Start at the beginning.

I’m often asked about our Vermont years - how did we end up living so rurally, on a farm, after growing up in suburban Boston. 

As I remember, it started innocently with the Sunday Boston Globe job section. I was 28 years old, eight months pregnant with our first child, and we wanted out of suburbia.   As born and bred Bostonians, we were ready for a change.  Ready for a place to truly call “our” home.  To put down our own roots.  To raise our child in our own way.  To blaze our own path.  

First the interview.  I remember my husband telling me he’d probably be back in time for dinner, he was convinced the trip to a small dental office in a little southwestern Vermont town was most likely a waste of time, but a day in the country, looking at the fall leaves and, at the very least, a day away from a job he wasn’t enjoying.

I desperately wanted to go, but I was still working full time and was counting down the days until my maternity leave.  This was 1992, so no cell phones.  If I needed him, or went into labor, luckily my parents were just a few miles away.  I remember how comforting that was, and pushed from my mind what it would be like to leave them.  Because, of course, it would never happen.

Although we had no children, we did have lots to care for.  Two kittens and a year old Husky/Shepherd puppy, all rescued within the first year of our marriage.  The winds of change were about to blow right in our front door.

As it turned out, my husband loved the job opportunity — both of us were shocked and I remember choking back fear.  I mean, we’re about to have a baby, we couldn’t really move away.  Could we? Two weeks later, interview number one become interview number two, and then a job offer.  Just like that.  The old “be careful what you wish for . . .it just might come true.”   I’d still not seen this sleepy little town of Bennington, Vermont.  I was now much too pregnant to be away, and I was fully in “nesting” mode.  I only wanted to be home.  I’d painted the nursery a light lavender, and put a Laura Ashley Hey Diddle Diddle border all the way around.  I’d painted a little dresser white and lavender, with matching knobs.  I’d had a baby shower with friends and family, an co-workers.  All I could think about was bringing this new life into the world.  And now we were moving….