A reflection written during the Spring of 2019
I live in the hills of western New Hampshire.
Rocky and forested it is a place of lakes, ponds, and rushing streams. Especially in the late winter and early spring. The hills of western New Hampshire are sparsely populated. Of the 3,000 plus square miles that make up this region there live around 200,000 people. We’re pressed up against the megalopolis, but not subsumed by it. At least not yet.
Someone wise once said your paradise is where you choose to make it. I take this to mean one need not travel to all of the world’s glorified and hyped hot spots to find wonderland, but rather it can be right outside your door. Now I’m not sure I can call the hills of western New Hampshire Shangri-la—indeed I know I cannot—but I’m happy to call it home. The hills of western New Hampshire exemplify an intricate sense of place, one reaching to my youth and stimulating lifelong sensorial benchmarks along the way. I feel the hearthstone of these hills.
It makes a difference to live in a place with distinguishing characteristics. It matters to discern and delight in the exceptional traits a place exhibits. To feel connected is to feel at home. To bond with the environment, its nature and its cadence can unite a person with an entity beyond oneself.
The hills of western New Hampshire await personal attention. The relationship can be austere, but also cordial. To live here calls for stamina. Resilience is rewarded. Solitude awaits, ready for the asking. Becoming charmed is always a possibility.
My granddaughter
seven years old
from Los Angeles
visits the hills of western New Hampshire
during winter
eagerly anticipates northland climate
it is novel and unique
like her beloved movie, Frozen
snow and ice and cold
my expectation
she would remain beside the warm woodstove
did not happen
dressed in seasonable garb provided by her grandmother
winter coat, snow pants, boots, mittens, and warm hat
she plays outside
snow appeals
cold does not intimidate
air tastes fresher
I am pleasantly surprised
The comforting sense of place can happen almost anywhere. The wide plains of the heartland, the misty mountains of a northwest peninsula, the bustling streets of an eastern city and countless other settings become sources of visceral bonding. It depends on where you were raised. If that space is where an initial and sustained awareness of surroundings occurred, then the profound connection is made. Helpful too, is if a correlation becomes established between the comforts of life and the site where they were first sensed.
For me this transpired in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. I was raised there. The rolling green hills morphing into splashes of October color and eventually yielding to snow encrustation afforded me a panoply of visual beauty and regularity that was annually anticipated and unconsciously respected. All of life’s dramas, joys, anxieties, and expectations materialized against the backdrop of this place. It was the way things were and the features of the place have always been with me.
My current corner of the hills of western New Hampshire sits only about 160 miles northeast of where I rode my bike, played in the brook, and sledded as a boy. Given that both locations are fragments of the larger Appalachian mountain chain they are similar in appearance and feel.
After raising children and constructing a career elsewhere in New Hampshire this geographic familiarity had an influence in driving my residential decision as I neared retirement. The appeal of the hills of western New Hampshire is that they remind me of where I grew up while permitting me to remain in a state I know well.
Nostalgia has a way of playing a supporting role in the thoughts of an aging person. Memories percolate to the surface, long-held familiar feelings are triggered by prevailing stimuli, and lessons learned—or unlearned—meld into a reoccurring reckoning of what is and has been important. Linking location with its lasting peculiarities triggers a personal values clarification.
Winter loses its firm grip
clouds coat horizon to horizon
light filters through robed evergreens and naked deciduous
the lake, a white plain with ice out weeks away
distant woodpecker taps rhythmically
crow caws
Winter stirs and ponders a morning stretch
hilltops rounded by glacial activity
eons of weathering
cold nights, days above freezing
sap should be running well
dirty snow banks line muddy roads
cool breeze
urges hemlock boughs to sway
nature’s pulse is apparent
Be still
align with subtle inflection
discover
refresh and ruminate with Nature
offset modernity
This is the New Year
not some random day in early winter
hope, rebirth, imagine new beginnings
The sun breaks through
illuminate granite hills
throw shadows
photons reflect off snow
blinding
the future feels imminent
The hills of western New Hampshire, as much of the northern half of the northern hemisphere, was molded and configured by four repeated glaciations during the Pleistocene Epoch. The age began about 2.6 million years ago and ended a bit more than 10,000 years ago when the last of this series of glaciers finally receded to the north. These mammoth mile-thick masses of ice sliding across a granite surface left an impact. The resulting churn shaped the state’s current mountains, valleys, lake beds, and coastal plain. Cape Cod and Long Island to the south, really just alluvial deposits of moraine, in part consist of New Hampshire material plowed to those locations by the glaciers.
In the western part of the state we are blessed with genteel hills and small mountains ranging in elevation from 1000 to 3000 feet above sea level. What strikes visitor and resident alike are large granite rocks once formed from ancient magma flows. Scattered among this region are the many lakes and ponds that owe their idiosyncratic configurations to long ago glacial activity, which today draw both wildlife and people. The two largest of these gems being lakes called Sunapee and Newfound. The Connecticut River flowing southward carves a sharp boundary with our western neighbor Vermont.
