I lay in my bed, the sun shining through the windows and turning our nighttime fortress into an unavoidable brightness. The heat is off, but the weather hasn’t quite warmed up yet and I really don’t want to get out from underneath the covers until the sun has actually warmed up the house.
But that’s not really why I am taking these extra warm up minutes. It’s a beautiful day and honestly, I am lying here trying to decide what to do today. Beyond work, that is.
I am still working on cleaning out my garden beds and prepping everything for mulch before the bulbs get too overwhelming. The lack of wind beating on the side of my house means that Kent Pond or Colton Pond or Woodard Reservoir might be stunningly flat this morning and I certainly don’t want to miss that. But that also means it would be the perfect day to take that one section of lawn that seems to always defeat me. But it hasn’t rained in a few days, making it the perfect day to head down to Pine Hill Park or the Sherburne Trails for a trail run or a few strokes of the pedals. But the sun is out, so maybe I should just grab my ski boots and head up to the mountain for a few runs. I’m sure someone else might even be thinking about golfing in this weather, but that’s not something I personally enjoy so at least I have eliminated one activity from the list. And it’s technically still mud season, so the hiking trails are closed so that helps out with the decision making as well.
It’s a Vermont problem, or more accurately, a Killington problem since we’re the only ski area really open at this point. April. It’s probably the most exciting, most confusing month of the year as everything that has laid dormant for the past few months of winter finally comes back – and it does so with a vengeance. Like we are being punished if every day we don’t do as many things as possible.
The fear of missing out is real. The skiing will probably be perfect this afternoon, but the water is like glass this morning. How will I have time to run my errands, take care of my home and do all the real world things that need to happen while not missing any of the greatness that the Killington lifestyle has to offer.
It always amazes me that now is when visitors stop visiting. There is so much going on that the restaurants and bars start to close down because people are too busy being outside to want to go inside for dinner. We haven’t been eating until 9 p.m. because I don’t even want to start cooking until the sun goes down at 7:30 p.m. I don’t want to miss a minute of the beautiful spring days – especially when the rain only stops at 4 p.m. Then you have to try and squeeze everything into only a few hours.
It’s overwhelming sometimes, living in this dream world mountain playground. There is too many choices for greatness, sometimes causing the paralysis that is me unable to get out of bed for a lack of decision making. Some days I am almost hopeful that it is windy or rainy, eliminating at least one or two of the options from the list. If it’s muddy, we can’t use the trail systems, so hiking and biking and trail running are out of the picture, but then we could always just bike along River Road and go check out Thundering Brook Falls.
As a child, I loved summer because it meant I could wake up and do whatever I wanted that day. I would put my shoes on in the morning and not come home until dinnertime and then head back out again after that. That’s the life that I’ve always sought to recapture. A life structured around the outdoors, where forests of trees and earth were my friends and a float on the water in my canoe was a part of life, rather than something I yearned for.
We all joke about the phrase, come for the winters, stay for the summer — but I really think it’s the springtime that convinces us never to leave. The daily triathlons of our choosing, the realization that there is more adventure here than one could handle in a single lifetime.
It’s all here, in Killington, in Vermont, in this little dream town nestled in the very center of the Green Mountains. And honestly, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.
Except that I am still in bed, trying to decide what springtime adventure I am going to do today.
Merisa is a long time Killington Resident, KMS Coach, Bartender and Realtor at Four Seasons Sotheby’s International Realty. She can be reached at femaleskibum@gmail.com.
