In the morning I awake to tendrils of cold pushing through invisible cracks at the edges of the window sash above my head. Even with the outside air hushed and still – the limbs of the trees unruffled, the wide expanse of sky parked in place like a stolid, immovable stone – the cold feels driven, as if exhaled from the depths of lungs hidden deep in the earth or lurking behind the granite facade of that overly serious sky. The cat dozes by my head. He has two teeth, a pair of rheumy eyes, and an assortment of scabs that I try not to pick at. He’s 16 but I’m thinking I can squeeze another five years out of him. Well. Four, anyway.
You’re wondering where I’ve been. Or maybe you’re not, but if you were, fair enough. And if you were wondering, my apologies for the disappearing act. It wasn’t planned but as time went on, I found that it only got easier and easier to remain mute, as if silence were a muscle that gets stronger with use. And maybe it is. A friend reminds me of something I said to him years ago, back when I was fat with words, smug and satisfied in my productivity. The more you write, the more you write, is what he says I said, and I’m pretty sure that what I was trying to articulate is that the more you write, the more you’re inclined to write, there’s momentum to it and maybe habituation to the pleasure of putting words together in particular ways. And if it’s true that the more you write, the more you write, it only stands to reason that the less you write, the less you write Until you’re writing nothing at all.
Silent or not, life moves on. I meet a woman – a mother, a librarian, a writer with a wit as quick and sharp as lightning and a laugh that somehow reminds me of rain on a roof though it sounds nothing like that at all – and move 50 miles south into a farmhouse at the end of a dirt road in the steep hills outside a town that seems large to me only because with 1200 residents it’s six times the size of the one I left. I bury one of my cats amidst the intertwined roots of a sugar maple after he goes outside to lie in the sun and doesn’t get up. I fly west to visit my son and early one morning we drive into a small town so he can pick up some horseshoes because he has some horses to shoe. Not for the first time (and surely not for the last) I see how the arc of his life has broken into its own orbit and that whatever gravitational pull this boy feels (if at 21 he feels any at all) is not one I can – or even should – try to influence. Then my other son heads west, too, and I guess I didn’t even realize (stupid! stupid! stupid!) how profoundly this would shake me, these two men whose small, slippery bodies I used to bathe in a tin tub by the wood stove before pressing them against my chest to sleep, now launching into their lives with hardly a glance in the rearview to see how their old man is accommodating to their absence. Good Lord. Kids these days. No manners at all.
But that invisible cold. So familiar. So insistent. I lie in bed letting it drift over me. Thinking to myself that even though everything changes, some things do indeed remain the same.
I’ve read a lot of good books over the past year, but none better than this one, by my fellow Vermonter Nathaniel Miller. I highly recommend it.
I’ve listened to a lot of good music over the past year, and I’m particularly enjoying this song by the Delines. Slightly different vibe, but also loving the Droptines a whole lot.
Finally, I’m hosting a book discussion on one of my all time favorite books, The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks Dalton (who also lives in VT if I’m remembering correctly), this coming Monday, 3/23, at the Chelsea Public Library through the Vermont Humanities Vermont Reads program. You should come.
Ben Hewitt 
Great to read your words again!
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Glad to read your stuff again. Please check in with your fans now and then. I am sure that I am not the only that has missed you postings.
Thanks for the update, Ben. Crazy, right, how kids pull us through this wide arc of life in one big whiplash move. My little one whom I had to carry through some canyons in Vermont in 2016, is now leading multipitch rock climbs, hooking in my carabiners and checking climbing gear and hold me in his hands while I ascend the rock or descend dangling into a canyon. It’s a surreal feeling to have your kid hold your life in your hands. But maybe they always did.
Good to see you are doing well and your sons too.
Good to read your words again though they seem a bit sad. Sadness that seems to spread across everyone these days.
Surprised to see a post from you Ben, but good surprised. Good to read your writing again, and even if you haven’t been doing much of it, it still almost made me tear up. My Poppy is 13 and riding horses better than me, which makes me proud and happy, but I also find myself looking at photos of little her and wishing I had a little more of that time back. We’re still loosey-goosey homeschooling, so we’ll see how it turns out – she might move out West too!
So wonderful for you to be “back in the saddle.” I was guessing Tunbridge, but Chelsea is close enough. May see you at the library. That book was awesome. Thanks for the recommendations.
Always enjoy your writing, Ben! Hope you’re working on a new book about all that’s changed and all that hasn’t in your life.
Welcome back! It’s good to hear an update.
so good to read you again. You were such an inspiration to homeschool my kids so many years ago!! Thank you for these poetic words.
Thanks for the life update Ben🙂 been missing your inspiring words! Take it easy.
well said Sir
I was wondering where you were and what you were doing. I love your books and you didn’t sound great in your last post. I am sorry that your boss left New England (like I did) but maybe they will move back (as I also did). Good luck with your new lady in your new place!
