Rainy Day Christmas

It’s the middle of Christmas Day, just after watching an afternoon movie with John and the girls, but before starting to make dinner and opening presents. The rain has tempered down to a drizzle and it’s warm enough to open the windows a little to hear the sounds outside. No, there’s no snow, but the sky is at least being weathery, and the raindrops look like tiny crystals hanging from the courtyard tree branches. I love it.

I started this holiday long weekend with a list of projects I thought I wanted to catch up on and a shortlist of to-dos, but I realized how ridiculous that seemed when I woke up yesterday. Instead, I am knitting. Last night we watched Netflix’s A Boy Called Christmas, and the main character spends pretty much all his screen time in a simple hand-knit red scarf that reminded me of the white one my Mom knitted for me when I was a kid. It inspired me to dig through boxes to find my old needles and some yarn.

I haven’t done any knitting in a LONG time, and my skills only included casting on and knitting & purling, but I unraveled the start of a decades-old project that I still kept because, well, that beautiful yarn!— and I’ve been gobbling up YouTube tutorials this weekend. So fun. I am happy to say that I don’t even know what time it is right now. I love days like that!

I hope that wherever you’re spending your Christmas weekend you’re with those you love, be they people or pets or both, and that you’re finding time to lose track of time too.

Merry Christmas!
~ Claudia

Long Before

We returned yesterday from our Thanksgiving week with my brother and his wife just outside Asheville, North Carolina. While there we counted up the years, and with the exception of a gap when my parents were too debilitated to travel, my family has rented the same house in the mountains for the last 17 years. As always, it was a great time. On the way down we stopped to visit my new friend Leah at her farm in Tennessee and got to meet her daughter as well as goats, horses, a dog and a cat, and Captain Jack Sparrow, the mini donkey.

We didn't travel with Miss Hazel this year as she never seemed to enjoy being there, spending most of her time holed up under the dresser. Instead, we brought Zora (our new kitten-friend who showed up in our lives over the summer) but I think Miss Hazel must have left her instructions because she rarely left the toasty spot next to the radiator under a nightstand.

We went on walks, worked on a puzzle, read books by the fireplace, cooked delicious meals (my brother's lasagna!), hot tubbed on the deck, and made the yearly trip to Malaprops, one of my favorite book shops. Best of all, we were together.

It's been my brother's dream to find land on this mountain and build the house that my father designed for him years ago. He and his wife have been searching for the right spot in much the same way that John and I have been in Vermont. While our journeys aren’t intentionally similar, they nonetheless feel connected by the roots of our family history— time spent here in Asheville at Thanksgivings, and for us in Vermont, the "coincidence" of finding land in the little town where my parents honored their own dreams by buying a tiny piece of property before I was even born.

I love that my brother and I are both on a search to find "home" on land that is meaningful to us. There is something about the idea of putting down roots in a place that has already grown into your bones, as though it's been part of your future long before you knew it would be.

A Place Called Home

I keep looking at this photo, knowing it's the news I want to share the most after such a long time away from writing: John and I are in contract for this beautiful piece of land — 10 acres of field and forest and that weathered old barn — in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. If all goes well this will be the view out our window in 4-ish years.

I lived with my family in Vermont on and off for over a decade, albeit on the other side of the state, and though my parents aren't there anymore, when I go back to visit the mountains still feel like home. After John hiked the entire Long Trail four years ago he knew that it felt like the right place for him too.

Last Thanksgiving I swirled down a Zillow rabbit hole, favoriting properties just for fun, but then over the winter it became a serious hunt. I love my life in Columbus but John and I know it isn't where we want to be forever; our dream is to build a little house on a piece of land with a view of stars and the sound of wind in the trees. A place where your ears don't have filter out background noise to get to the quiet.

Yes, there is an entire world of other places we could have chosen. My heart sings in big sky country, in the desert, at the sea. Why go back to a state I’ve lived in already? Why not go somewhere new? There are all kinds of things that I could name as reasons: I'm a New England girl, I still have friends there, I love all the snow. But in the end the decision is a simple one: it just feels right going back to the place I once called home.

(Plus, well, maple trees, maple syrup, maple sugar candy, maple creemees…)