For some reason over the past few years a lot of people have been asking me about the phenomenon of “Stick Season.” It is almost like a long haired guy started making songs about it on his acoustic guitar and selling out Fenway Park. Now I’m not a huge fan of Noah Kahan’s music. I believe that he is a good musician, and apparently a pretty good person who does a lot of community service and fundraising, but his brand of hipster Americana simply isn’t for me. But I do feel grateful that he shone a spotlight on a very specific time of year that many of my friends from sunnier latitudes could never fathom.
It is stick season. The 6-8 weeks between the falling of the leaves and the falling of the snows. The world is grey, barren, and cold. It isn’t the face stinging cold of January, or the mind numbing emptiness of March. It is a special point of time where you can still remember sunshine on your skin and warmth in your bones, which makes your life even more grey. It’s dark when you crawl out from under your covers. You’re still debating turning on the heat because you think that you are tougher than that, plus it was in the 60s one day last week, it’s not that bad yet. But then when you leave work it’s dark too, and you’re paying the price for deciding not to wear a jacket because you’ve confounded the day’s high temperature with what you would actually be experiencing as you scurry from building to car and back again. You can’t even retreat to the back porch to relax on your days off, you’re stuck inside most of the time, staring down the barrel of isolation and loneliness. You could complain about the cold November rain, but that’s a different genre, and at least you don’t have to shovel rain. You just need to face the harsh wind that has robbed the trees of their leaves and will show no respite for months. But you know all this, this isn’t your first rodeo, you’ve been preparing for its coming ever since you saw the first middle aged white guy in a Patagonia vest emerge from his hibernation.
When you do venture out you inevitably run into people who you forgot exist. Eventually in the boring catch up talk the weather becomes the topic of conversation you just issue your standard refrain, a little half smile, a deep sigh, and “Only 8 more months of Winter.” It is and it isn’t the truth, but it always makes them laugh. Sometimes it is the nervous laugh of a Flatlander who lives in dread of snow tires and darkness. Other times it is the accepting chuckle of someone who was raised in the cold, who made Halloween outfits over snowsuits and hugged themselves in a light hoodie as snow fell on a Memorial Day bonfire. Or maybe it is the derisive chortle of a dyed in the wool Vermonter who knows that they don’t make winters like they used to, back when you had to walk uphill both ways. No matter what laughter burns the same amount of calories as crying, might as well choose the one that preserves saline.
Controversial idea, but we need Stick Season. We can’t live in the summers of our lives all the time. Without watching the world die around us we would never find the space to confront the realities in front of us, I certainly wouldn’t be sitting here writing this on a beautiful sunny day. It has become a time to process grief, to mourn our losses and put them behind us, to die inside a bit in order to move forward. A chance to retreat into the chrysalis of our mind and hopefully emerge as a different type of butterfly. Or maybe after all these overcast days I have finally lost it, and am using music to process my madness.
What is often belied in the feelings of being stuck between anger and blame is that we chose this. Each and every one of us, native Vermonter or not, could pull up our roots and leave at any time. We get the benefit of living in a beautiful place with strong communities, nice people, and no billboards, this is the price we must pay. Confined to home, confined to greyness, confined to the world of thoughts, meandering through consciousness like the mighty Onion River winding through the landscape. Sometimes you can even learn something about yourself, like that my mind prefers the spelling of “Grey” which is much more prevalent in Commonwealth English rather than the “Gray” of American English. If I was out doing things in good weather I never would have taken the time to Google that. Stick Season gives us the space to become more than we were.
The big secret is that each and every one of us gets a little smile on our face whenever a southerner asks about these weird Vermont terms. Maybe a simple little song written by a 23 year old during the long isolation of the Covid years will be what lets people all over the world know what makes Vermont special. If so then Noah deserves a spot on the Vermont wall of Fame, along with those crazy guys who took a correspondence course on how to make ice cream, or that socialist who had the audacity to run for president. Maybe he can shine a bit of light in a dark time and make the grey (or gray) just a bit brighter, and that is the most that any white guy with an acoustic guitar can hope for.
Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go drink alcohol until my friends come home for Christmas.
Owen Foley 