External and internal landscapes

“Connecticut River Valley at Claremont, N.H.,’’ by Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902)

Along the Connecticut: Riverbank reconstruction project in Fairlee, Vt.

“There are few things as involuntary as a person’s identification with a landscape.’’

— Terry Osborne, writer and teacher, in his book Sightlines: The View of a Valley Through the Voice of Depression. He died of cancer in 2020 at the age of 60.

From the official summary of the book:

“For twelve years, writer Terry Osborne devoted himself to an intense exploration of the physical environment near his home in the {Upper} Connecticut River Valley {where he lived first in Thetford, Vt., and then in Etna, N.H.} The more he walked the land, the more deeply he came to know its hills and wetlands. But his growing intimacy with the area inspired something unexpected. The valley, formed by colliding and dividing continents, scoured by massive glaciers, and cut by rivers and streams, began to reveal and resonate with Osborne's internal landscape, long shaped from within by an unyielding depressive voice.’’

His own Florida

"{A} Connecticut River Valley farmer ... was told that his farm was really in New Hampshire, instead of in Vermont as he'd always thought.  'Thank God,'' he said. 'I didn't think I could stand another of those Vermont winters.''

-- From The Connecticut River, by Evan Hill