48 Hours in New Hampshire
(and I can't stop thinking how quiet it was)
It was New Hampshire, not Rhode Island, that necessitated and instilled the love of the outdoors and nature in me that I’ve come to crave. Don’t get me wrong, growing up in R.I. in the 70s and 80s, I squeezed every last inch of daylight before I had to go indoors along with the other neighborhood kids, but it was different. We were more likely on the verge of doing something that would get us into trouble than exploring, never mind appreciating, the wonders of nature. And come to think of it, in my teen years, my idea of the outdoors and “fresh” air consisted of smoking Camel Lights in my mom’s borrowed red Chevy Beretta with the windows down, drinking Mountain Dew (the soda), manifesting Nirvana’s Smells like Teen Spirit. (It was the 90s. I had bangs and I smoked. Cut me some slack).
We started spending time in the White Mountains in the early nineties. My folks bought some land and slowly, over six years, built a house as finances allowed, in a field overlooking a pond, with no visible neighbors. Maybe because I equated New Hampshire with being away from the uninspiring drudgery of routine and school, that made me associate it with outdoors, adventure, and nature. We were there to ski, and powder days were legitimate excuses to skip school and drive North. We snowshoed, hiked, canoed, and explored new places with an entirely different landscape that seemed to lack noisy traffic, TV reception, and even people. (This commercial fisherman caught her first and only fish on a pole in that pond and almost capsized the canoe with excitement). Even the air differed from Rhode Island’s briny tang I was used to: drier, woodsier, crispier. I found it intoxicating, and I couldn’t get enough.
Two weeks before the start of my senior year of high school, I woke up to my alarm and dreamt I had to get up for school. I was filled with dread and anxiety. I went to my lifeguarding job at an empty rocky beach, never anyone’s life to actually guard, and had the whole day to stew, panic, and come up with a plan. I went home that afternoon, barely getting out of the car before blurting out excitedly to my parents sitting on the porch that I was moving to New Hampshire and finishing school there. It should have been a far-fetched plan: I was 17, still technically a kid, and I desperately wanted to upend my life and inadvertently theirs too.
Within a few weeks, everything fell into place. My mom wasn’t going to relocate herself and my little brother, so they found someone to stay with me that Fall, a friend’s 20-something-year-old stepdaughter who was also looking for a change, followed by my dad during the Winter, and later my maternal Grandmother for the Spring until graduation. I would attend the White Mountain School (WMS) as a day student. My dad’s local ski buddy turned us onto WMS after explaining that he didn’t see the public high school being the greatest match for me. (Something about teen pregnancies and Ozzy knuckle tattoos being the current trend there).
There was no turning back when I realized the outdoors was the major component of education there. Even though it was pre-internet and Google era, it should have been obvious: if “White Mountain” didn’t scream foreshadowing, it was literally the school's name. So, without much time to rationalize, this being a last-minute and life-alerting decision, my mother and I found ourselves at the closest Eastern Mountain Sport, with a mountainous list of gear required in preparation for, not only the whole year but the first few days of school: a 3-day canoeing and camping trip. I remember thinking, Oh shit. Am I going to have to shit in the woods? What have I done?
In the course of that magical and transformative year, I would hike, camp, ski, never shit in the woods, and get talked off the side of a cliff. (I chose rock climbing as my Spring sport and realized all too late I was terrified of heights in the middle of climbing up the side of a cliff. Don’t recommend). I would learn to tap trees and make maple syrup. We were required to volunteer for community service, and I ended up at the local Planned Parenthood because teen pregnancy really had become widespread in the nearby public high school. I remember the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Great Hall where the entire school (less than 100 students) would gather for “Morning Meeting.” I remember the intimacy of the small classes and being on a first-name basis with the Headmaster, teachers, and staff. I remember by heart the T.S. Eliot quote on the chalkboard on my first day of English class:
“We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.”
