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.

There Is A Line At The Middletown Springs Library

September 13, 2026—Middletown Springs, Vermont (Home)

The summer apparently isn't over despite what people in town are claiming. This summer started with Maddie and me taking a trip together, and somewhere along the way I started living like I was in my twenties all over again.

In some ways, it feels good. I have also discovered that I can sustain this lifestyle for approximately two weeks before I need a day to reset.

When I was in my twenties, I don't remember scheduling recovery days. I simply kept going until something forced me to stop. At forty-seven, I have apparently developed enough sense to recognize exhaustion before it becomes a problem.

For much of this summer, I have gone back and forth between the farm and Mom's house in Stamford. Amelia has been sleeping in the living room at Mom's house on a foam mattress on the floor while she waits for her house in western New York to close. Upstairs, I still have my childhood bedroom with my original childhood bed from New York City set up in essentially the same configuration it was when I was sixteen.

Returning there has become time upon time. I am forty-seven years old, sleeping in the same bed I slept in at sixteen, while Amelia sleeps downstairs on a foam mattress waiting to move into another part of my childhood. Amelia's new house is in the area where Mom was born and raised, and where I spent school holidays as a little girl at my grandparents' farm.

Amelia and I are still married. We have always been friends, and ultimately that has become the part of our relationship that matters most. And so mom's house will become our meeting point between whatever lives we create separately from here.

I promised Amelia I would come visit her. She vowed never to return to Vermont for any reason. Apparently, our geographical tolerances have been settled.

For most of my life, friendships existed within fairly distinct periods. There were people who knew me as a child, people from my career, people I met while traveling, people I met in Vermont, and people who know me primarily as the woman I am now. Suddenly, those distinctions are disappearing.

People who knew entirely different versions of me are beginning to know one another. I plan to introduce Makayla and Maddie soon, as the two of them, although only a year apart in age, have become the closest friends I think I will ever have. Makayla especially—I am someone whom she has known literally her entire life.

This weekend, I realized that I am finally socially accepted as part of town. Yesterday, I volunteered to photograph the library move. There were people everywhere, and at one point there was actually a line at the Middletown Springs Public Library.

I figured I should take a lot of pictures because this will likely be the only time in my lifetime when there is a line at the Middletown Springs Public Library.

The new library is inside an old church. From the outside, looks can be deceiving. Inside, it looks like Town Hall and Barnes & Noble got together and had a child. I love it.

Today was the sixth annual town-wide gathering. I went wearing my favorite jean jacket, which has a patch that says PROUD TO BE A LESBIAN.

People occasionally question whether I actually worked in the fire department when I wear one of my old work shirts. Nobody has ever questioned whether I am actually a lesbian.

Some old man commented that he too was a lesbian. He went on to tell me how long he had been married and that he had kids.

I said, "well clearly you were with a woman at some point in your life if you have kids, unless everyone you know is lying about it for you."

He laughed over this outrageously sarcastic comment. I do not believe we agree on the definition of the word.

When I first moved to Middletown Springs, I was somebody who had moved here and was the new woman in town. There is an important distinction between living somewhere and belonging there, particularly in a small Vermont town where some families have known one another longer than forever and a day. I don't know exactly when I crossed that line, but apparently, I did.

I stopped by the general store today. The deli is finally open again, which was a nice surprise. Unfortunately, the two rocking chairs that used to sit on the front porch have been replaced with boring benches. I was disappointed by the missing rocking chairs.

Vermont reminds me of my childhood in ways I have had difficulty explaining to younger people who seem to be obsessed with the 1990's. I suppose in many ways I too am obsessed with the era, and moved to Vermont for many of the same reasons. Life is slower here. People talk to one another. Everyone knows everyone else, and when something actually goes wrong, there remains an understanding that people can count on one another. That was the community I had been missing all these years.

I did not miss being a child. There are substantial portions of my childhood I would never willingly experience again. What I missed was the world surrounding it when things were good. I missed knowing the people who lived nearby.

I missed conversations that happened because two people happened to be standing in the same place. I missed places where people noticed when somebody was absent, and where helping someone was not treated as an extraordinary act.

Somehow, without realizing it, I created that life here.