Listen
“Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.” Parker Palmer
Winter in Vermont was cold and white. It seemed as if the snow began falling the moment I crossed the border from New York and didn’t stop for the next four months. I had seen a few inches of snow before in D.C., North Carolina, and even in Mississippi, but I’d never experienced living in a place where feet of snow blanketed the ground at one time.
A fellow student at the Gund Institute was gracious enough to connect me with the landlord of his duplex, where one of the units was available. I was happy to sign on as tenant, especially since the home was in a neighborhood surrounding a small park and playground, located along the Burlington Bike Path, just a block from Lake Champlain and only a mile and a half from Burlington’s City Center, and a half mile farther to UVM’s campus. When it wasn’t too cold, snowy, or icy, I loved being able to walk, run, or ride my bike along the trail that ran along the edge of the large lake separating Burlington from New York and the Adirondack Mountains.
On days when the weather was inclement or time was limited, I would catch the free, heated shuttle a block from my abode to the campus bus stop closest to the buildings where my two classes were held. Although I was never out in the cold for very long and thought I had the proper layered attire to ensure warmth of my core and extremities, I was always amazed at how long it seemed to take my body to thaw out after arriving at any heated location. My brain even seemed to be affected — my thoughts often felt sluggish in those first minutes of settling in for a class. I wondered if my blood glucose levels were somehow affected one way or another, high or low, from this extreme cold. But I don’t remember coming to a definitive conclusion on this hypothesis.
I slept on the floor, on an egg-crate foam pad, with a sleeping bag and a comforter on top. I wanted to get as close to the ground as I could, even though my bedroom was on the second floor. But it literally felt grounding to sleep on the floor, and I didn’t want to start purchasing material possessions, like a mattress set, when I wasn’t exactly sure how long I would stay in Burlington beyond the academic semester to which I’d committed.
In addition to getting situated for my classes at UVM, I was intentional about locating other organizations that I deemed important to me, like the local food co-op (City Market, Onion River Co-op),1 the Quaker Meeting House,2 and other places where I could get out of the house and be around people during the cold winter months, such as the public library, coffee shops, and bookstores. I was also excited, though somewhat apprehensive, to find the Burlington LGBTQ Center.3 I thought it was amazing that a community had this kind of resource; my hometown of Meridian, MS, could never have fathomed an organization like this, let alone a brick-and-mortar location in their downtown. At some point, I wanted to reach out and meet with one of the volunteers at the center, to share some of my story and contemplate out loud how to keep taking steps forward. But I also wanted to keep discerning my next steps inwardly and at my own pace.
*Thanks for reading and/or listening. Join me next week for Re-examine. To read from the beginning please go to Why I'm Writing.
Have thoughts, questions, or feedback? Please comment — it means a lot to hear from you on this mostly solitary and introspective writing journey that I’m on.
It took me a long time to get up the courage to go to the original Amazon bookstore in Minneapolis. I was still in the parish as nd was sure someone would see me. Internalized homophobia.