Spicer's Mill

Spicer's Mill - a tiny nook and cranny village in the shadow of the the Green Mountains in Vermont - was near deserted on the day I passed through. It was a Sunday in late September, leaves were already well turned to red and gold, and the air was clean and crisp. The shops along Main Street were shuttered but their display windows were filled with color and light - come Monday you would be able to buy a working spinning wheel, a handmade quilt, ribboned boxes of maple sugar candy or tins of syrup, an original painting or sketched notecards, beaded bags, wind chimes, scented sachets or hand crafted copper jewelry. You'd be able to take a carriage ride along the river in a covered buggy or hear a barbershop quartet by the Town Hall just after supper or drive to the edge of the village and see the stone mill and the water mill grinding away - best of all, there was an old fashioned soda shoppe with a candy striped canopy and a genuine soda fountain with an antique bookstore right next door. It was like falling into a time tunnel and waking up fifty years in the past and it made me remember how often I'd wondered if I hadn't been born into the wrong circumstances and in the wrong century.

I spent the night at a bed and breakfast, slept in an old four poster bed with a lace coverlet, woke to a perfect fall day with sunshine streaming through the sheer curtains and was back on the road by eight. I could've chosen the interstate but kept to the back roads instead, wanting to hold onto the sense of the past as long as I could. I passed dairy farms and green valleys, herds of grazing cows and sunlit pastures, crop fields and roadside produce stands selling tomatoes and pumpkins. Life in the country is hard, uncomplicated, serenely routine.

The Portsmouth skyline came into view just before dark and by eight I was home. The little log cabin atop the mountain was dark and quiet with wisps of smoke coming from the chimney. There would be no confrontation this night, I thought gratefully - and it was too soon to think about tomorrow - I quieted the dogs, added logs to the fire and curled up in the guest room, still thinking about Spicer's Mill and already planning my next temporary escape.

Geography was never my best subject, probably why it took me so long to catch on to the basics - a change of scenery may change the view but it's never an answer. It turns out that Spicer's Mill and other places like it were just different views of the same sunset.

I still can't name all the states on a map and although it's a different time zone, it's still the same sunset - I just see it through different eyes.