Hayek, the Spanish actor. Hayek makes more sense because Florencia declared, “I am Latin.”

Coming to Fern Forest was Will’s idea. The trip was a surprise for Florencia’s 28th birthday. She came into the house and looked around, inspecting. Had he done well? The jury was still out. It was chilly, snow on the ground. Not at all like Buenos Aires. And certainly not like Manhattan, where Florencia works as a photographer’s assistant. I thought—wait until she sees the treehouse.

Will had rented a car—at a premium because he’s under 25—and told her what to pack. A warm jacket. Yes, her Converse sneakers would be fine. A bathing suit. Nothing fancy.

H showed them around and afterward they sat in our living room by the wood stove. Florencia devoured a plate of cheese and crackers and sipped a glass of white wine.

“What did you do in Buenos Aires?” I asked.

“Photographer,” she said.

“What was your subject?”

“Fashion. And boats.”

“Boats?”

She stretched out on the couch, her head on a cushion.

“Are you tired from the trip?” I asked.

“I am always tired,” she said. “I don’t sleep. Four hours. Five. That is enough.”

H cooks breakfast and asked about dietary restrictions. It seemed cheese would not be a problem.

“I don’t do breakfast,” Florencia said. “Just toast.”

H said we would have toast for her. For Will there would be bacon and eggs, banana chocolate chip muffins, granola, fruit and yogurt. He’s finishing up a one-year internship in Manhattan working with an executive search company and heads home to England in a week. “You’re deporting me,” he said. He doesn’t want to leave New York. Love does that to a man.

H offered to make a reservation for dinner at the Bobcat. “What time?” he asked.

“Late,” Florencia said. “In Buenos Aires we don’t eat before nine.” Eight-thirty was the latest slot available, and they had to be satisfied with that.

“This is not New York,” I told them. And H serves breakfast between nine and ten a.m.

While Will was asking about Vermont and things to do, Florencia popped up and announced that she was going to the spa. In a New York minute she was in her bikini and wrapped in one of the terry robes we furnish for guests. She asked Will to join her, but he said, “I don’t want to get wet.” She went alone, and after a few minutes he wandered out and stood by the spa to keep her company.

It was ten-thirty when they came in from the treehouse the next morning. H served them tea. I had placed Florencia’s setting facing east. She wanted to face west. H brought her toast and an omelet. She ate all of the omelet and the toast. She ate half a cantaloupe and strawberries. She ate a muffin. Will ate three muffins. When I went to clear the table, she grabbed the last muffin. “I’ll take this,” she said. It appears she does do breakfast after all.

Over breakfast they bickered about Will’s horrible driving (to be fair, they drive on the left in England), about his not telling her the correct clothes to bring (to be fair, he said, he’d never been here before), about how men should not dance ballet (Will took ballet lessons as a boy), about Will’s squeamishness about spiders and being visited by one in the treehouse (“I killed it,” Florencia said). To distract them, I gave them our zodiac book so they could look up each other’s qualities. Florencia quieted down to read about herself. She’s an Aries Pig. As a Pig myself, I know just how thorny we can be.

“What does this mean—excessive?” she asked.

Will translated. “You want to have more than you need.”

“I do not,” she said.

“Yes you do,” he demurred.

“What does it mean—genial?”

“Friendly,” Will said. “That’s not you.”

“Yes it is. I’m very friendly.”

“No, you’re not,” he said.

In fact, she is very friendly—in an ardent sort of way. You want to hug her. But not too tight.

Will looks like Ethan Hawke with his thin handsomeness. Like H, he’s a Rabbit, a peacemaker. A sweetie-pie who likes to please. Although she might not admit it, Florencia is well pleased.

“Florencia is a little like Miss Piggy,” I said.

“Who is Miss Piggy?” she asked.

Will said, “For most of my childhood I had a huge crush on Miss Piggy.”

“Miss Piggy likes to have her way,” I told Florencia. “And she’s excessive.”

“I’m not like that,” she said.

“Yes you are,” Will said.

Wisely, H stayed out of it.

H and I had to go to town, and we left them alone in Fern Forest. We came back in the early evening and found them still in the treehouse. They had taken a soak in the spa (Will agreed to get wet). They had watched a movie on Will’s laptop. They had napped (Florencia does indeed sleep). They had eaten grapes left over from breakfast. And that last muffin.

That night they drove to Burlington for dinner and ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s. When they came from the treehouse the next morning—at ten-thirty—Will announced that the first thing she said when she awoke was, “I want breakfast.” H had made blueberry pancakes. She ate three. She wanted toast. I had made sourdough bread the day before and suggested it makes wonderful toast.

“She wants white bread toast,” H said. She got white bread toast. I don’t mean to say that Florencia was difficult. You can’t help but be attracted to her. Her complaints were good natured, even funny. She’s a woman who enjoys being a little challenging. Will was up for the challenge. And so were we.

Before they checked out, Florencia clicked through photos she’d taken with her fancy camera. The driveway with the sun setting through the trees. The treehouse in daylight. The treehouse lit up with colored lights at night. The spa. Mt. Abe. The main house. The breakfast. She’s got a good eye for composition. Will requested that H take a picture of them in front of the treehouse. Then Florencia asked to take a photo of H and me. When she left, she hugged us. She looked well rested, well fed, and happy. As far as giving her a nice couple of days to relax for her birthday, I’d say Will did all right.

Two Mugs and some Magic Hat

2011-03-31T10:00:00.001-07:00

Stanford. West Point. Harvard. Treehouse guests Kim and Brendan do not lack for education. They met in middle school and were friends all through high school. Good enough friends to go to the senior prom together. Good enough friends to stay in touch when Brendan went off to West Point. Such good friends, in fact, that when he came home one summer, they reconnected.

And they fell in love.

They were married in a ceremony at West Point, Brendan handsome in his military uniform. West Point means a five-year commitment for service in the Army, but a medical problem earned him a discharge. When Kim got a job at Stanford, he earned a graduate degree there. When she got a job at the Harvard Business School, he enrolled for an MBA. He’ll be doing an internship this summer and has job possibilities lined up. If they have to relocate from Boston, Kim is okay with that. She rolls with whatever comes along. She’s committed to Brendan for better or worse.

Even when worse is just a sprained an ankle.

