By Merisa Sherman It was dark when I got out of work. The recently fallen snow was glittering in the golden lamplight. We had gotten so much snow that the birch trees above my car were bending under the weight. I shuffled my boots under the snow, the fluffy white snow poofing upward with every…

By Merisa Sherman Like so many East Coasters, I grew up ski racing. It was an excuse to ski. The better I got, the more days we could pack onto the weekend. Commitment meant we would practice drills at my home mountain after school midweek. We couldn’t get enough. I raced from childhood through college,…

By Merisa Sherman The cocktail party twirls on around me as I gather up abandoned glasses throughout the Great Room. I duck under one person’s elbow, my right arm hopefully protecting the glasses on my cocktail tray from getting bumped. I feel like a panther, stealthily avoiding our lovely guests who are caught up in…

By Merisa Sherman A big cheer went up from the group as we made our way through the scanners. Our passes worked — well, mostly and our motley crew of individuals placed our equipment in the racks of the gondola. Two skiers and three snowboarders, friends for the longest of times. We hadn’t planned this…

By Merisa Sherman I am sitting, cross-legged, on top of one of the oldest pieces of exposed rock in the world. The wind is swirling around me, almost like it’s about to lift me in a twirl off of the rock and into the sky. But the rock is grounding me, I can feel the…

By Merisa Sherman The sun was shining, the snowmakers were hard at work on their pre-season task of covering Rime with a blanket of white … and I was meeting one of my original ski sisters for a quick walk in the woods. Wait, did I just write that they were finally making snow? Oh,…

Looking through the gear, wondering and waiting By Merisa Sherman It’s the most wonderful time of the year … and for the ski bum it can be the most stressful. Every night as I go to bed — then again when I wake up — the first thing I do is check the weather. I…

By Merisa Sherman My sister and I would wake up all groggy and stiff, not having made the trip for a few months. It would be dark when we got out of the car and we would grab our backpacks, trudge sluggishly through the courtyard and up the stairs to our condo. Opening the door,…

By Merisa Sherman With great care, the BF lowered our favorite canoe into the water. With the new influx of cold weather, the water was perfectly see-through and you could see the sun shining on the rocks below the surface. The light even shone through the canoe, highlighting the handmade seams and creating even more…

By Merisa Sherman I turned around and looked back behind me. The Green Mountains lay sprawled below, the once-green now beginning to turn myriad colors. Yes, the thin reds are beginning to pop and are doing so in a wide vibrant form. You cannot help but notice them, randomly sprinkled about the mountains below. Last…

By Merisa Sherman It’s been bugging me for almost a week, maybe even two. The plant border that I built during Covid has been slowly changing during that time, my beloved black mulch becoming almost buried. I had, of course, built this south facing border at the edge of a forest lined with deciduous trees,…

By Merisa Sherman We had been walking for what felt like hours. Walking and talking and chatting as we made our way up the work road, not even really noticing the steep incline. Well, almost. But those moments when your breathing gets louder than the conversations are the moments that make you stop and look…

By Merisa Sherman I carried a glass from its spot in the "breakables" closet and carefully set it on the table. We were getting ready for the big Christmas Eve dinner at our house and it was my job to set the table. Shaking with excitement, my little 5-year-old self was finally deemed old enough…

By Merisa Sherman As I stood at the water’s edge, it felt like forever since I had been here. Between the rain and the rain and the rain, there have been pieces missing in my life this summer and, unfortunately, moments like this have been an enormous casualty. I hadn’t realized how much I had…

By Merisa Sherman We came in hot, like I knew we would, arriving in the parking lot with an empty tank of gas and 10 minutes before launch time. The gang was already assembled — it looked like we were going to be riding in a nice sized group. There were hugs with those whom…