I just need to take a minute to talk about how crazy it is here.
Everything is different, and everything is also the same. All around me, all we Vermonters can do is point: this was my house; this used to be a road; here is where my restaurant used to be; now the river is flowing here, through where my back yard once was. Every river rose, and every brook, and almost every single one of these rivers and brooks rose higher than it ever had before. We lost a lot, and most of all we lost the familiarity of our own geography; we are turned topsy-turvy. Even our dreams (or my dreams, anyway) have taken on a different tone; one where every stream is a lurking menace, every rainfall a pattering terror.
That said, we’re coping admirably. We’re getting down to it, building roads, turning ruined crops under, saving what we can. For every covered bridge destroyed, there’s a farmer’s market rebuilt. For every lost home, a heroic treetop rescue. For every missing life, another born amidst the deluge. Vermonters, for all their faults, know how to push through. As (should-be poet laureate) Verandah Porche writes, “