A few days before they arrived, Brendan was playing basketball and came down wrong on his foot. We sat him down and gave him an ice pack. When he took off his sock, I could see the ankle was purple and swollen. “No problem,” he said. “I’ll be fine.” Which meant that he’d get up into the treehouse loft somehow and that he’d manage to navigate Fern Forest and surroundings for three days. With Kim’s help, he did.

Kim drove them to Shelburne Farms, where Brendan took her picture cuddling a chicken and petting the lambs. Then a stop at Magic Hat Brewery for samples of the latest brew. Finally to Burlington, where she helped Brendan limp down Church Street for lunch at Halvorson’s followed by a stop at Ben & Jerry’s. A couple scoops of vanilla chocolate chip cookie dough takes away the pain.

It felt like they’d been together longer than the three years they’ve been married. But, then, they’ve known each other nearly all their young lives. So, how do you know at such a young age that he’s The One? For these two, it may have been the comfort level. They grew up near each other. Their parents are friends. They saw each other every day. There are no games, no surprises.

They may not know what the future holds for them, but they know one thing—whatever the future brings, they’ll accept it together.

On Sunday they left us two Harvard Business School mugs, two large bottles of Magic Hat brew, and a feeling that in the midst of the tumult of the world, there is something solid and very right.

Perigee Moon Rising

2011-03-23T09:45:00.000-07:00

It was sweet of Lynne to bring boyfriend Dave to the treehouse for his 38th birthday. They were both born in the Year of the Ox and, in true Ox form, they work hard. Lynne is employed in an oral surgeon’s office. “We don’t fix teeth,” she says. “We pull teeth and do implants. If you can’t afford to have teeth worked on, you come to us. We are the last resort.”

I stuck my tongue into the gap between two molars, remembering when my mother had one of my teeth pulled. Too many marshmallow chickens at Easter, I guess. The surgeon should have put an implant in the space to keep the other molars from slanting, causing the gum to recede. Anyway, too much information. And it’s too late for undoing the damage.

Lynne’s teeth are straight and white. She has that rosy disposition you expect when you go in to have your teeth looked at. Sweet. Polite. Instantly likable.

Dave is a plumber, working mostly on corporate buildings. He starts at 7:00 a.m. and by 3:30, he’s done for the day and off to the gym. He’s a big guy with a trimmed beard, and he wore a funny checkered driver cap the whole time he was in Fern Forest. He and Lynne have been hanging together for six months. They seem a good fit.

They had dinner at the Bobcat and afterward, on the waitress’s recommendation, drove a half hour to Middlebury to watch the basketball playoffs at Two Brothers, a sports bar frequented by the college students. It was a clear, cold night with a bad moon rising. Meteorologists call it a perigee moon, when the orb is full and the closest to the earth it can get. There are forebodings of natural disasters associated with the “bad moon,” but that Saturday night was calm. Lynne and Dave returned safely to Fern Forest and cuddled into the treehouse. No disasters. No drama. A quiet night with the giant moon casting tree shadows over the snow.

H was in the midst of a weekend hockey tournament, but he made cheese omelets, cooked up some bacon, and put them in the oven to keep warm before he left for the Sunday morning game. He wasn’t disappointed to lose because a win meant his team would have to play in the finals that afternoon. He plays Sunday nights in another league, and that would have made six games in four days. He can’t get enough.

After they had breakfast, Lynne and Dave sat in the living room and read about the Ox in my Chinese zodiac book. It seems Dave is shy but schemes. Stay on his good side. Lynne has lots of energy. She runs half marathons when she can and is a daily five or six-miler.

“How do you do it?” I asked.

“Music,” she said. “I couldn’t run without my iPod.”

I’d like to get her song list.

Dave gave me plumbing advice about installing an outdoor shower. He made it sound easy. Then I picked his brain about putting an addition on the south side of the house to extend the kitchen. He made that sound easy, too. I have a feeling he was just being nice.

Lynne said she’d like to hike Mt. Abe on their next trip. This trip she brought only city shoes. Dave said he’d have to get into better shape to keep up with her. She patted his tummy. She had gone on a run before they drove up from Somerville, Massachusetts, but this Sunday morning there was only kicking back, watching the mountain change as the sun moved over it, drinking another cup of coffee, enjoying a few more minutes of the peace of Fern Forest.

Fern Forest Peace Park

2011-03-19T13:20:00.000-07:00

Todd drove up from Massachusetts to meet Abbey’s bus coming from Montreal. She was taking a hiatus from her third year of law school at McGill to spend two nights with Todd at Fern Forest Treehouse. I was looking forward to meeting them and learning what these two energetic young people are up to.

But that didn’t happen. At least not right off.

Abbey takes her studying seriously. She brought snacks. And books. She was staring final exams in the face and was prepared to study the night away, high up in the maples. Todd is founder, executive director and lead guide of International Peace Park Expeditions, a peace-building operation for college kids designed to “nurture the next generation of leaders for a more peaceful global community,” according to his website. He had preparations to make for the upcoming 16-day expedition at a peace park in the Balkins. He would work into the night next to Abbey.

We’d have to wait until morning to get acquainted with these assiduous guests.

Over eggs (no meat for these food and environment conscious folks), we found that the focus of Todd’s program is on developing programs in outdoor experiential education, similar to a NOLS course, and practical skill training in peace building and conflict resolution, aimed at conflict-plagued youth. Participants can earn college credit for their work, which combines traditional academic learning and outdoor experience. Todd is launching the effort at peace parks in Costa Rica, Panama, Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro, as well as the Balkans

Abbey is focusing on women’s issues in the law and plans to take the bar in Massachusetts, where Todd is headquartered. I’m awed by the energy and commitment of these two.

On Saturday they took a break and did a little shopping in downtown Bristol. There’s not much to see there, but they don’t demand much. I think they were happy just hanging out together. That evening I suggested they splurge and take in the chocolate buffet at Mary’s, an upscale restaurant at the Inn at Baldwin Creek. The owners, Doug and Linda, always create understated elegance and scrumptious meals featuring localvore. I don’t know where the chocolate comes from, but there was plenty of it. Todd raved about the brulee. The chocolate dipped strawberries endeared Abbey. Chocolate cake, cookies, brownies, and chocolate sauce to dip everything. They deserved it.

We barely heard them come back and didn’t hear them at all when they climbed into the hot tub and let the steam melt the snowflakes as they floated down through the pergola.

The bad news is that they had to leave the next day. The good news is that Todd has already booked two more treehouse nights for this summer. Abbey will be studying for the bar then, and Todd can tell us about his adventures in the Balkans.

