All I Want to do is Write and Take Photographs

I dream of Vermont when there were no doggy parks.

I fantasize that we have a legislature that lowers our taxes and does not put us in servitude.I am tired of being a chamber maid for my Airbnb clients and spending whatever I make for taxes, heating, electricity and vacations for bureaucrats. I want to take pictures and write dribble like this.

I wish I were 60 again. No Coumadin, no make-you- pee-all-the time-pills, no testosterone patches, BUT … I don’t have to think of sex all day long.

I am depressed at being broke, and seeing my photography business as I practiced it for 30 years crumble under greedy ceo’s of photo distribution companies, and of the digital revolution. I am tired of the high costs of Vermont.

I am perplexed at the new Vermonters who come to our state to escape but carry their state in a sack on their back and want to duplicate it here.I am fearful of the businessmen from out of state and other countries and the large number of lobbyists working Montpelier.

I lament the destruction of our mountain tops, to become platforms for wind turbines.

I hate the cutting of 80 foot trees and destruction of hay fields to be replaced by developments, chain restaurants and motels , a conglomerate of ugliness which, with planning, doesn’t have to be. There is a lack of taste in this new Vermont.

I puzzle why the cost of education increases at the same time our student enrollment declines.

I am sorry for those who can’t afford to live in Vermont and have moved to more friendly states… but not that sorry!

I feel bad for our villages that are not allowed to control the growth and beauty of their township.

I abhor the loss of our rural culture, the sense that we have to be molded into a number and tethered to the internet. And be politically correct.

I wonder why land is posted, whether it is showing off ownership, or dislike of the Vermont tradition of hunting.

I dread waking up at 3 AM and worry what is happening to me, my friends, my state and country.

I love hearing a Vermonter tell a story and so enjoy the accent.

I miss the smell of fields shit kicked in the spring and the song of the peepers.

I dislike the smugness I find so often at social events attended by the politically correct.

I love watching the wind move the leaves on my locust trees, dancing to the flow of wind, and I admire the beauty of my ash—so elegant— clothed or naked.

There is so much I love about Vermont, and so much I see that is destroying this sense of Vermont that curls and eddies through our valleys and floats within our ridges. I wish I had a place to live where I could see within my Vermont, and keep a dog or cat that would not be run over, and hunt and fish a bit, but most of all think, write and take pictures…to walk in beauty.