From ‘A Wedding in Vermont’ Part One

Note: In our time, the right to be legally married is so weighted with importance. This wasn’t the case in the mid 60s and on when couples more had the attitude ‘why bother?’. So I began to wonder, what difference does a marriage ceremony actually make, if any? Slowly the story of four different women and their relationships started to take shape (and place!) in my imagination. 

Far up in the hills of Vermont there’s a place that’s calling, a place known by the family it’s belonged to for decades as ‘The Land’. Nature and the environment are both wild and tamed. For the time being, at least.

On all who have the good fortune to stay or be invited, the Land has its effect. To get there you follow a rutted dirt road. The way is winding, often bumpy, sometimes steep. After climbing steadily for a fraction over four miles, your car bumps to a stop in a gravel turning circle. Out you climb. You take a deep breath, your gaze resting on  a couple of hummocky fields. An orchard forms the upper border, graces the lower slopes of the hills with old apple trees. Farther up, a forest mix of evergreens and deciduous trees reaches higher and higher.

     Arriving is its own reward.

     If you can get there.

… read more in Excerpts/ …