In some of his PR, Todd wrote that Nelson Mandela called the International Peace Parks a “concept that can be embraced by all.” Yes. We all should embrace peace. Peace for women as well as for men. Peace for all countries on this stressed out earth. I’m glad Todd and Abbey both think it’s not too late.

Tractors and Books and Vinyl

2011-02-25T14:35:00.001-08:00

I want to stay with Tracey and Chris for a couple days and talk to their three children. They all read and can tell me what’s hot in books for young people. Knights? Princesses? Wizards? Vampires? Clue me in, kiddies and I’ll invent an adventure.

Chris’s own tastes are a bit more sophisticated. He teaches high school English, coaches the school newspaper, and currently is reading Roberto Bolaño, a Chilean author who writes about dreams and hallucinations and the lost young voices of revolution. Heady stuff.

Tracey is an art teacher working on her own abstract compositions. They visited Fern Forest during school vacation, taking a break from their farmhouse near Amherst, Massachusetts, and leaving the children in the able hands of the grandparents. When they’re home, life is busy. In the summer Chris uses his tractor to harvest five cords of wood to keep his three stoves burning. Tracey has a hive of bees and tends a Morgan horse, chickens, several cats and a dog.

The Treehouse was the perfect getaway. They came over the snowy Appalachian Gap and it was just dark when Chris gunned the car up the driveway. They didn’t feel like going out into the cold again, so I whipped up a pot of pasta, vegetarian out of respect for Chris’s palate, with chicken sausage on the side for the rest of us. H’s best friend and our closest neighbor Alex came up and joined us because his wife was out of town. Tracey contributed a bottle of wine, tastier (and pricier, I suspect) than the brand I keep on hand. There was talk of wine (Tracey’s sister is in the winery business) and tractors (Alex knows all about brush hogs and tillers and the like) and teaching (H and I are retired public school teachers) and books. Tracey and Chris seemed to enjoy kicking back, which I don’t imagine they get to do very often with a full house.

It was frigid on their first night and below zero in the morning when Chris came in. I offered coffee, and he poured himself a cup and one for Tracey and then tromped back out to the Treehouse, his bootlaces trailing behind him, balancing a cup in each hand. For a boy from New Jersey, he’s pretty hardy.

At breakfast I asked them about their plans for the day. They didn’t have any—just wanted to relax. They spent the day shopping for gifts for family and stopped into the Bobcat for an early dinner. When they returned, Chris said they had found the Goodwill store in South Burlington and filed through boxes of old vinyl records. They found a few collectibles and settled on a fair price.

“Do you have a turntable?” I asked.

“No,” Chris said, “but we like the album covers.”

They lingered by our wood stove before trekking out through single digit temps to the Treehouse for a second night. They climbed the vertical ladder to the loft eight feet above the main floor, putting them 40 feet over the earth. Moonlight reflected off the snow. All was quiet.

Chris said sleeping in the Treehouse was “like being a kid again except you're an adult and it's better.” I’ll bet he listened to vinyl records when he was a kid. Maybe next trip they’ll find a turntable at Restore.

Sometimes you know

2011-02-24T07:20:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you just know.

Laura and Will knew.

The couple made their way from Philadelphia to Fern Forest for Presidents Day weekend. They had a little trouble getting over the Appalachian Gap in their old Honda. Philadelphians don’t bother with snow tires, which are de rigueur for Vermont’s mountain passes. It took Will three tries, skidding around in the road each time, before he coaxed the Honda over the summit. Laura sat quietly in the passenger seat. She believes in her man.

Will is a lawyer, and Laura is working on her PhD in art history at Temple University with a focus on 19^th Century American still life. She is a natural beauty. They met during college met when they were summer camp counselors. Will was a year ahead of Laura, she at Dickinson College and he at University of Virginia. I’ve heard of those camp counselor romances—they usually end when the campers pack up to go home. But these two kept in touch. They met up on school vacations. When she went to Europe to study art, he stayed faithful, focusing on law school.

For Laura, no one else measured up.Will was the one.

When Will finished law school at UVA, he went back home to St. Louis. Laura was still in Philadelphia, living near her family. Only one thing to do. Will moved to Philly and studied for the bar exam. When he was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar, he proposed. They’ve been married just over two years.

The Honda almost made it up the driveway when they arrived on Saturday after a morning of skiing. They unpacked, had a chat and some nibbles with us, and then hit the Bobcat for a late dinner. We didn’t hear them come in later that evening. Didn’t hear them take a dip in the hot tub. Not a peep as they went out to the treehouse.

It was a cold and windy night and the treehouse creaked, but the next morning Laura said they were cozy in the sleeping loft. They took their time over breakfast. The weatherman predicted more snow on the way. They had bought two-day ski passes at Sugarbush, and they planned to use them. But rather than returning to the treehouse Sunday night, Will thought it more prudent to start south and look for a hotel near Albany. Laura agreed.

So they packed up and hiked down the driveway to brush new snow off the Honda. No arguments. No hassles. There was agreement. There was trust. There was a “we’re in this together” feeling. And there was a quiet joy in each other’s company. It was in their faces, the way Will looked away and Laura blushed when I said, “You are a beautiful couple.” I guess that’s how you know.

Valentine's Day Fern Forest style

2011-02-24T04:32:00.001-08:00

I just heard that another of my Spalding University MFA in Writing students is having a book published. This one is IF I LIE by Corinne Jackson, coming out in ’12 with Simon Pulse. That makes how many of my former students who have published books? Oh, I’ve lost count. Mostly they’re young adult or middle grade books, a market that is popping with energy.

I’ve published two YA novels and a picture book for young readers, but I’m overdue for a new title. So I was pretty excited to learn that Jennifer had booked two nights at the Treehouse. Jennifer worked in children’s book publishing in Manhattan but left after the 9-11 attacks. She lived in mid-town, close enough to the devastation to understand that she didn’t want to be in the city any longer. So she bought an old Victorian farmhouse cottage in the Berkshires and set up an enterprise with her second passion—gardening. She designs and tends gardens for homeowners and also rents out rooms for those busy wedding weekends in the beautiful countryside of western Massachusetts.

While she was with us, she was more interested in discussing botanical zones than kid lit. That’s fine because I like gardening, too—even though weeding and nurturing flowers seems a pipe dream in this dead cold of February. Jennifer’s boyfriend Rene is the most enthusiastic human I’ve ever met. He works at a nature preserve and has an energetic curiosity, especially about anything natural. He asked what kind of birds we get at our feeders. I don’t know—chickadees?

