I suspect James Comey’s appearance before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was a déjà vu moment for many baby boomers.

Americans are anxious. In the wake of two recent terrorist attacks in Europe and a contentious presidential election, stress levels are understandably high. In fact, a recent study by the American Psychological Association found that the current political climate is a “very or somewhat significant source of stress" for a majority of Americans.

From as early as I can remember, I’ve been an opera buff. I remember sitting in the orchestra section at the Old Metropolitan Opera House on 39th and Broadway and hearing the great mid-century singers. My great-grandmother Selma was having a platonic affair with Caruso. My Aunt Rose hung out with the greats of the time: Gueden, Schwarzkopf, Kunz, and Jerome Hines. My fervid childish imagination lit up at the live passion, violence, and madness on stage that made the comics littering Al Melendy’s

From a wall in my Montpelier home, the kindly oval-framed faces of two great-grandparents and their two sons have watched me down the years.

Many people across the nation and around the globe paused to honor President John F. Kennedy last week on what would have been his 100th birthday. His sense of duty to all Americans provides inspiration at a time when many of us are longing for more effective political leadership.

My husband and I are building our second outdoor pizza oven. Our first one collapsed due to our terrible engineering skills, but this one will be solid. Plus, our friends got used to eating brick oven pizza in our backyard, and now they won’t let us forget it.

By 1787, when they met in Philadelphia, delegates knew they needed to fix or replace the Articles of Confederation. The balance of power between the thirteen States and the Federal Government wasn’t working. Congress couldn’t pay its debts from the Revolutionary War and couldn’t force States to contribute their share.

Last fall Soren Hermanson, a beefy, former-vegetable farmer from a small island off of the coast of Denmark came to Vermont to tell the story of Samso – an island that has gone completely renewable.

It was not unexpected. Still, when President Trump announced that the United States “was getting out” of the Paris Accord, it felt like he was describing an alternate universe, not the world I live in - or one I wish for our children and grandchildren to live in. The United States has become a global outlier, turning up its nose at some one hundred and ninety five other countries who stand by the agreement.

Abraham Lincoln – a favorite of current day Republicans, Democrats, and even Independent Socialists – once spoke these words: “(L)et it be remembered” our great sixteenth President said, “that… the exultations and mortifications of the present, are but temporary; that the victor shall soon be the vanquished… and that the vanquished this year, may be victor the next.”