So welcome!
missed you!
So nice to see your essay pop up in my mailbox! I do so enjoy your writing. I’m glad to hear you’ve met someone and that your boys are doing well. They may someday understand a parent’s ambivalence about their moving off on their own. I do hope you are enjoying life in the “big city”:) Happy Spring to you!
No pressure, but you words lead you to more words, I for one will appreciate reading your thoughts more regularly again. No pressure.
nice to read your words again. I have read two of your books over the years and followed your homesteading journey. I am a single mom, tried to raise my son more frugally, no car, cargo bike commuting, backyard garden eating, farmers markets, the one of two big vacations we had together was a week at hollyhock on Cortez island when he was two. Now he is a 20 year old man who made a lot of money designing Roblox games during the pandemic and is now going to school in Tempe Arizona. I hope he has retained some lessons and ways of environmental, mindful living. Doesn’t seem like it so far.
So glad you are back!!!!! Bette O’Connor
Ben – I wake up on this St. Patrick’s Day to see this post, the first after a long absence that left a void for me and many others. The joy I feel quickly evolves into stronger emotion that is both physical and cerebral. My eyes well up at how good it is to read your words again. I’ve missed them deeply. Welcome back!!! — For me, this past year has been a roller coaster beginning with the loss of my wife’s older son and then her sister. Both good humans. — My odometer hit 75 but, despite the nuisance ailments that come with age, I think I’m fine. Lucky. I can still operate a light switch! — I’m glad that you’re not on substack as it is inaccessible here in China and I can reply. — Wishing you a happy St. Patty’s Day. Thank you from my heart for writing again! Stay well. Looking forward to your next post. – Tom Gorton
Another one saying good to hear from you.
There is a small group of bloggers from what I’d consider the heyday who post less and less often, myself included. Always a joy to hear from you, and them, however intermittently.
So wonderful to read your words as they land in my inbox on the East Coast of Canada. Glad your writing called you back. And I laughed out loud to the “good lord” comment. Looking forward to more laughing and a few deep dives into your shared thoughts.
I just thought of you the other day and wondered where you had gone!!! Great to read you again!!!
we’re watching our third (of four) leave the nest this week – adventure bound to a city 2000 km from here – a full day on a plane or four to drive, and the ache I feel in the intercostal spaces in my body is tender and raw. When our firstborn left, five yrs ago now the ache was grippy and frenetic, like a howling in the night where we couldn’t quite find our feet beneath us. This one feels softer somehow – not quite contained but we’re more prepared for the storm. Anyway – I feel it too, this shift in time – I liken a play wherein the kids are the main characters in our show but we simply the bit actors in theirs….
it was so lovely to read your writing again. I 100% understand the quietness. I turn into myself exclusively now really. I’m full time carer to my disabled son, and we have 4 children. My eldest also have T1 diabetes. We lead such a complex isolated life. Although, sometimes I do try to write down the nice moments. Trying to anyway. It would be great if I could send you my few paragraphs to read? Sometimes it does help to write and write and write. And read and read and read. I do a lot of reading. Im very happy youre back! You describe all quiet thoughts so accurately Heidi
Ellen Ford New email: ellenford61@gmail.com
It’s always a good day when a post from you lands in my inbox! I have wondered how and what you were doing over this last year and am glad to read of your adventures and those of your boys. I sense hope in those words and selfishly look forward to reading them more often…maybe…? My boys are now almost 14 and almost 15 and I am so grateful for the reassurance of your writing when they were little. We can never be sure of everything but I do know we’ve chosen the right path for us. I continue to recommend your books to anyone who will listen and read through them from time to time. I glean something different every time. Be well!
I didn’t realize how much I missed your beautiful words. Thanks for coming back to us.
Glad to see you Ben, what a treat! Once your boys sow their wild oats, there is a good chance they’ll come around and worship the ground you walk on – just wait and see! Now of course someone went and snagged you up, I bet you’ve been the catch of the mountain for some time:) It’s wild times out in the world, but you are a good man & we love hearing from you, whenever you feel like talking:)
Ben, it’s good to read you again! I have missed your wonderful descriptions and thought-provoking phrases. Life does get away from us, doesn’t it. If I remember right, we both are 1971 vintage, but my kids are a bit older than yours. It’s really surreal to look at those confident adults we once protected so fiercely as little ones and tried our darnedest to teach them what they would need to know to survive in this world. I often wonder how it is that I find myself the mom of 30-somethings and one that will be 29 in a half year. Not to mention being a grandma of 10 now!
So nice to hear your voice again!
Like many here, I am glad to think on your thoughts. I hope for you and your people all good things. I feel your words deeply for some reason. From the cold air sneaking in the sealed window, to both your cats, to the maybe, rightness yet wrongness of our small ones, making their way independent of us.
Live well Ben
Kris springer