December 21, 2005
Wednesday

When I chose the pictures for my Winter Count I wanted them to be all pictures that I took this year with my new camera. But when I looked for one from August I couldn’t find one that seemed right. I came back from the trip to Amherst in July, caught my breath for a few days, and then left for Vermont and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.

That takes place on a 200-acre campus along Route 125 in central Vermont between Middlebury and Hancock. The campus is bordered by national forest and other protected lands, and there is no shortage of scenery to take pictures of. I was there for three days before the conference began, visited some Robert Frost sites in the south of Vermont, but when the conference began I put my camera away and got caught up in the business of absorbing the rich literary atmosphere that draws so many people. I was just too busy to be a sightseer or to take pictures.

At left is a picture I took in 1986. It shows Lynn, one year old, with her paternal grandmother, Eva DeAngelis. Lynn adored her. She was the best grandmother and best mother-in-law anyone could have asked for. She died on August 19, 2005, suddenly but not really unexpectedly, given her age (90 in April) and her slow but steady decline into herself these last few years.

In one of the few pieces I posted to The Silken Tent in the last half of this year, I wrote about her and included the eulogy I gave for her at her funeral. We miss her every single day.

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