Every day the river is freezing over more and more.  The weather and the locals are telling us to prepare for dropping temperatures and snow through the weekend.

Yesterday a few of us walked the main drag of Johnson and were tourists.  It snowed during the entire walk and I was grateful for all the snow gear my friends let me borrow for the trip.  There are a few bars and restaurants, a gas station and a grocery store.  We visited Johnson Woolen Mills, which has been around since 1842.  Inside is a plethora of legit hunters gear made from wool shorn off local sheep--red and black flannel jackets, shirts, and vests, camo, traffic-cone orange beanies and hats the hunters wear in the forest to avoid getting their heads blown off, the most beautiful handmade wool blankets.

Then we went to the Maple Sugaring Equipment and Supply store that not only sells all grades of locally farmed maple syrup in all its forms (dehydrated maple sugar, maple syrup lollipops, spreads and jellies), but all the equipment and tools necessary to farm such maple.  Only those who are official members of the maple sugar farming association are allowed to purchase the farming equipment.  What a trip.

Of course we went into Ebenezer's Book Store and a few familiar names jumped off the shelves.  The local arts supply store is owned by a woman who works for VSC and has lived in Johnson for over thirty years.  I learned this when I inadvertently sat and had dinner with her my first night here.

Finally, we headed to the Barbara White Studio's where my Latina painter friend from Los Angeles has her studio.  She's waiting for her canvases to be delivered today, but was kind enough to show us around.  We met another woman there who had her studio door open and welcomed us in to snoop around.  I love the lived in look of her studio and desk.

I felt a bit guilty for taking time out of my day to walk around and see the few sights of Johnson, got right back to writing after our walk until it was time for dinner.  I worked until 11p before taking myself back to Kowalsky House for the night.  Last night I finally Facetime'd with wifey.  I miss her and Girly Grace.  She asked how I was feeling and I said good, motivated, but starting to worry a bit about my endurance.  Can I keep this pace up for the entire two weeks?  This feels like the longest study session of my life.  I remind myself this is a marathon, not a sprint and breathe. 

My day started with a beautiful sunrise in Chicago.  Baby pinks and blues, a bone chilling nine degrees outside, and one airport closer to Vermont.  A tiny thirty-seat plane took me the rest of the way to Burlington.  I think window seats are the best for writers.  The expansive views remind me of our narrators painting landscapes on the page.  Did you know there are little lakes dotted all over Burlington?  My imagination thought the town would be surrounded by white-capped mountains and the ground covered in snow.  Instead, low rolling hills and clusters of barn-shaped houses, an even kind of landscape with fall greens and browns still clinging to the pines and not much colder than rainy San Francisco when I left yesterday evening.

Monica, A VSC shuttle driver, picked me and four other women artists up from Burlington airport and when I saw my group for the first time the excitement finally hit.  All women.  All practicing a different art--a poet, a photographer, a painter, a sculptor, a prose writer.  A young Latina from Los Angeles, a woman who studied with Brenda Hillman in Russia many years ago, a teacher from North Carolina, an arts administrator from Oakland.  All of us virgins to the residency experience. 

The group immediately started asking questions about the projects they would work on while at VSC.  In my usual way, I start thinking of the end.  Would our goals be met by the end of the two weeks?  Would the reality of it be just as magical as the energy we started to create in the dirt-covered mini van that drove us an hour out of Burlington to the village of Johnson?

Then it was.

Red barns, wrap-around porches, steeped roofs, a quaint book and arts supply store, artists studios with huge windows and kilns and blank white walls, all within a stones throw of each other, finally some snow on the ground, galleries, and a rocky rushing river tearing right down the middle of it all.  An entire town supporting artists from all over the world--Vietnam, South Africa, Singapore, Argentina, Hungary, Korea, America.

I have only been here a few hours and it is dark, a quiet time of day, and still I can feel the talent pulsing all around me, like the Gihon River that runs through town.  An energy.  The excitement I have been waiting for.