Dreaming of writing retreats
Some days of junketing through Vermont and staying in a gilded age estate built by a Vanderbilt with landscapes designed by Olmsted is treat enough but may I also add that this estate boasts no air conditioning, so we might all be slightly cranky with heat but also are forced to remember the nearly-lost summer joy of sleeping at night with all the big windows wide open and the attendant ruckus of vintage floral drapes buffeting in breezes straight off of Lake Champlain, then waking in the morning to the sweet scent of lake, to soft lows of Brown Swiss cows from the estate’s dairy or bleating from flocks of sheep grazing in the grasslands. The cherry on top of this whole junket is the estate’s blessedly limited and wobbly Internet access, which means nightly stargazing on the lawn and pulling soft leather-bound volumes from the estate’s library and reading on chaise longues rather than staring into screens.
I am of course doing two things obsessively: hurling myself at the great blue body of Lake Champlain as many times a day as possible—running down the hill from the estate after dinner (in the marble dining room with original damask wall-covering) for a rogue twilight swim, or wading in right after tea in the morning on the canopied veranda. I am also scheming/dreaming a group writing retreat in this space. Anyone in?
It’s impossible to be on this estate (which has now refashioned itself as a non-profit foundation for education & the study of environmental sustainability in agriculture) and not think about the usually nefarious role of the uber rich in American life, especially as our most heinous current tycoon is actually attacking the moon that lights my way to the lake each night.