By Merisa Sherman Holding my mug in my hands, I stare out the window at my garden. My forehead is almost pressed to the glass, the warmth of the morning sun just starting to take effect. I empty my mind of all thoughts, letting the sun soak into my bones as I close my eyes…

By Merisa Sherman I awoke to a deafening silence. The birds of spring, so vocal in their morning song, had vanished. In fact, there was no noise at all — an eerie silence had overtaken the earth. It was almost as if a sound absorbing blanket had been spread over the earth while we had…

By Merisa Sherman For a few days every spring, there comes a magical moment for paddlers in Vermont. A section of the Otter Creek swells over the road and fills in a dairy farm pasture. The fields and some forests fill with a few feet of water, making this a paddler’s dream adventure. For years,…

By Merisa Sherman They were everywhere. Random and haphazard, they were strewn about like something had exploded. Pieces of all shapes and sizes littered the ground, discarded from their base as if they were nothing. Things that were once essential were now strewn about as if they had never really mattered in the first place.…

By Merisa Sherman As the sky turns a bright blue and the temps begin to rise, the special weirdness that is spring skiing begins to show its true colors. Midwinter black turns into a myriad, almost hideous bright colors. Every single shade of everything is on display — and even some that might qualify more…

By Merisa Sherman As I write this article I am trying to fathom the past year. In some ways, the memories are so amazingly precise and in others, it feels like we have all been living in a dream. I cannot decide which is more the dream — the boisterous life that we had before…

By Merisa Sherman I’m not sure if I recognize the voices, but the words wash over me like an old, worn blanket. The patterns of phrasing, the flow of emotions, combined with just the right amount of grit, make the memories come floating back and I am transported. The imaginary smells of popcorn, hot dogs…

By Merisa Sherman We’ve got open water in Killington! It was a bluebird spring day in February, so I had chosen the long way home along the river. There, uncovered by the warming sun, was something wonderful and rare. I felt my heart skip a beat. There was open water in February! The snow had…

By Merisa Sherman We paused for a moment, as we often do, to contemplate the potential stupidity of what we were about to do. It looked gorgeous, the snow glittering in the sunlight across the descending waves of the field at our feet. You could just make out the tracks of those who had been…

By Merisa Sherman It has not stopped snowing for weeks. Every morning, I wake up and look outside the window only to reach for the shovel. Every day, I’m shoveling. It might just be a few inches of fluff, but it still has to get relocated before it freezes solid and makes my walkways a…

By Merisa Sherman We were lost. Well, not quite. I guess it would depend on your definition of lost. If it meant that we had no specific idea where we were or that we weren’t exactly where we thought we would be, then I guess you could say we were lost. But then again, if…

By Merisa Sherman It’s cold. And not just a little bit cold but the kind of cold where you can put your hand on the wall of your house and feel the outside seeping in. It’s the kind of cold where you learn all the little cracks and crevices that will need to be re-caulked…

“Another green sign!” Four-year-old Jude yells into the wind, pointing excitedly with his hand. He darts across the trail, making his way straight to the next trail marker. He stops, his little wedge still a bit shaky but allowing him to make his way, and stares up at the sign. As I pull my skis…

By Merisa Sherman I keep moving. I can feel my ski slide underneath me as I collapse onto my front leg. With each stride, I move forward, onward and upward through the darkness. I swing my left hip forward, feeling the resistance of my skins as I drag my ski along the snow. Paying close…

By Merisa Sherman It’s chaos. Between the chairlift motors and the crowds, the noise is almost deafening. As we ski along, we are focused on the turns of all those with whom we are sharing the trail and attempting to anticipate their movements. In a split second, we must judge the downhill skier in front…