EMILY PRATT SLATIN

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She/Her/Hers Lesbian

Retired Career Fire and EMS Lieutenant-Specialist, Writer, and Master Photographer, living in Vermont.

A Possible Day Trip To Plattsburgh

This morning I woke up to the sunrise here at the farm. The leaves have started turning color, and many of them have already given up on holding on.

It's this time of year that life seems to slow down, and I start thinking about the year, the people who have been part of it, and how much my life has changed. Autumn has always made the passage of time more noticeable to me. I've spent so much of my life in Upstate New York and Vermont, where the seasons make their presence known whether anyone is paying attention or not.

I've been thinking a lot about my friends lately, particularly Maddie and Makayla. Both of them got me through this year in ways I don't think either of them fully understands.

Amelia contributed, but it was overwhelmingly Maddie and Makayla who helped me find my way back to the person I used to be. I'm an only child, and while I've had plenty of friends throughout my life, I've come to understand that the people we consider family don't necessarily have to be related to us.

Maddie is my best friend, and Makayla is the girl I helped raise. They occupy different places in my life, but both are my chosen family, and I love them dearly.

What I appreciate most about my relationships with them is that they take me on adventures I would never have experienced without them. Maddie took me on two adventures this summer, and Makayla took me back through parts of Upstate New York that I rarely think about anymore, much less visit. I've spent much of my life traveling, sometimes with a destination in mind and sometimes without one. There's something wonderful about having people who call me and suggest going somewhere.

I don't always need a reason. Sometimes the company is reason enough.

I've finally returned to being the most carefree person ever, just as I was when I was younger. That doesn't mean I've stopped caring what people think of me. I still care, more than I ever like to admit. What has changed is that I've returned to spontaneous adventures, and I've become less inclined to waste my time explaining myself to people who have already decided what they want to believe.

The older I become, the less interested I am in being understood by people committed to misunderstanding me. There are more interesting uses for an afternoon.

I have never been afraid of getting older. I have been afraid of becoming someone who stopped being curious before she ran out of time.

This summer, Makayla took me through parts of northern New York that brought back memories I hadn't thought about in years. It was good seeing New York Route 8 again. There are roads I traveled so frequently when I was younger that I can still remember stretches of them despite having been away for years.

I spent so much of my life in New York that there are places I associate with particular people, relationships, and experiences, even when I haven't thought about those places in decades. Sometimes all it takes is seeing a familiar road again.

One of the places I started remembering was a cabin Angie's parents owned along Route 812 in the town of Harrisville, New York. The cabin was built around 1900. Angie and I were still dating at the time, and her family had accepted me as a permanent addition.

We would all cram ourselves into this little shack that had a wood stove, a full bathroom, and just about everything necessary for a comfortable stay, provided your definition of comfort didn't include electricity sufficient to run much of anything or water coming out of the faucets.

The building had limited electrical service with screw-in glass fuses. There was a full bathroom with a shower, toilet, and sink, but the people who had owned the property previously had removed the well pump from the pump house when they moved. As a result, we had a bathroom that looked perfectly functional but lacked running water.

Everyone had their own sleeping arrangements. Chris slept in the utility room, which had a poured concrete floor. Angie's parents slept in the back bedroom on two mattresses stacked on the floor. Angie and I slept in separate camping cots in a bedroom off the living room, while Makayla and her parents slept in sleeping bags on the living room floor. Makayla was different. She preferred taking her sleeping bag into the kitchen and sleeping on the wooden floor. I never understood why she preferred the kitchen, but she did.

Our bedroom had a particularly interesting door. Apparently, someone had replaced it shortly before selling the property to Angie's parents, but there was a ceiling beam in the way. Rather than find a door that fit the opening properly, someone had used a chainsaw to cut at least a foot off the top of the replacement door to accommodate the beam. I suppose that was one way of solving the problem. It certainly wasn't the way I would have done it.

Then there was the carpet.

The living room and kitchen were divided by blue carpeting that covered only half the room. Someone had apparently started installing it and then suddenly ran out of material. Rather than obtain enough carpet to finish the job, they simply stopped.

The carpet ended at a peculiar angle in the middle of the floor, exactly where it had been cut at the mill. It wasn't even an attempt at a straight line across the room. It was simply the end of the carpet, and apparently everyone involved had decided that was good enough. The carpet had been attached to the floor with construction adhesive.

There was a large amount of fray because they had apparently also run out of adhesive towards the end.

Eventually, I set up a sump pump that I could plug in temporarily to fill a 55-gallon plastic drum with water so we could flush the toilet. It wasn't exactly sophisticated plumbing, but it worked well enough for our purposes.

I filled a black plastic bucket with water and left it outside in the hot summer sun all day. By the time I wanted a shower, the water had warmed considerably. I managed to get myself clean without having to explain to anyone why I thought staying in a building without running water was a perfectly reasonable way to spend my time.

I had the greatest time ever.

One night, the electricity went out. I had a Coleman lantern, but I had run out of camping fuel. Rather than sit around in the dark, I siphoned gasoline out of my car's gas tank and used it to run the lantern. In retrospect, this was probably not one of my better ideas.

I placed the lantern outside on a boulder, and it burned so brightly that it illuminated the entire front yard. The woman who lived across the street noticed the light and came over to inquire about our electrical situation. Apparently, she thought we still had electricity while everyone else was without power. Instead, she discovered that we were all sitting outside with a Coleman lantern.

The following morning, I went outside to look at the lantern. It looked like someone had run a car exhaust through the chimney of the lantern for a decade without taking it to the car wash. The lantern was empty, blackened beyond anything I had expected, and completely ruined. I scrapped it.

I thought the whole thing was hilarious.

