To the Country
Beneath the Surface
Our move to CT catapulted us out of our 18-foot-wide townhouse and onto acres of fresh earth.
For George and young George, the transition was immediate. They were like two explorers on an adventure.
Young George met his best friend on the bus to kindergarten the very first day. Chris lived downriver, and George would paddle his canoe to pick him up. They fished, pulled blue crabs from mud holes, swam the river at high tide, roamed the woods unsupervised, and rolled down meadows green with spring.
Big George found his place just as quickly. While working land in Litchfield, he began to work ours as well.
We were in the heart of what is now the East River Preserve. Natural trails cut through hundreds of acres that you could wander from our back door.
But just beyond it—out of sight, though not beyond the reach of its smell—were open pit septage lagoons.
The town, under pressure to fix a failing sewage system for a growing population, chose the easiest solution: dumping raw sewage into open pits to be absorbed into the land, feeding into the ground water of the East River, which runs for about seven miles before reaching Long Island Sound.
George called them what they were—abominable, unacceptable—and pushed to have them shut down. He found himself up against not only the town, but the DEP as well.
They pushed back.
What I thought might be a passing concern became something else entirely. With each setback, his resolve deepened. He walked the land with scientists to establish testing sites, wrote letters to the local paper, and sought legal counsel.
He stayed with it. Meetings. Resistance. Years of it.
And then, slowly, he succeeded.
The groundwater was proven contaminated. Negligence was established. What followed made conservation possible. The land surrounding our home was sold to the town, protected for anyone who would walk its trails, paddle its river, or stand in its quiet.
That stretch of earth would remain. In perpetuity.
I had never seen this side of George before—steadfast and unwavering once his purpose was clear.
And while both Georges found their place in the country with ease, I did not.
When we first arrived from Connecticut, I wanted another child. It felt possible there—days unencumbered by apartment walls, schedules, or playdates.
But my body had something else to say.
While the earth around us struggled beneath the surface for years, so had something in me.
There would be no walking away from it.