Much of these hills are forested with a mix of temperate broadleaf, conifers, and northern hardwoods. Large sturdy trees bespeckle much of the area. Old growth forests still persist in some remote spots. Outside our small yellow house, which sits within a wildwood stand, tower three large white oaks in a row. The middle and largest of these is estimated to be about two hundred years old. We are stewards of these gentle beasts committed to their welfare and longevity. The combined summer crown of these three sisters leave us feeling we live under a dome. The grand foliage laden boughs stretch and reach above us. As are the trees, we are rooted to this place where stagecoaches and drovers rumbled by transporting people and goods in an earlier America.
Gray-haired man
closely cut, clean shaven
goes about his business in a taciturn manner
not unlike many others of this place
Appearance is often uniform
worn denim pants
high topped work boots, mink-oiled many times
red plaid wool shirt
khaki cap
the visor’s edge beginning to show tattered wear
Calloused hands molded from years of labor
physical work
accomplished masterfully with care and respect
He doesn’t ask much of others
self-reliance is valued
and lived as much as possible
he’s faithful
to his wife, church, grown children,
several grandchildren,
the community
Climbs slowly into his pickup
to drive 3 miles home
through hemlock woods
and over the hill
time to get evening’s wood in
supper will be soon
In-migration to New Hampshire has increased in recent years among people in their twenties and thirties. Good news for a state that is a graying state. Graying? Like the color of granite? Yes. New Hampshire sustains a population of old people. There are a lot of us. We are ranked third by age of population among all of the states. Only Maine and Vermont have older populations than New Hampshire’s. So, it’s good news if younger people want to start living here. We need the workforce. Low taxes, which New Hampshire has, may be good for business, but not having enough working-aged people is not good for business.
The old-fashioned and traditional virtues of New Hampshire self-reliance, independence, and grit continue to be evident in the hills of western New Hampshire. From that culture springs an economy that is tied to the land, to history, and to a present-day macroeconomic transformation fueled by amplified globalization and advanced automation.
Naturally, we might think of the kind of work done in these wooded hills as primarily involving lumbering, maple sugaring, landscaping, and farming. These are but a small slice of the area’s occupations despite their iconic imagery. Most employees work in less glamorous, but more financially fruitful pursuits that include healthcare, office administration, manufacturing, sales, and hospitality. To lesser extents workers earn a living performing in small businesses, education, technology/sciences, and construction. It’s a busy and largely prosperous rustic location.
Statewide New Hampshire’s economy is quite robust, at least according to some key metrics. The state enjoys the second lowest unemployment rate (Bureau of Labor Statistics) and the lowest poverty rate in the nation (US Census Bureau). And we are continually in the top ten states ranked by both per capita and median household income (US Census Bureau). Also, while looking at the newest hot topic economic measurement known as the Gini Coefficient — a measurement of income and wealth inequality among individuals — New Hampshire has the third lowest level of income concentration in the country (US Census Bureau). Wealth is spread relatively evenly.
Healthcare is a big employer in the hills of western New Hampshire. The state’s largest hospital is located here. Aging population and healthcare go together nicely. In fact, New Hampshire enjoys a ranking as the third healthiest state for older people in the U.S. (2019 New Hampshire Healthy Aging Data Report). Education, including higher education, employs many. This stimulates entrepreneurial enterprises. There is an outdoor ethic that pervades the area. Many residents relish being on trails, slopes, and lake fronts. This contributes to the health and wellbeing of people here. If you’re going to grow old in New Hampshire, appreciating the environment adds to the quality of life. Given how many elderly citizens choose to live in these hills we appear to be on the right path.
Work tied to land
shape, sculpt, move, knead earth
with machines and hands
sweat and toil
brains and technology
experience
reading the land’s behavior
align with its rhythm
to create practical solutions
nest in the embrace
of this hardscrabble place
He works the Bobcat with skill
among strewn stones and boulders
lift, carry, set rocks
stair here
wall there
the shovel swivels fluidly
to pry an elusive target
arrange land anew
The old stone wall is dismantled
new bed installed
stones reset
strategically
beautifully
large stone support small stone
tabletop finish
400-foot run
form and function
exquisitely rendered
Driving around the hills of western New Hampshire is a simple pleasure. The roads pass through valleys, follow stream beds, hug lake fronts, and traverse old main streets of small towns whose histories reach back two to three hundred years. Some towns are tony, many are not. For those of a certain age taking such a drive conjures feelings of nostalgia, scenes remembered but rarely recalled, from the viewpoint of a long-ago child sitting in the back of Chevy station wagon.
I enjoy seeing the general stores, Mom & Pop diners, antique emporiums, barns in various stages of solvency, Colonials, New England frames, the ever-present woods, and stone walls, lots of them, that can be unearthed while winding along these old byways. It is estimated there are in excess of 200,000 miles of stone walls in New England. Western New Hampshire has its share of them. In general, large stones are from walls that once housed livestock. Small stones are an indicator of former garden walls. Stones were gathered by laborers and beasts of old, piled in a field, and used to create boundaries, enclosures, foundations, and mills.
From the green at Dartmouth College with its late eighteenth/early nineteenth century ambiance to highpoints on the road exhibiting vistas of consecutive mountain ranges, each flaunting a different hue of blue, a random journey through these hills can bring enjoyment and contentment. Place matters. As do roots, history, and where one builds and lives a life. Many of us have a choice of where to be. For me it is in the hills of western New Hampshire.
