CT→VT: Our move, part 1

'Why I went to the woods'

(well, not to "the woods," actually; it's more 

like farmland, though there are some woods nearby,

and a bit of swamp, too, but we don't live in that).

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close..."

- Henry David Thoreau.

Umm... Yeah, I suppose some of that applies to our situation. For example, I DO always shave close! I sort of also sympathize with Thoreau's philosophical objection to living "what was not life" - the set of rules imposed on individual existence by outside forces. And my wife and I do sincerely share Thoreau's desire for a simpler, more deliberate existence..., as long as all the essential elements - you know, Internet, cellphone signal, good TV reception - remain readily available. (By the way, Thoreau only mentioned much later on that his family home was just a couple of miles away from his "sturdy and Spartan-like" existence in "the woods." What a wuss!)

I'm sorry to report that is the extent of my agreement with Thoreau. You see, I'm not much of a marrow-sucker. By that, I mean that I'm not the kind of person who seeks out all the raw and exciting natural experiences. I'm sure there are plenty of those experiences in Vermont - I just read about a guy who shot and killed a 500-pound bear in his backyard down in Pownal - but that's not what I'm looking for. Despite my surname, I don't hunt. I don't mountain-climb or hike or go boating or even ski. I tend to avoid anything that looks in any way interesting. Boring is just fine for me. And it may be fair to say that our move from Connecticut to Vermont in the summer of 2012 was, at least in part, a quest for ultimate boredom.

I'll get into explaining some of that in Part 2, which will be posted as soon as I think of what to write and have the time to actually write it. I imagine what I've written so far is enough for an introductory Part 1. So that's all you get for now.