I remember being genuinely happy during those trips. The lack of running water, the limited electricity, the strange sleeping arrangements, and the complaints never bothered me enough to make me want to be anywhere else. We were making memories in a place that most people probably would have considered entirely unsuitable for a family vacation. Looking back, I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything.

Seeing those parts of New York again with Makayla this summer reminded me of how much time has passed. The little girl who preferred sleeping on the kitchen floor is now an adult woman who takes me on adventures.

I remember her childhood in ways that she doesn't, and sometimes I find myself remembering things I haven't thought about for years. It's strange to have known someone long enough that the memories of her childhood have become part of my own history.

This morning, while I was thinking about the year, Maddie texted me about a possible day trip to Plattsburgh tomorrow. I said yes, knowing full well that the details are to follow.

Last summer, I slept with a married woman in Upstate New York. Amelia and I have had an open marriage from the beginning, and she didn't have much to say about it. The other woman's husband, however, had plenty to say when he found out. I didn't stick around long enough to take it all in. I got back to the farm just as Amelia was getting out of bed that morning.

Amelia and I were married here at the farm in Middletown Springs by a local Justice of the Peace. She's an older woman who has been married to her husband for decades, and they have grandchildren. I still speak with her from time to time, and during the Book Brigade in September, we happened to meet again.

She asked how my marriage to Amelia was going.

So I told her.

I explained that Amelia and I had an open marriage from the very beginning, and at some point I mentioned that I'd slept with a married woman in Upstate New York the previous summer. She didn't appear particularly thrilled by this information. Her husband, on the other hand, found the whole thing hilarious and started laughing. This seemed to annoy her considerably, which made the situation even funnier because the man reportedly never laughs.

My intention was never to shock anyone. She had asked how my marriage was going, and I answered her question. Apparently, she hadn't anticipated receiving quite so much information.

Sometimes the difference between a terrible idea and a remarkable adventure is whether anyone gets caught.

I'm Crazy Emily. Comedy is a complimentary service that comes free with any of my appearances.

During my last stay at Mom's, I had another interesting conversation with a really cute woman at The Bel in Stamford. I had known her for some time, although until that evening, our interactions had consisted of ordinary conversations with a counter separating us. She worked at one of the local businesses, and whenever I encountered her, we would talk. But only briefly.

That evening, she had a few drinks and confessed that she couldn't remember the last time she'd had sex with another person.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry," I said with genuine astonishment, while privately wondering how this was even remotely possible, and whether there was a chance she might be interested in doing something to change that.

She finished her drink, then confessed that she was bisexual, which somehow provided me with additional information while doing absolutely nothing to resolve my growing confusion.

I handed her my card with my contact information along with two of my stickers. I wasn't expecting anything in particular. I simply wanted to give her an opportunity to contact me if she wanted to.

So far, I haven't heard a thing. I suppose one cannot win them all.

Today, the woman who married Amelia and me is celebrating her decades-long marriage to her husband, and they're renewing their vows at a barn just down the street from the farm. This is the very same woman who was less than thrilled to hear about our open marriage, and whose husband apparently found my adventures hilarious.

I had been on the fence about attending. I'm not a social butterfly like people assume. When I go to a social event, the first couple of hours are spent with me standing around in the center of everything waiting for someone to talk to me. Usually, it isn't until the event itself is nearly over, and most of the guests have already left, that anyone bothers to acknowledge me.

I thought about going, but wasn't entirely convinced that I wanted to spend my Saturday afternoon at a vow renewal ceremony. I texted Amelia about it, and she reminded me that the vast majority of their friends are Trump supporters.

That was enough information for me to make a decision.

I've been thinking about taking Maddie to see my old summer camp while we're in the area. I haven't been back in many years, although I know the cabin where I spent my first summer as a camper, and later all three summers as a counselor, is still standing.

So is the athletic field where I used to sneak out at night with my bedding, roll myself up beneath the stars, and sleep alone because I preferred the solitude to the company of the boys in my cabin.

My late father enrolled me at camp under a name that was never mine to begin with.

I was a girl, yet I was housed in the boys' cabin, and for years I accepted the arrangement because I loved the place more than I resented the circumstances under which I was allowed to attend.

Camp was, in many ways, an extension of my father's control over my childhood, although it also gave me some of the greatest freedom and happiness I had ever experienced. I was desperate to remain there for as long as possible, even if that meant answering to a name that nobody outside of camp ever called me.

As I grew older, my body developed naturally as female. By the summer of 2000, my final year working as a counselor, I had developed increasingly noticeable female secondary sex characteristics. Some of the adults and a handful of campers regarded me with suspicion. I had to keep my shirt on and wear loose clothing throughout the summer, and I attended several staff meetings concerning my gender and presentation.

I complied because I desperately wanted to stay. Eventually, I was fired without ever being given a reason. Some meetings exist because nobody wants to make a decision that can later be attributed to them individually.

I have complicated feelings about returning. Some of the happiest memories of my younger years belong to that place, and so do some of the most difficult. For years, I was willing to tolerate circumstances I would never have accepted elsewhere because I couldn't imagine losing the one place where I had felt so free.

Part of me desperately wants to see the place again, especially with Maddie. Another part of me is afraid I'll start crying when I get there. Maddie has never seen me cry, and I've deliberately avoided allowing that to happen. I don't know how I'll feel visiting the place that held such an enormous place in my heart for so many decades.

When I was young I lost my sense of direction. Life is what helped me find it. Adulthood teaches a harder, quieter truth: some things matter because they happened, not because they stayed.

I decided to stay home in my pajamas and conserve my energy for tomorrow's adventure with Maddie.

I suppose we'll see what happens tomorrow.