There are two things I find especially interesting about this town: 1) approximately 90% of the original Victorians are still standing, give or take a few percentage points; and 2) there’s an island in the Connecticut River close to where downtown Bellows Falls crosses over to Walpole, New Hampshire, via two bridges. One of those bridges was shut down over the winter because it was deemed unsafe. I recently read an article in the Town Crier about how the local Bellows Falls residents were complaining that since the bridge closed they were seeing a loss in customers in the businesses downtown. I seriously laughed out loud. First of all, there are two bridges next to each other that cross between New Hampshire and Vermont. If people from New Hampshire want to come to downtown Bellows Falls it’s easy to do. Such a story in a local paper like the one I just mentioned fails to reveal the true problem—that the businesses in Bellows Falls are not only few and far between but many of them are misguided, poorly organized and unmarketable. One store, for example, claims to be a thrift store/tailor/hair & tanning salon all-in-one. Some local business owners could use a lesson in the idea that less is definitely more.

Back to the island. Yes, there’s an island in the Connecticut River where once there stood at the turn of the last century an aptly named Island Hotel. I saw a picture of it on a wall somewhere at some person’s house in some part of town who was having a potluck—one of those Vermont potlucks where at least three people bring something with quinoa in it. Many nights I’ve wandered in circles around the island. It’s unfortunately littered with abandoned buildings, yet I have hope that the residents of this town do see the potential present here and embrace it fully.

What’s truly remarkable about this town are the exceptionally beautiful homes. The best examples in my opinion are located in the southern part of town. I never fully explored the history of Bellows Falls despite the impressive collection of local newspapers and archival material available at the local library. Note to self: return to the Rockingham Library one day to do some research.

I never imagined myself living in Bellows Falls; it has such a bad reputation from the point of view of neighboring towns. When the chance presented itself two years ago to move to the Holland Church House (known now as Witch Mountain House) I said yes, not knowing how much of a transformation I would undergo while living here. Best of luck, Bellows Falls, it’s been interesting getting to know you. Maybe we’ll see each other again one day.

I’m pleased thus far with the direction in which I’m taking it. Color to me is extremely important, and I always spend a considerable amount of time selecting the colors I’ll be using with any project. Luckily, I received an image from her, a fascinating image of a southwestern American landscape where one giant cactus stands powerfully in the foreground and a woman, or what appears to be a woman, is looking at the mountains in the distance with her back to the viewer. The quality of the image wasn’t great, but after I did some color correction a gorgeous color scheme revealed itself to me. At that point I was off and running to kuler to do some research.

Only after I chose the colors I wanted to use did I learn that Carna, the woman behind Magical EFT, will soon be moving to Tucson, Arizona. How serendipitous! It’ll be a few more days before I’m ready to share with her what I’ve created. It’s always a nervous moment no matter how many times you’ve done it because you can never tell what the reaction will be. My intuitive choices are leading me down what feels like the right path, so the only choice I have at this point is to simply keep going.

Last year I found out that I was going to be an uncle. My brother and his wife will soon be having their first child. The whole affair was equivalent to a well-structured narrative with the authors (my brother and sister-in-law) behind the scenes turning knobs and pointing to different cameramen and signaling the audience to clap and/or jeer depending on whatever intentions they might have. As for the producers of this epic narrative, first they broke the news that they would be having a baby. Next they revealed the baby was going to be a girl. And then, the biggest secret of all, the name they chose for their baby was going to be the biggest reveal of all. The build up was exciting. I felt like I was sitting in a theater waiting for the curtain to drop to discover the name they’d chosen etched out on a canvas the size of a Joan Miro painting. My vision involved trampolines, spotlights and elephants too. When was it going to happen, how would they reveal it, when will my phone ring, when will they call and reveal the big news?

Yesterday I got an email from my father. He said, “We found out the babies name. Don’t know if you know it, but she will be called Alice Grace Whipple.”

These two sentences came in the middle of a much longer email. Reading it was like spending a long time chopping vegetables for a delicious salad only to have someone dump spoiled salad dressing all over it. The narrative my brother and his wife were crafting suddenly came to an end. My father’s twenty words. The end. If anyone knows how the television show Lost is going to end, please just pick up the phone and tell me or feel free to just email it to me. You can subvert the so-called paradigm all you want, but please don’t ever circumvent a good narrative!

Alice Grace is a lovely name. Her parents have poetic tongues.

I think I come across the name Alice all the time, but I’m not sure. Of course now that the name Alice has entered into the canon of names in the Whipple family clan I’ll come across it all the time. It’s like buying a yellow car and then seeing yellow cars everywhere. I know that’s a terrible example, comparing childbirth with the process of purchasing a yellow car, but it’s certainly not as misguided as a person who would actually buy a yellow car in the first place. Maybe it’s just me, but whenever I see a yellow car I feel like finding the closest volcano and throwing myself into it. Two words starting with the letter V save me from that ever happening though: Vermont and Virginity. The former is the state where I live and the latter, well, I’ll just say that I’m not next in line for sacrifice.

Now that I’ve got Alice on the mind, a few of my favorites:

1. Alice Grace Whipple – Obviously.
2. Alice Walker – She wrote the wonderful book The Color Purple which Oprah was in, and I like Oprah so therefore I like Alice Walker even more.
3. Alice in Wonderland – I love this book. And I love the weird Disney version. But all the Jabberwocky and Through the Looking Glass stuff is so much better… and creepier.
4. Alice White – A really inexpensive but tasty wine one (not me, of course) can buy at any local gas station.

The name Grace is pretty, too. A “Fall from Grace” is not so pretty, but I suspect this specific Grace will experience no such thing unless her mother, April, gives birth suddenly to her while standing and Alice Grace hits the floor with a Slip n’ Slide effect. However, at that point she’ll have had a “Fall from April” so to speak.

Last but not least, I also like the symmetry of letter-length. Alice has five letters, as does Grace. Whipple has seven letters. Alice will essentially be a walking haiku with that 5-7-5 pattern, or in this case a 5-5-7 pattern.

Thank you for giving your daughter such a lovely name.

By the way, I’m not going to reveal any of the family names to which I was referring earlier because I don’t want to embarrass anyone, or have them call me up and say I’m mean. Or maybe I’ll just keep my thoughts mysterious in case I need to use it for emotional blackmail one of these days.