There are some things, I believe, that transcend time and place, race and gender.
One of them is nature.
On its surface, A North Country Life may appear to be a book appealing solely to men nostalgic for hunting and fishing and camping in backwoods country New England.
But for me, a black woman raised in a factory town in New England, this book resonated deeply as well.
Sydney Lea, an exquisite story teller, relates stories that communicate universally.
A North Country Life is a collection of essays grouped according to the four seasons of the year (although winter is not called winter but "cold time".
) Lea recounts how country men and women, in times past, moved through the cycles of the year in synch with nature, and usually with each other.
Hunting grouse, pheasant, deer.
Driving logs downstream in the early morning.
Each account is permeated with determination, a sense of matter-of-factness.
That same matter-of-factness permeates reflections on the human cycle as well.
I have recommended to every one of my close lady friends that she read the ten page chapter, "Now Look".
In this essay, Mattie, one of the women of the north country, matter of factly recounts the cycles of her marriage: how that drunken derelict now passed out in the shed was once the most handsome, most productive man in north country.
How life had broken him down.
How she wished he hadn't let it, how she was determined to hang onto the cycles of her life...
and to him.
Any woman who has ever watched her man struggle and fail against failure can relate to this story.
"Now Look" is an excellent example of the transcendent writing in A North Country Life: whether reading this while sitting on a country cabin's front porch or a city condo's back terrace, you get it.
Sydney Lea's writing is thought provoking and lyrical.
He is a poet, and not just any poet.
He is the Poet Laureate of Vermont.
For the prosaic reader (pun intended) like me, the reader that reads for themes and relationship and resonance (that transcendence I spoke of above), some of Lea's poetic flights of introspection can, at times, get in the way.
Be that as it may, I am very, very glad I read A North Country Life.
I savored the read, and look forward to reading the essays again each season, by season.
When I was a little girl growing up in a railroad flat across the street from a scissors factory, my bedroom walls were covered with pictures of woodland nature.
I have a home in the country now.
Sydney Lea's wonderfully written A North Country Life has reminded me why.