“Yep,” he said, “and finches.” He pointed to the little birds at one of the feeders. When an owl soared by the house, he dashed to the window, and he got excited about a red squirrel stealing sunflower seeds.

Rene is a guy you want to go on a snowshoe trek with. When he and Jennifer clomped into the woods, he was criss-crossed with straps: Gaterade, camera, compass, backpack (extra clothes?), binoculars. They were gone a couple hours, and he returned with reports of tracks—deer, fox, fishercat.

No moss grows under these two. They’d just returned from Puerto Rico where Rene helped Jennifer celebrate her 40th birthday. From the tropics to the frosty Vermont cold, they still had that sunny glow when they arrived at Fern Forest for Valentine’s Day.

To enhance the festive mood, H made them chocolate raspberry pancakes for breakfast, and I decorated each of their plates with one of the humongous chocolate-dipped strawberries H gave me. Rene had made Jennifer a sweet card and laid it beside her breakfast plate with a box of hand-dipped chocolates from a Berkshires shop. I caught them stealing a maple syrup-flavored kiss at the breakfast table.

They spent Valentine’s Day antiquing, and Rene found a peculiar three-wheel skate that attaches to one shoe, apparently operated like a scooter. I thought he might try it out, but the rubber wheels were dry and cracked. It would become a conversation piece, he said. It seemed to me he was never at a loss for words.

That cold night, a snow storm settled in but they jumped into the hot tub and let the flakes adorn their hair while steam rose from the water. After a few minutes, Rene hopped out of the spa, spread his arms, and fell full-body backward into the snow. He can make even a soak in hot water exhilarating.

There’s no doubt that the publishing business has its perks. But following your passion? In my opinion, that’s better than getting your name in lights—or ink. Want proof? Just ask Rene or Jennifer.

Treehouse Waltz

2011-02-17T07:50:00.000-08:00

Fern Forest guest Arthur is in his first year of law school at Yale. His girlfriend Juliana works in health care policy at a non-profit think tank in Washington, DC, focusing on improving access and quality of care for low-income people. A year ago they met at a party of mutual friends. I don’t blame them for falling for each other. Both have good looks and brains. I’m not sure if it was smarts or a spirit of adventure that caused them to book a cold February weekend in the treehouse for their anniversary and an early Valentine’s Day.

Arthur attended junior high school in Ivory Coast when his father was stationed in Africa working as a senior economist with the International Monetary Fund. After that they moved to Haiti, where they lived for three years before leaving in ’86 when dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier was forced out of office for plundering tens of millions of pounds of state funds. Arthur was happy to come back to the States, where he enrolled at Princeton. His parents moved to Paris and his brother works in China, and he visits them both.

Even at age 23, Arthur has had some fascinating experiences, and we learned lots about him in the three days he and Juliana spent with us. When I asked Juliana to tell us about herself, she said she grew up in New Hampshire and went to Swarthmore. “There’s nothing interesting about me,” she said. I asked if she played a musical instrument, and she admitted that she was a trombonist in high school. Then I asked her about health care, and she lit up. Juliana knows the business and has special expertise in meeting the needs of uninsured children. She is one of the only people I’ve met who can make health care sound interesting.

The temperatures dipped down below zero the nights they were with us, but they didn’t seem to mind. The treehouse has heat and stays toasty, even in the wind that blew through the maples. On Saturday they went skiing and at the end of the day they were beat. They joined us by the wood stove, and we ate some popcorn and drank a couple brews. When they wanted to have a dip in the spa, H offered to pick up a pizza while they were soaking because none of us had eaten. They thought that would be preferable to getting dressed and going out. I sautéed some kale because I need the greens for my bones and added walnuts and maple syrup to make it palatable, and we feasted on our laps in the living room while we watched “The Last Waltz.” Here they were, younger than our own children, watching a video of a concert held a dozen years before they were born. They’d never heard of Levon Helm, Van Morrison, Robbie Robertson or Ronnie Hawkins, but Juliana knew about Joni Mitchell and of course they recognized Bob Dylan. Whereas H and I are enthralled each time we watch the video, for Juliana and Arthur, it was background for talk.

Arthur did offer that his father is an avid Rolling Stones fan and has all their records on vinyl. I tried to imagine his father, a dignified man with international sophistication dancing on his veranda while “Hey, you, get offa my cloud” blasts on the phonograph. Arthur says he heard Mick Jagger goes into the hospital every few years to have his blood completely recycled. I wonder if his health care plan covers that—Juliana would probably know.

Even though Arthur had a paper due on Wednesday (due Monday originally, but his prof took pity on him because of his Valentine’s Day treehouse adventure), they dallied on Sunday. Finally in the early afternoon they got ready to hike down the driveway to Arthur’s aged Audi convertible that couldn’t make it up the hill because no one bothers with snow tires in New Haven. They planned to stop in Burlington to check out a few shops and coffee places before heading back down to Connecticut, where Juliana would catch a bus back to D.C.

And, about that paper? “A couple all-nighters and I’ll get it done,” Arthur said. Then he kissed Juliana on the cheek and carried the bags out to the car.

Tee-Vee in the Trees

2011-02-16T11:34:00.000-08:00

Artist Amber’s website bears the quote by poet Jean Wahl: “Le moutonnement des haies C'est en moi que je l'ai” (The frothing of the hedges/ I keep deep inside of me .") The hedges weren’t exactly frothing when she and Michael visited Fern Forest for two January nights in the treehouse—at least, not that we noticed. The ferns are still buried under deep snow, and the maples are bare. But it was Amber’s 30th birthday, and maybe she was frothing about that (although she looks ten years younger).

They came down from Montreal, where Michael works in construction on renovation projects. An artist and a construction worker in Montreal? How do they manage?

“It’s not expensive to live in Montreal,” says Michael. “Food is cheap, and I don’t have a TV. I only watch TV when I visit my family in Saskatchewan.” He works on expensive projects, where his clients want the best of everything.

“You must be well versed in what’s the best,” I said.

“I’m learning,” he said. “It’s fun. I may start working only for people with lots of money.”

I guess he won’t want to hire on to build me a new kitchen addition on our main house. The treehouse doesn’t have a kitchen, just a tiny refrigerator big enough for a couple beers. That seemed to be enough for these two. They are Canadian quiet and don’t demand much.

