From Rain Dodging 32-33.
Jesse was then fifteen, a gifted and passionate dancer attending a two-week summer workshop at Bates College in Maine. Upon her workshop’s end, I flew into Manchester, New Hampshire, checked out the lovely University of New Hampshire in picturesque Durham, and drove north to Lewiston, Maine, where I watched Jesse’s performance. Afterward, I whisked her away to the next destination: debate camp at the University of Vermont in Burlington, four hours west. My little go-getter! Following her drop-off in Burlington, I had two weeks to scout out New England graduate programs in English for me.
On the night drive to Burlington, Jesse read her summer reading choice by flashlight. I delighted that Wuthering Heights delighted her.
Damn, I love my girlie.
My five-part plan:
1. Travel from Burlington through Vermont and New Hampshire’s Green and White Mountains.
2. Take picturesque Route 2 through the Maine woods to check out the University of Maine.
3. Proceed to its coast and explore! Eat lobster.
4. Ferry to Nova Scotia, then Prince Edward Island just for adventure.
5. Head back to Burlington.
As she raved about Emily Brontë’s genius, I chugged lousy convenience store coffee and watched for deer, known for darting across Vermont’s low-lying I-89.
Next morning, after a Staples pit stop, I delivered Jesse to the university.
An hour after leaving Jesse, I found the magical road up to Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English in Vermont’s Green Mountains. Bread Loaf was so named for the gently arresting mountain over the next ridge north from the mountaintop campus, the same campus where Robert Frost held court for years, before his death in 1963.
After my first day on the road, I journaled:
Today was thrilling, although I tired late-afternoon. The drive from Middlebury up to Bread Loaf brought tears to my eyes, with the smell of fresh pine and log fires and the rush of water over the rocky Middlebury River, which followed the winding road up the mountain.
At Ripton’s Country Store, I told the clerk I would be back.
Next : The Robert Frost Interpretive Forest, a spiritual experience. I walked across a grove of pine needles to the commemorative plaque. Complete calm. Serenity. Contemplation. Standing, I had a moment of mindfulness before reluctantly returning to my car.
I did return and thrived in the Bread Loaf community,
