Commentary Series

When invited to offer a devotional at the Vermont State Legislature this year, I thought about how lately most every headline I read seems to carry a potentially lethal dose of venom. So I decided to present a love poem to devotion to even up the score a bit.

A lot has changed since Act 250, Vermont’s state land use law, was first passed in 1970. At the time, the legislature and governor worried that the recently completed interstate highway would bring an influx of new residents and second home owners. They believed that unless they created rules to control growth, Vermont’s rural landscape would be destroyed.

Teachers, family members, employers - and in fact almost anyone who interacts with other people - have more power than they can imagine, to hurt or to support, and most of the time we’re unaware of the effect we have on others. So I was astonished when a former student contacted me out of the blue to tell me that in going through her father’s papers she’d found reports from when she attended Brattleboro Union High School.

My private college tuition in 1968 was $2,800, 50 years later it’s $50,000. Meanwhile, state support for public colleges has diminished and educational value has changed both for better and for worse.

Pelvic health is a critical, and underappreciated, component of women’s health. But the pelvis - where our organs of sexuality, procreation, digestion, and elimination converge - is deeply private, and many women endure pain or problems without access to diagnosis or treatment – because nobody wants to admit to dysfunction in any of these systems.

I was dismayed but not surprised to see the third Women’s March on Washington fracture over political differences. With accusations of anti-Semitism and other biases flying, women opted out of the march in droves.

We’re not the only state to claim our own fifth season. Here it’s Mud Season. In Alaska, the big melt is called Spring Break Up. But whatever the name, this transition from winter to spring signals a reconnecting to the land.

I'm a news hound. So it's not surprising that I've been thinking a lot lately about walls. I'm also a poet with a deep love of history, and to me, walls are symbols that speak of exclusion and threat. And I’m not alone. Over the centuries, countless poets have pondered the value and fate of history's many walls.

I’ve always been puzzled by the anti-vaccine movement. As a former health care reporter in Maine and Vermont, I interviewed parents who declined to immunize their children. They struck me as generally well-meaning but misinformed when they insisted that the health risks of vaccinations outweighed the benefits, even when faced with scientific evidence to the contrary.

Unlike many who flock to ski resorts, I’ve always balked at the price of lift tickets as well as the crowds. Memories from childhood sitting on a chairlift while getting battered by the wind, and then ice skating down a steep slope also haven’t helped. So early in adulthood I learned the joys of cross- and back-country skiing, which allow me to fly through the woods under my own power.

All of the plastic manufactured since Bakelite debuted during the Depression still litters the earth. The world is choking on an invention that’s barely a century old.

Of the many story-lines developing in the Vermont Legislature this session, one of the most interesting is the appointment of Curt McCormack as chair of the House Transportation Committee – because Representative McCormack doesn’t own a car.

One of the most enduring fables about our first president, George Washington, is that he could not tell a lie about cutting down that cherry tree.

Rumors had been flying for months, but now it’s official. Green Mountain College is closing its doors at the end of this semester.

A few days ago, my child came home from school dismayed that two kids from her class had made fun of her doing the floss.

The other day I came across a pamphlet published by the Ford Motor Company in 1954 with little essays describing tours you could take on the roads of New England — Ford’s way of getting people out driving their cars.

Whenever I drive the interstate after a heavy snowfall, I scan roadside maples and oaks for perched raptors, grimly hunched and staring at the highway — a redtail or a Cooper’s hawk, perhaps; or maybe an immature bald eagle, as brown as dirt and big as a grocery bag.

Mary Oliver is gone at age 83 – and I feel like I’ve lost a friend, a soulmate, a walking companion.

In November, Montpelier voters overwhelming approved a change to the city’s charter that would allow non-US citizens to vote. As Montpelier’s City Clerk, I helped petition originator Roberta Garland bring it to a vote and now it's gone to the legislature for debate and perhaps, approval.