After I visited Amber’s website, I could see why she was interested in spending her birthday in a treehouse. Many of her drawings have trees in them—houses in trees, branches branching out of people and around them, roots rooted in air. Her work, according to the website, is “rooted in the neo-romantic trajectory of drawing” and “fundamentally escapist.” It seemed fitting that she’d escape Montreal for the Vermont wilderness.

What we neglected to tell these sweet people was that a TV crew was coming from Boston to do a show on our county, and they wanted to include a minute or so about the treehouse because they’d heard so much about it (WCVB-TV, "Main Streets and Back Roads").

We waited until Michael and Amber's second night with us, hoping by then they’d have fallen in love with Fern Forest. Canadians are shy and wary of publicity. Besides, these two had come to escape, not to become television stars.

When we put it to them (gently), Amber agreed to be filmed, as long as she didn’t have to say anything. Michael indicated he’d go along but not to expect him to effuse. He doesn’t effuse. In fact, the most excitement we saw from this handsome guy was when our contractor-builder friend Alex came up for a visit, and he and Michael talked construction-speak that was too esoteric for me to follow.

On a rather overcast day, as Amber and Michael were rising to have their breakfast, writer/producer Sangita arrived with Bob, the cameraman. The camera alone was intimidating enough—a suitcase with a lens. When our guests sat down to eat, Bob filmed them forking into H’s blueberry pancakes. Sangita tried to get them to say something—even just an expression of delight—but they said they’d keep mum and they kept their word.

After breakfast, they agreed to go back into the treehouse and come out with Bob rolling the film. They didn’t prance or even give a high five to the camera. Nope—their lips were buttoned. H and I spouted off about the treehouse, however, and we’ll see how we came out when the program airs.

In spite of putting these nice guests on the spot, they were good sports. I have a feeling, though, that this is one birthday Amber will remember. After all, she’s very fond of trees.

H and Ellie with Sangita and Bob

The segment is online only briefly, but here's the link:

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/video/26893727/detail.html

Serendipity strikes Fern Forest

2011-01-29T06:14:00.000-08:00

“Life is not merely a series of meaningless accidents or coincidences. Uh-uh. But rather, it’s a tapestry of events that culminate in an exquisite, sublime plan,” says Dean in the film Serendipity. It’s Tara and Caine’s favorite movie because the plot imitates real life for them.

For ten years, neither knew the other existed, even though they’d met briefly several times through mutual friends.

“She was my friend’s wife’s sister’s friend,” Caine says—or something like that.

“Someone says we met at a bowling alley party, but I don’t remember him,” Tara adds.

What does it take for a girl to notice a good-looking, fit, blue-eyed, eligible guy?

Nearly a decade later, their best friends got engaged to each other. They were each invited to the destination wedding held on an island off Key West. Caine was best man, and oh wasn’t he dashing all spiffed up?

Serendipity finally struck. Why hadn’t they noticed each other before?

Caine is a can-do sort of guy. He’s a driver for Fed Ex and cruised over the Appalachian Gap to get to Fern Forest and then made it easily up our steep, snow-covered driveway in his 4WD truck. And talk about high energy. Give him the most precipitous slope for skiing or sledding and he’ll be happy. And Tara will match him in courage and vigor.

Tara brought Pearl, her Boston terrier, and we doggie sat while they went out to dinner the first night. Tara was worried that Pearl would be nervous when they left, but she curled up on the sofa and took a nap while they wolfed down dinner at the Bobcat. Pearl seemed pretty content at Fern Forest—but, then, it’s a laid-back kind of place.

While Tara got ready to go out the second night, Caine helped me in the kitchen. I’ve broken my wrist, and he opened jars and cranked the pepper mill. He’s a handy guy all around. From the way they looked at each other at breakfast, I’d say Tara thinks so, too.

In the movie Serendipity, Dean says, “If we are to live life in harmony with the universe, we must all possess a powerful faith in what the ancients used to call ‘fatum,’ what we currently refer to as destiny.” In Tara and Caine’s case, destiny takes its own sweet time, but I’m glad it finally smiled on them. They sure were smiling when they loaded Pearl back into the truck and waved goodbye.

Bringing mindfulness to Fern Forest

2011-01-25T05:29:00.000-08:00

Fern Forest Treehouse guest Jeff and I have at least one thing in common—we both have messed up hands. I broke my right wrist and shoulder in a fall down a flight of stairs. Why didn’t we have a nightlight in the bathroom like everyone else? It’s dark in Vermont in the middle of the night! Anyway, I’m healing. A week after the break I had surgery to put a titanium plate (with eight screws) into the wrist—the shoulder is on its own.

Jeff, on the other hand (pun intended), wasn’t so lucky. He was doing a semester of study in India, living with a family who spoke very little English. At a restaurant, a glass fell off a tray and with his quick reflexes, he grabbed for it. He grabbed so hard that the glass broke in his hand and severed a tendon. Medical care in the southern village where he lived was sketchy at best, and a doctor bandaged the hand and sent him home. He had little use of the hand for the next two months, and when he got back to the states his doctor dad took a look at the hand and sent him to a surgeon. He underwent surgery and physical therapy to get function back, and now the hand looks pretty good—except he’ll never be able to straighten his little finger again.

But a bum hand didn’t affect his mental acuity. He graduated college with a focus on neuroscience and has been working at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts, where he met girlfriend Meghan, who joined him for a couple nights in the treehouse loft. Although she slept forty feet above the snow, Meghan is down to earth. She was captain of the Brown women’s soccer team and still likes to spring up and down the field. This vivacious blonde is completely unpretentious and good company. At McLean’s, which specializes in OCD patients, she runs a mindfulness workshop.

“How do you do that?” I asked.

“I might, for example, give each person a raisin. Then I’ll tell them to look at the raisin closely, to feel its texture, to smell it. Finally, they eat the raisin and describe its flavor, the way it feels in the mouth. I do the same thing with a penny—but they don’t eat it, of course.”

Being able to use only my left hand, I’m attempting to practice mindfulness myself, moving slowly and deliberately, thinking about every task in detail. You try it: tuck your dominant hand behind your back and spend a day--or even an hour--using only your nondominant hand. I guarantee you'll be mindful of every action. The raisin/penny trick's a good one, too.