I still have (somewhere) the crumpled-up photo-copied Frost poem Mending Wall that our teacher Mark told us to hide in a pocket, a notebook, or a book to discover years later and ask ourselves if its meaning had changed, and I have over and over again. I remember most of the books and poems I learned that year because they have stayed with me: Tao Te Ching, The Odyssey, The Magus, Encounters with the Archdruid, and especially John Irving’s A Prayer For Owen Meany to which my mother tracked down a first edition copy that year to gift me on my 18th birthday.
I’ve come to learn I prefer camping in a vehicle, or better yet, a hotel with a hot shower at the end of the day, to the open-air behind the flimsy wall of a tent where I cannot sleep because I am wondering what every scratch, buzz, rattle, howl, earth-thud-next-to-my-head is while I wait for the bear, mountain lion, snake, coyote, moose, probably-just-a-mouse, and boogie man to eat me. (I realize now, especially after having children, that those noises follow me wherever I sleep sometimes muffled by the white-noise fan I rarely sleep without).
I credit that year in the mountains for the following years that have shaped my life: college in Vermont, more mountains, more hiking, more wilderness, more books, cross-country road trips, backpacking European adventures, general ass-kicking, sleepless misadventures, and challenges that prepared me and led me back to the ocean, my true heart and home: …” to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.”
When I visit New Hampshire now, it’s usually for about 48 hours. It’s never enough time, nor do I see as much as I should or would like. I tend to have a routine and go to the same places because of limited time, and they never disappoint. Here are my recommendations.
Shopping:
Garnet Hill #IYKYK I get all my bedding from here, scored this Moroccan pouf at a fraction of the price for an “imperfection” I’ve never noticed, and on this last trip, I found this handsewn leather notebook for around $25.
Bella Funk Boutique is an upscale boutique owned and operated by the lovely sisters Katie & Stephanie since 2006. These are the kind of clothes I’d wear if I didn’t have to wear fishy work clothes all the time.
Lahout's “Since 1920, America’s Oldest Ski Shop” 4th-generation run, the Patriarch Joe is a legend, and we’ve gotten to know the Lahout’s family over the years. Some have even come fishing with us in R.I. Their shops are a must-visit.
Lonesome Woods is a new one for me and a new favorite. A woodstove burning cozy curated collection of apothecary, dry goods, provisions, books, and New England antiques: think buffalo plaid, classic Stanley thermoses, maple syup, and old-timey camp vibes.
Little Village Toy & Book Shop has gotten smaller over the years and has changed hands more than once but has never disappointed. I always find a favorite in their “staff recommends” section, and if you’re planning on doing any hiking and exploring while in the White Mountains, they have all the resource books you’ll need.
Where to Eat:
Schilling Beer Company for wood-grilled pizza, beer if you imbibe, and the view from a circa 1798 grist mill building perched over the Ammonoosuc River.
What Else to Do:
Cannon Mountain for the view, to ski, for the aerial tram, for the ski museum, and Echo Lake. (My father makes snow here in the winter so I might be biased).
Hike. The NH State Parks website is an excellent place to start. If you’re going hiking in the White Mountains, be prepared.
My father and I hiked Tuckerman’s Ravine last Spring (2021).
Splices: to join or connect (a rope or ropes) by interweaving the strands.
(This is where I interweave my unsolicited recommendations, maybe or maybe not connected to the current newsletter, of something I’ve heard, read, or enjoyed and want to share).
Books: A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson and Grandma Gateway's Walk by Ben Montgomery. Both will make you want to hike the Appalachian Trail and reaffirm the White Mountains can kick your ass. (It just so happens that both books I discovered and purchased at The Little Village Toy and Bookshop in years past).
Song: Black & Blue by Gregory Alan Isakov
Follow: Sarah Shoen @littlebirdwellbeing on Instagram. Her feed feels like the warm sun after a hard winter, or if Mary Oliver had Instagram.
Quote: “I need to babble with a brook or two, inhale starlight, make friends with some trees.” -Tom Robbins (A quote @littlebirdwellbeing shared recently).