For me, Spring has always been the great disruptor in my life. It unbalances me, renders me fragile, interrupts my sleep patterns, agitates my concentration, buoys me up and sucks me under like a maniacal riptide. Bref, it fucks me up.

Why? Who knows. But it is the season of rawness for me. Of course, bear in mind that I was born and raised in a Dominican Catholic culture (rule of thumb for you (lucky) non-brainwashed-as-a-young-child-Catholics, dominicans are the really evil ones, franciscans are generally a bit gentler). So, all the Easter punish yourself so you can be reborn is a bit hard-wired into me. That's where I could use some mind erasure Charlie Kauffman . .

I have so many Easter snapshots to share, but I think I'll weave them in over the years. Here's the first one that comes to mind: Freshman year in college and I'm sitting in the dorm hallway outside my room with a pen and a legal pad madly listing out all the terrible things I will never do again. I'm in the hall because my room reeks of beer, smoke, dirty laundry and my drunken roommate's b.o (and she's snoring). I can only write with my left hand because my right arm is too badly bruised. And I can only prop the legal pad on my left thigh because I can't bend my right leg at the knee.

The night before I was living large and at some point in the wee hours after breaking into the main hall and climbing our way up into the cupola, I decided (in my stoned and drunken wisdom) to leave the party. I dropped four flights of stairs and at least two of them on my chin. So, as I'm writing, every few minutes I reach up to touch under my chin gingerly where it is swollen like a goiter and wonder if it's too late to get some stitches.

Needless to say, I could have broken my neck or killed myself that night. Thus my desperate, repentant scribbles to the Easter spirits. I'm pretty sure I promised that if I could walk again and not be scarred for life I would never, ever drink or smoke or get high again. And, I remember clearly when my roommate finally did rouse from her beauty sleep, that we headed straight to the bar for bloodies. What can I say? I was hungry and bloodies come with celery and olives.

Those crazy days are far behind me now. But the emotional disturbance of Easter and springtime bring back my many ghosts. Lucky for me, I have something magical to focus on this year as I look for new beginnings and a chance to head up a different life path: the 82 (pictured above) --my weenie digital camera doesn't begin to do it justice.

Two years ago in May, my husband and I bought 82 acres above Squam Lake. It is in over a mile on a class 6 road, i.e. the town does not maintain this road. It was completely wooded (no view whatsoever) and people thought we were nuts. Fortunately, our families always think we are nuts so it didn't phase us at all. But, we had our moments of 'oh shit, what did we do? are we fucking crazy?' Then, last summer we had our moment of validation. We cut 5 acres and lo and behold the view you see above. Now the plan is to build the dream house. It will be solar-powered, off-grid, have wood stoves, and two natural wells so when armagedden comes, I'll be in my garden peaceful as you please. Unless they blow up the planet and the sun, we're safe in the hills.

NOTE: in case you were wondering about our lack of originality, we tried to give the place some kind of a real name like twelve oaks, or maple farm or some such shit-- but in the end when we talked about it we always just said, the 82. And so, that's what we call it.

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