Jeff and Meghan were with us for two nights. They took a long snowshoe in the woods, soaked in the spa, gazed at Mt. Abe, and wandered down to the Bobcat for a meal. I’m grateful for the work they’re doing with mental illness. They’ve each applied to twenty PhD programs. Megan is interested in clinical psychology, and Jeff wants to research how the body and mind respond to prescription drugs. They seem well suited for each other, and, since their four arms work just fine, I hope they land in schools where they can keep within arms’ reach.

White Rabbit

2011-01-04T06:05:00.000-08:00

When my friend Dora told me her son Palo was coming to visit and she had no place to put him up in her small apartment, I offered him the treehouse. Palo is in his thirties with movie star good looks. It would be a delight to have him around Fern Forest.

He wrote me from his home in L.A. to say how much he appreciated the offer and would it be all right if his friend Mike stayed, too? I said sure. Then he told me that Mike is tall—six-feet-six, to be exact. Well, I said, I suppose he’ll fit in the loft—it’s queen size. Palo could sleep on the single bunk under the loft.

Palo is a vegetarian and doesn’t eat sugar—so H’s pancakes with maple syrup wouldn’t do. Mike is vegan and doesn’t eat grains. So, what to feed them for breakfast? Dora offered to come over in the mornings and take charge of the kitchen. I thought that was a fine idea.

Food and sleeping arrangements under control, we welcomed the young men into our house. Immediately they were like family—even better than family because my own sons expect me to wait on them. But Palo and Mike are comfortable in the kitchen. They made their own tea and brought their own snacks—fruit and baba ganoush and quinoa and mysterious powders to make nutrition shakes. They offered to bring in wood and do fix-it tasks around the house. They made hardly a wrinkle in our lives while they lived with us for four days. And I got to see lots of Dora.

Palo has been looking for a hefty chunk of land in our area to start a community of people who want to live a sustainable life and share in farming, child rearing and spirituality. Dora found 300 acres just over the Lincoln Gap that she thought would be perfect. There’s a capacious log cabin, a couple of small dwellings, a stream, forest, and breathtaking views. Palo approved. Mike is interested in participating. Now to find the financing.

In the meantime, Christmas was coming, and we were all feeling festive. On their last night with us, I made a special dinner—acorn squash stuffed with organic vegetables and a salad, fruit for dessert—and invited my old friends Alan and Harriet. The young men don’t drink, but the rest of us paid homage to some good red wine. Dora was in a particularly festive mood. Harriet had been reading Patti Smith’s Just Kids, her memoir about her friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe. Harriet said the Jefferson Airplane song “White Rabbit” is mentioned in the book, and Dora said it’s one of her favorites.

While she tried to remember the words, H sneaked out to his car and found a cassette tape with the song, brought it in and turned the speakers toward the dining room. Dora launched into a sing along: “One pill makes you larger And one pill makes you small, And the ones that mother gives you Don't do anything at all. Go ask Alice When she's ten feet tall.”

Palo was nonplussed. I nearly fell off my chair laughing.

Dora shops for organic foods and drinks raw milk. She knows what buckwheat groats are and gets her eggs from farmers with free range chickens. She’ll have a glass of wine but exercises moderation. She’s of the “small footprint” persuasion. But I have a feeling that somewhere along the line she ran just a little wild. At least I’d like to think so. That’s what makes her such an interesting friend.

If Palo swings the deal to buy the land, he’ll be making frequent trips from L.A. to set up the community. Dora will vacate her apartment down the road from Fern Forest and move into one of the cabins on the other side of Mt. Abe. I’ll miss our invigorating walks up and down the hills of Lincoln and our talks about, oh, everything. But it’s a new year and the Tiger is giving way to the Rabbit, which means good fortune. I’m sure for Dora it’ll be a white rabbit year, and whatever move she makes, it will be an auspicious one for her. No matter what, we’ll still be friends—on either side of the mountain.

Lauren Squared

2010-12-23T13:20:00.000-08:00

Contrary to the title, there’s nothing square about the two Laurens who recently visited Fern Forest for two nights in the Treehouse. The singer-songwriter (we’ll call her US Lauren) and her English gal pal drove up from Brooklyn for a respite from the holiday bustle of the city. Their rental car nearly made it up the snowy driveway, but US Lauren thought it better to park at the bottom of the hill and tromp up in her Chuck Taylors. US Lauren always wears Chuck Taylors and has them in a variety of colors, and I enjoyed seeing a pair parked in the mudroom while she was here.

US Lauren is an indy girl, and you can categorize that as an independent woman or a musician who plays indy music. By indy I mean she’s willing to play a small venue with ten people, including the bartender and the sound man (but of course she’d rather play for a bigger crowd). She’s also from Indianapolis, which makes her capital “I” Indy.

Although she was born in London, English Lauren’s parents are American, which gives her dual citizenship. “My mom’s from Vienna, Virginia,” she said. I’m from Falls Church, just a few miles from Vienna, and it turns out her mom and I went to the same high school. How weird is that? Her mom was a year behind me but we missed each other because I spent only my freshman year at James Madison High and then transferred to a new school in Falls Church. But I think I’d have liked Lauren’s mom, if her daughter is anything like her—bright and bubbly.

While we were nibbling carrot sticks Sunday night, and then tortilla chips, and then popcorn (these gals are young enough to feast on whatever they fancy), Brit Lauren called her mom in London. I’d suggested that US Lauren is a vegetarian because she has Type A blood and Brit Lauren wanted to ask her mom what blood type she had. Her mom didn’t have a clue but got a kick out of the fact that her daughter was three thousand miles away staying with a woman who’d wandered the hallways of the same high school she herself had attended. I have to admire a mother-daughter relationship that allows a quick call across the ocean from a weekend retreat in a Vermont wilderness.

Brit Lauren was about to take off to spend the holidays with her family in London, and we hope the Heathrow runways were cleared of snow to allow her a safe landing. US Lauren planned to journey home to Indiana, and I imagine she packed her acoustic guitar to practice for her gig at Rockwood Music Hall in New York at the end of January. We were glad to give them a couple days of peace and tranquility before the flurry of their lives catches up with them again.

US Lauren took a great leap when she quit her job to pursue a career in music. As she writes on her website, “I believe that everything falls into place if you are following your heart.” That’s good advice as we advance into 2011, and I have a feeling things are falling into place nicely for both these exceptional young women. You can catch more of Lauren Z’s songs, sung with sweet fragility, on YouTube or her website, http://laurenzettler.com.

