The Dirty Life

Lately an afternoon contained this. 

Reading this amazing book and drinking what has become my favorite beverage. 

All while basking in the sun, sheets drying in the breeze, the kids' and their friends' chatter my background music. 

I love it here in late March. 

All the flowers are blooming, trees greening.

This book reminds me a lot of my childhood. 

Mostly, I think, because it takes place in the general vicinity of my childhood.

And it has sparked in my sleep hours (in me, who rarely remembers dreams) such vivid dreams of place.

But also because my own parents adventured in their early married life from the suburbs of Boston and Fairfield, Connecticut to the wilds of Northern Vermont where they proceeded to raise my sister and I amidst the beautiful backdrop of miles upon miles of forest, a dirt road, a large expanse of lawn with pasture and paddock and huge garden. Animals and a stream, paths through the woods to the beaver pond.  Chickens, a cow, a pig, a few ponies. 

The stories that Kristin Kimball tells in this book are not mine.  And they are not my parents'.  But they belong to a place that I love dearly and they remind me of my own stories from my own ideal childhood. 

It was a lovely and entertaining read.

Full of nostalgia and deja vu and charm.