When I was starting to be a teacher the summer after graduating from college, I felt quite unmoored. Not only had I never really wanted to be a teacher, never taken education courses that were about teaching, never been in a classroom, but also I was starting my foray into a world I grew to love with a very challenging demographic: “disaffected” middle school kids – more on that in a later post.

Now as I am in the summer before starting my new career as a writer, I am feeling similarly unprepared for what this life will be like. Ben and I are spending a great deal of our time in Vermont before September when he will be once again immersed in all things Nobles, and I will enter life as writer/tutor/volunteer/who-knows-what.

These next few months will be about figuring that out and enjoying the lucky life we lead in Vermont.

Here’s what Ben does a lot (cuts down branches, small trees, and weed whacks stuff):

Here’s what we see from our deck (Ben’s office) sometimes:

I like what Flannery O’Connor said so succinctly, “I write to discover what I know.” The writing in this space may be a way for me to figure out where I go as a writer, what I know.

But as a good friend and fine art teacher told me, remember to add images…