Vermont Dreaming

Don't get me wrong. I feel deeply connected to my native place. It's soil is somehow deep in my spirit. I've lived in many places, and I still hold a green card for an obscure African country. But this place is my home.

My father's side is Pennsylvania German, resident here since the 1720s. Snyder County is our ancestral home; it's named for us, and our forbear, Simon Snyder, was the state's third governor. My mother's side is English Quaker, going back even further in the history of the "Quaker State." I'm 1/16th Seneca Indian, to boot.

My roots go deep here, and roots are as important to me as anything else in all of life. I spent the first half of my life trying to escape those roots, and now at the age of 40, that rootedness is necessary to my sense of well-being and balance. If you don't have a secure identity, then you're cut adrift. The French novelist, Albert Camus, called this modern rootlessness "The Absurd." His characters demonstrate the fact that if rootedness and identity are lost, then meaning and purpose are lost as well. I learned this lesson the hard way in sordid African bars and seedy expat lounges. And when I "came to myself," as it says in the Parable of the Prodigal, it was my native place that called out to me, always waiting for my return. That's probably why my posts sometimes seem jingoistic; I believe so strongly in rootedness, in nativism (for all people), and in ancestral memory.

And yet, the State of Pennsylvania--my ancient home--prostitutes herself to any "mineral extractor" who promises her a handful of blue collar jobs and a few shiny things to wear. The town where I live is selling its treated water to the Marcellus Shale drillers so that they--in return--can poison our water with undisclosed chemicals. And most recently, the PADCNR had the nerve to publish a link to this pro-drilling webpage from Facebook. It's pure, one-sided, state sanctioned propaganda. And worst of all, I'm not permitted to speak out against the rape of our aquifers because I'm a community leader, and natural gas drilling brings some shortsighted benefits to our communities.

I dream about Vermont sometimes. Really...I do.