New York City Time Out

2010-12-07T13:38:00.000-08:00

When Nikki and Elliott arrived at Fern Forest on Saturday night, they both looked the worse for wear. Friday was Nikki’s birthday, and she had celebrated hard at a club in Manhattan, so hard that she didn’t realize until the next morning that her wallet had been stolen. She lost cash, her driver’s license and her debit card. By the time she reported the theft, her debit card had been charged hundreds of dollars. So far, turning 22 had not been auspicious for her.

Elliott wanted to treat his flatmate to a birthday weekend, so he rented a car—a spiffy red Mustang convertible. It was 20 degrees at Fern Forest and snowing, and the Mustang was not equipped with snow tires. So Elliott parked the vehicle, top securely up, at the foot of the steepest part of the driveway, and he and Nikki hiked up to the house.

They arrived in late afternoon, and we gave Elliott a glass of cider. All Nikki wanted was a nap, but she managed, sleepy-eyed, to let us know she’s from Glasgow, although we could tell from her melodic, wind-chime accent that she was Scottish. Elliott is from Brighton, on the south coast of England.

They didn’t know each other before they came to New York City to work as interns for a British organization on a one-year contract. Elliott landed a position with the British Consulate, and Nikki was assigned to work for British Airways. They were thrown into a three-bedroom apartment in New Jersey with three other twenty-something interns, which proved to be cramped and bustling with energy and noise. When you’re in your early twenties, you can endure anything for a year.

Already they've had about enough of New York City. When I asked Nikki if she'd seen Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, she said yes but didn't elaborate on the details. Elliott said he passed by it on his way somewhere. Thanksgiving is a holiday for us rebellious colonials, but they were glad for a day off from work.

H and I sent them to the treehouse for a rest, and a few hours later they came back to the house hungry. We suggested dinner in Bristol, five miles away, but they wanted no part of restaurants and villages. They preferred carry-out to eat in the treehouse. We directed them to a sub shop, and they made a quick trip to town and returned with a container of hot spaghetti. I packed a bag with plates and forks, and they disappeared into the snowy night.

Sometimes we spend a lot of time with treehouse guests, sometimes they take off to hike and explore, and sometimes they just want to enjoy the solitude of the woods. Nikki and Elliott were happy to hang out, have a soak in the spa, and enjoy the quiet. By Sunday, Nikki looked alive again, and at breakfast she and Elliott gobbled H’s cheese omelets and an entire pound of bacon. Then they headed back to the treehouse. Elliott had brought his laptop, and they watched movies and rested.

When H was 22, he headed for Australia for six months to work on a farm commune with friends in Far North Queensland. I don’t remember much about turning 22 myself. I was still in college, between spring and summer classes, and was probably working full-time at the law firm in Washington, DC, where I typed and filed. I wish I’d thought about doing an internship in the UK, but my sights were set on finishing college. After that, I had no more idea what was in store for me than do Elliott or Nikki.

Elliott graduated from University of Leeds and is thinking about graduate school when he returns to England next spring. But first he’s looking forward to April, when he’ll fly to Miami with some other interns, rent a car, and drive across America. All Nikki’s thinking about is going home to Glasgow for Christmas. She likes New York, but she misses her family. I’m sure she’s looking forward to hearing that familiar brogue again, too.

On Sunday it was still snowy, but Elliott and Nikki wanted to go to Bristol and get some supplies. H and I were going out that night and offered them the kitchen to make supper for themselves.

"Why don't you put the top down on the convertible?" I said.

Elliott thought that was a great idea. So they did, a Scot and a Brit on holiday from New York City cruising along the River Road, top down, snow landing on their caps and their laps, laughing at the cold.

By the time they left on Monday, we’d had a foot of snow, and the Mustang was covered in white. H went down to help them load up and dig out.

“Will you take our picture?” Elliott asked, and he handed H his camera. H took a couple shots with the snowy woods behind them.

Afterward, Nikki stood a few seconds.

“It’s so quiet,” she said.

I hope she tucked that silence somewhere where she can get to it when she returns to the busy flat in New Jersey. If not, there’s always a hush here at Fern Forest, and they’re welcome to a bit of it anytime they’d like to return.

A Celebration of Young Love

2010-12-02T15:58:00.000-08:00

The Treehouse has had guests who’ve brought us gifts—homemade granola, pickles, jellies, English teas. But Elliot and Phyllis are the first guests who brought us ourselves.

We thought they were kidding when they emailed from their house half a mile down Quaker Street and asked if they could book a night in the Treehouse. How silly, I thought. They have a beautiful barn that they could use for a campout. But it was their anniversary and almost Elliot’s birthday, and they didn’t want to make their own breakfast and their own bed. They wanted to be treated.

Sure, I said. But you’d better come check out the ladder to the sleeping loft first. They’re septuagenarians in pretty good shape, but Elliot has tricky knees, and the weather looked to be sloppy—and a bit icy. But Phyllis said, no, they’d brave it. I like that attitude.

Even though they’ve known each other for fifty years, it was their tenth anniversary. They met at a party, but it was crowded and no place to talk. “Meet me in the kitchen at 11:11,” Elliot said. It was November 11. At 11:10 Phyllis wandered into the kitchen, not expecting to find Elliot, but there he was. They chatted. They connected.

One problem: Elliot was engaged to someone else. And Elliot is a man of integrity. He keeps his word.

Elliot married his fiancé. Phyllis got engaged and called off the ceremony two weeks before the wedding date. It didn’t feel right. For a while Elliot kept track of her, calling from time to time but always remaining true to his marriage. Eventually Phyllis married, even though it still didn’t seem right. Then, after twenty years, she ran away from home.

One day she was playing on her computer. Her daughter had taught her to use the internet. Suddenly a box popped up with an instant message: “Is this Phyllis from West Hartford?”

She was living in Cambridge and that morning had taken a jog along the Charles. Oddly, her thoughts had drifted to decades earlier, to Elliot. When the message appeared on the screen, she knew immediately—he had found her.

They were married on November 11, 2000.

There are some people you just know are meant for each other. When you’re with Phyllis and Elliot, you have no doubt. They address each other as “thee.” “Did thee remember thy sweater?” “Would thee like a cup of tea?” They hold hands. They giggle. They are, without doubt, in love.

Elliot, a retired teacher, is a wizard on the computer and a genealogy nut. This year he and Phyllis traveled to Finland to look up some of his relatives and check out his ancestry. Phyllis’s people go all the way back to William Brewster and the Mayflower. H has genealogy charts of both his father’s and mother’s ancestry, his father from Paul Revere and his mother from Robert the Bruce. Like Elliot, my own ancestors are harder to find. But Elliot found a hoard of them.

