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Vermont Semester
A 600 Mile Journey By Ski ande Canoe (January-June 2004)

6 June, 2004

Hellooo, friendly people and interested members of the community!

This last week, our second to last week before graduation, has been a hectic one, no denying it, and as our time together grows shorter and our to do list grows longer, I am ashamed to admit that, like any other school year, I am simultaneously dreading and awaiting graduation. Awaiting because it will mean that all loose ends will either have been tied up or forgotten, and also graduation will mean the beginning of the rest of my life, but at the same time dreading because I have spent over five months with people and with a lifestyle that I love, and because I'm not sure that I have enough direction yet to know where this life will lead me.

That said, we've all spent this first week of June drawing ourselves closer and closer to the termination of our expedition whatever that means. Since the update last week we've spent a good bit of our time doing Main Lesson Pages, wrapping up our Big Jobs and preparing to present them to the group tomorrow (Monday),preparing for our exhibition yesterday at the Connecticut River Festival, and for our 7:00 performance at the Hooker Dunham Theater in Brattleboro a week from today (Sunday the 13th). Make a strongly recommended reservation by calling Leslie Turpin at (802) 387-5694.

On Tuesday, aside from our routine academics, we started sewing our moccasins and did some major catching up on Group Journal Pages. Wednesday we spent the morning with Rebecca working on our Main Lesson Book covers, got a bread making lesson also from Rebecca (as had been scheduled but never executed most days in January), and drove into Brattleboro for a pizza dinner (4 pizzas, 11 people, zero leftovers), and soft serve ice cream afterwards.

We had a very interesting time in town at the pizza place. We had agreed to ask for nothing that would come with throw-away accessories, and spent a long time trying to convince the manager that it would not be a problem to serve the pizzas in the super-hot aluminum pan from whence they came. We finally accepted our cardboard pizza things (do they even have a name?), appreciating the greasy cheesyness of our meal as if we hadn't had pizza in five months. I could have eaten another half pizza without regret. We requested a paper napkin moratorium on our Ice Cream cones and emerged napkin free, cone in hand. Ahhh

On Thursday Chris and Ashirah left for Martha's Vineyard to attend Chris's sister's wedding and to bring back some wedding table munchies. Mathias also began spending less time with us (although he's still around), Rebecca left for Cape Cod, and so we were left on somewhat of a Base Camp group solo, only occasionally meeting with Misha or Mathias to talk logistics and think about our performance. We did invite Mathias to dinner for Saul's birthday, though.

We again sojourned into Brattleboro, this time to check out the Hooker Dunham Theater, to post fliers for our impending performance, and to pick up a copy of the Friday paper with a photo and article on us. Another Vermont Public Radio story about our expedition may be broadcast sometime soon, too, so keep your ears peeled and un-muffled.

Yesterday, Jane's birthday, we spent all day at the Wilder Picnic Area and again on the Connecticut River as part of the Conneticut River Festival. We paddled the Kasha, in all her freshly varnished glory, upstream to the beginning of the flotilla, drifted for a while next to a pontoon boat full of contra dancers and a small band, and then headed downstream, our Earth flag flapping in the breeze we were creating, slowly leading the loose knit flotilla of canoes, kayaks and old wooden boats past a rowdy bunch of canoe- and row boat-bound pirates, who suddenly became quite skittish when we brandished our two metal-shod setting poles, to our display and winter expedition tent at the festival grounds. We spent the remainder of the day explaining what we have been up to these past months. It also served as a good time for us to reflect on our experiences and to practice articulating what we know but can't say cohesively. When you spend all your time living a life it is hard to take a step back and try to see it from the perspective of someone in a different space from the one we're in. There were other people at the fair, however, who shared our mindset and with whom it was thrilling to make connections. Bonna, the festival organizer, was one person we connected strongly to. She spent many years in the Alaskan bush and now devotes her time to helping young people connect with the outdoors, and seemed as excited with what we are doing as we are. The other cool dude we reconnected with was Peter, who we'd met originally as the "Bulk Humorist" at the Hanover Co-op as we were paddling downstream, and who now spends his time driving around to different stores and picking up their rejected produce which he then redistributes throughout the community for donations. He gave us a mango, nectarines, tomatoes, apples, a melon, a box of cherries, kale, bell peppers - I'll say it again: Ahhh.

That evening we celebrated this string of two birthdays in 48 hours with fresh fruit the whole way home from the festival, and brownies back at our camp in Newfane just before bed (yes, mom, I brushed my teeth).

So that's been our week. Today we've been working on Big Job work for our presentations to the group tomorrow, and also on Main Lesson Pages and the Hooker Dunham performance a week from now.

In the same way that I have been struck so many times on this trip that something is coming to an end, or has just ended, or is about to begin, I am again feeling those familiar nervous twitches as we pull into the final week (yes, only 8 days until graduation). I guess now is the time, more than ever, to live in the Now and to put Heart into everything the group does. Now is the last chance I have to enjoy what we've spent five and one half months working towards: being a member of this group, living with this group, and playing my part in this grand Nutrition Play of life.

For the Vermont Semester Program,
Evan Griffith