(A love letter to Vermont, from a Hardwick girl holding still for a moment before the world pulls again.)
My life has never followed a straight line.
It bent.
It wandered.
Still, it brought me back.
Not by accident.
Vermont called me home.
In the Northeast Kingdom, the land does not rush.
Elevation holds it’s shape.
Weather takes its time. The mountains are rugged,
but they are gentle with those who learn their pace.
Here, quiet is not empty. It is full of wind,
water moving over stone, long mornings and early dark.
Even when I left,
this place did not loosen its grip.
It waited. I grew up in these hills; mud season,
wood smoke
cold mornings that wake the body.
A child of slow change and honest weather.
The mountains knew my name before I understood it.
Vermont did not forget me.
It waited for me
to remember myself.
Now, at the edge of evening, light settles into the fields.
For a moment, I am relieved.
Grateful to avoid the world still out there,
finding new names for old places, moving closer, learning the roads.
But here, for now, the land holds me
the way it always has.
Gina M. Sandoval
Saratoga Springs, NY
Gina M. Sandoval grew up in Hardwick and went through Hardwick Elementary School, though she didn’t graduate from Hazen Union High School.