On both sides of my family, ancestors have been in Virginia since the 1700s. One of my relatives put a book together about my maternal grandmother’s family going back to the 13^th century in Germany. My father’s family is more enigmatic, but it’s their names that are noteworthy. Moody Pack Bryant, Bathsheba, Patience, Nimrod (not the guy who led the building of the Tower of Babel), and my namesake, Grandma Louella.

We spent the evening talking about relatives, looking at pictures, bringing the dead to life. Then we joined them for dinner at the Bobcat and afterward had a nightcap and a little more sleuthing for my rum running relatives and Elliot’s ancestors, who include, according to his source, Robert Frost and Jane Austin. Then they tiptoed out to the treehouse, ready for their midnight adventure.

In the morning H and I rose early, expecting they would come in sleepless and grumpy. H made coffee. I heated up croissants and fried bacon. H made cheese omelets and kept them wrapped in a warm oven. And we waited.

At 8:00 Phyllis bounced in cherry-cheeked with Elliot grinning right behind her. They’d had a wonderful night’s sleep and were delighted to have squirrel visitors skittering over the Treehouse’s tin roof. I had put roses in the Treehouse for them and a gift—a beeswax pinecone candle. “We felt like kids,” Elliot said. “It felt like a celebration,” Phyllis chimed in.

That’s what it’s all about. Staying in a treehouse should make you feel like a kid, a kid with something to celebrate. On the card I left them, I wrote that the gift was in honor of anniversaries and birthdays and friendship. For H and me, that’s plenty of reason for celebration.

A Yard of Tea

2010-12-02T15:33:00.000-08:00

There’s nothing like young love. Treehouse guests Kristin and Justin proved that when they came for an overnight two summers ago on their way from Buffalo to Maine. As they plotted their route from Vermont on circuitous two-lane roads, Justin said, “We’ll get there.” Kristin replied, “I believe in us.”

Her belief paid off. Shortly after their second visit to the treehouse, Justin asked Kristin to marry him. She said yes, of course, because she’s a clever girl. And sweet. And creative. And good looking. They married in a barn in Buffalo with a stuffed fox watching over the nuptials and lots of fun and love showered on them by good friends. Stan, who taught them graphic design at Buffalo State University, officiated the ceremony, and Justin and Kristin thanked him by giving Stan and his wife Diane a couple nights at Fern Forest Treehouse. Stan and Diane were thrilled. So were we.

Meeting Stan and Diane was like watching PBS and the travel channel and reading National Geographic all at the same time. Stan was raised in Afghanistan by missionary parents. His dad was an eye doctor and his mom was a tornado of energy. He’ll pour you a yard of tea the Afghanny way, by holding the teapot a yard above the cup and pouring a stream of tea without spilling a drop. And, with few resources growing up, he figured out how to have a good time with the pile of rubble his father bought from an Afghan man—mostly broken bicycle parts. Stan and his brother sorted through the confusion and constructed not one but three bikes, which they rode around the community.

Stan went to high school in Kabul. After graduation, his parents shipped him to Kansas to live with his grandparents and attend college. The grandparents knew an admissions officer, who allowed Stan to go through the admitted applications. He picked out a pretty brunette and said, “She’s going to be my wife.” Or something along those lines.

The first week of classes, Stan tracked Diane down and wouldn’t leave her alone until she agreed to have coffee with him. The rest is history. But very interesting history. After they married, Stan moved his new bride to Pakistan to teach and save souls. From Pakistan they migrated to far north Quebec and then to Nova Scotia. Somewhere along the line they managed to have two children. I was afraid to ask for the details of giving birth in remote areas with none of the comforts of modern ob-gyn care. Suffice it to say, Diane is a tough cookie.

She lets Stan take the lead most of the time, but we managed to discover that Diane was born and raised in Kansas and comes from Mennonite stock. Mennonites, just so you know, are similar to the Quakers in their commitment to peace and nonviolence and to the Amish and Anabaptists in lifestyle. They believe in living simply and in valuing community. They also are accomplished farmers and brought wheat to the U.S. from Russia sewn in the seams of their clothing. Think of the Mennonites when you have your morning toast.

Diane has the self-composure of her ancestors, the tough-it-out grit that makes one believe she can handle just about any situation and she’ll do it quietly and efficiently. We found Stan and Diane to be a pious and humble couple, but they were up for a challenging hike to the top of Mt. Abe. In the snow. With the boulders slippery with ice and the wind whipping at the top. They came back rosy-cheeked and invigorated for a second night high in the trees.

I think Diane and Stan had a good time at Fern Forest. But, then, they’re the kind of folks who have a good time no matter where they are. If all they have is a pile of rubble, even better. Stan would probably find a way to turn the mess into a motorcycle to ride into the sunset with his bride gripping his waist behind him. They haven’t wasted a minute of this life, and I have a feeling there’s a lot more ground for them to cover. I hope their travels bring them back our way before too long. We welcome another dose of their optimism and ebullient spirits.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T10:07:00.000-08:00

Fern Forest Treehouse has been quiet this late fall. The leaves have fallen and we've had a bit of snow. But now the ground is littered with dry leaves. I like this time of year when I can see deeply into the woods behind the house and study the stone wall for rocks that need rolling back into place. I've still got work to do to clear the gardens before snowfall and will tend to that after today's holiday.

On this Thanksgiving H and I are grateful for all the folks who have shared their lives with us over the last year and a half. You hail from Germany, Thailand, Australia, England, France, Sweden, El Salvador, Canada, Panama, Portugal, Turkey, Afghanistan, India, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and all across the United States. You are musicians, social workers, neuroscientists, athletes, college professors, artists, computer programmers, opera singers, health care workers, environmentalists, architects, psychotherapists, organic farmers, publishers, and business people. We've learned a lot from your stories and we cherish your friendship.

The treehouse doesn't sleep just because the bears hibernate. Oh, no. December is hopping. The heat's on and the wood stove is warm and cozy. Come visit to ski or snowshoe. Afterward, we'll make some cocoa or hot toddies and play a game of Chinese checkers or just chat.

We're heading to a friend's house for the Thanksgiving feast, and it's time to take the pie out of the oven. H and I wish you all the warmth and joy of the season and send you our blessings.