Opinion

If you remember the first time you heard the word “Holocaust” and it was with your dad in the car on the way home from Hebrew school and you were ten years old, then maybe you would understand.

Did you read the Iliad and get upset by the sex slavery that wasn't touched on in your english lessons? Did you read the Odyssey and notice how nearly every woman was spun into a homewrecker, a succubus.

My ideal library would be on a beach in Maine. The library would be in the stone wall that separates the grass from the sand.

    There might be nothing I hope for more than the ability to hold balance in life. Monetary balance, career balance, and personal balance.

WEEK 13 (Dec. 5-10)
Hope: What is something that you really, really hope for – now or in the future? Why is it so important to you?

“Is it possible to protect everything that matters to you?”

The world is nothing but a monstrous sea of grey. To reside in black and white, as I once did, is to numb the human experience and resist the inevitable questioning of belief. 
 

Swirling colors fill the air,
People laughing, filled with cheer
Boats come and go along the pier,
The happiness here has no compare

Across the world in the North,
Polar bears lumber on the ice
While fish shimmer and entice

Looking out over the verdant Vermont foliage, the hillsides dappled in shades of gold and rust, I wonder, "Who will be the last to feel a fall breeze?" As the winters grow warmer and the summer more intense, spring and autumn drift into memory.

Looking up at the sun, shining through the fire-tipped leaves above me, I realize that this will never happen again. This moment, the present for such a short time, will be the past before any of us can blink.

Review excerpted from charvermont's Summer 2021 Book List

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Nonfiction)