Can you go home again?

I’ve been in Brattleboro for a day and a half.

I can still see why I was so enchanted with the place when I first arrived a dozen years ago. Knowing what I know now, I might look a bit more critically at the crumbling infrastructure and the hard cold demographic facts. But still: what a cool place!

The picture above is emblematic of one aspect of Brattleboro’s trajectory. When we lived here, that building was a Baptist church struggling to survive. They sold their Tiffany windows to pay the costs of running the winter homeless shelter and finally sold the building.

It’s now home to Epsilon Spires, an outfit that aims to blend art and music with science and conversation to create a sustainable society. Does any of that make sense? Only time will tell, and I do wish them good luck in their attempts.