Coming home from western Pennsylvania took an unexpected turn as we dodged the first major snowstorm in the “lake effect” region just south and east of the Great Lakes. Yes, winter arrived early.
But the new route brought some unexpected perks, such as signs announcing “Pumpkin Spice Oil Change,” or an arrow announcing “To Rt. 40 – YOUR GPS IS WRONG.” And the banner near Brattleboro, Vermont: “Hate does not grow well in the rocky soil of Vermont.”

A letter to the Brattleboro Reformer pointed out this slogan was coined in 1882, countering a nearby Ku Klux Klan activity. Today, the writer noted, his Black or Native neighbours can bear witness that the assertion remains not entirely true, and should be rephrased to show intention, “Root out hatred from the rocky soil of Vermont.”

Food for thought, as we sit in a traffic jam caused by a snow-related accident on Highway 91.
We visited the US not by choice. It was a difficult journey through a snowstorm of chaos, fear, and despair. But we also encountered good will. As Canadians, we heard “please forgive us,” and “please know that we’re not all like that guy”―“that guy” not requiring explanation.

And we encountered people with an attitude of quiet determination that evoked, for me, Albert Camus’s words: “In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer” (Personal Writings).

Camus lived through tumultuous times―political turmoil and World War II. He edited an outlawed newspaper in Nazi-occupied Paris and won a Nobel Prize in Literature. He was often called an existentialist but preferred the label of absurdist.

It seems paradoxical that an absurdist would speak of an inner invincible summer. But he went on to say, “And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger―something better, pushing right back.”

I’m thinking on this. His stance is neither one of hope nor despair, but turning to a sanctuary within oneself, a quiet determination to take positive action. “We must mend what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable again in a world so obviously unjust, give happiness a meaning once more to peoples poisoned by the misery of the century,” he wrote.

As this tumultuous year ends, may we each find our quiet, invincible summer within.

Rachel writes from the old hamlet of Maple Leaf, in Newport (rawrites@gmail.com).