Tomorrow
Tomorrow
By Katy Turner
Bellows Free Academy St. Albans
Green trees and grass and leaves and scenic everything, they all say, but I beg to differ. I take my feet and stroll down the road, crafted from dirt and rocks that cut into my shoes and toes. Above I study the spectrum of light shifting, fading, as the sun tinted with inky reds and golden-blues ripples and tucks its way around and in, then down, away. I cannot go far. A cage complete with bars and locks, only they forgot to add windows or doors, something, anything, to connect this little world with the outside. I can barely stretch my arms, let alone my mind. Isolated confinement -- pictures and stories from the life beyond just taunt and frustrate me and further my disconcerted thoughts. A painting of Munich, a Polaroid or two stolen from the Alps and Tokyo; they coat my walls and my heart, eat away at me, and my eyes will shut with fatigue, condemned to capitulation. This is the future, the life and brilliance of the generation ready to dominate our lovely world. But Vermont is not my future.
I am brainwashed, controlled into thinking my eyes can see nothing but sunsets and trees, that I can walk for miles on earth merely sprinkled with a house or two. A handful of tomorrows, a gulp of clarity, boredom to the brim -- a recipe for new, for places that don’t exist in states with minute borders, with limits so small and trivial. To cross the street as my stomach turns, to walk on concrete sidewalks and feel out of place; perfect and pathetic examples of the manipulation Vermont has had on my soul. But so many want to feel that way. To feel as if there may be walls closing in on them, although as long as family and friends are by their side, they will never get crushed entirely. Risky odds to take, in my mind.
Life in Vermont is filled with constants. The seasons may change with the orange of leaves and the white, opaqueness of snow, but the silence and monotony will stick firmly, unbending and stubborn; similar to many of the people. We’ll continue to guzzle our maple syrup, to foster our separation from the universe with minds too new and raw to know otherwise. But that’s not always the case; some have been around the world, dipped their feet in Mediterranean waters or walked along British cobblestone. And after all this, their eyes educated and scholarly on the exterior life, perhaps they chose to come to Vermont. Maybe their decision to trek through mountains and forests was their own, and one they made happily. It is not unreasonable, and surely not uncommon. It’s not as though I’ve done all I can to escape, not as though I’m suffering beyond comprehension. I am still here, still a participant in the eccentricity and composure Vermonters supposedly possess. It’s not a terrible life.
I would, surprisingly enough to even myself, change nothing about Vermont. People love it, and with the bias peeled back from my accustomed eyes, I can see why. The calm and tranquility, the stillness of a winter day and the vibrancy in July; it’s all beautiful, but it is not the sort of beauty I want to immerse myself in any longer. I need the race of cars and legs down streets in cities seen from space, billboards and signs painted, photocopied and plastered anywhere and everywhere. I’ve let the quiet and serenity of Vermont touch my heart for many years -- now it’s time for change, and it will come, ready and welcomed with my arms and eyes both wide with zeal. Yet I’ve never been one to forget.