Calais (14/252)
a Vermont 251 essay
This is an entry in my Vermont 251 Club series. The main post — which lists all 252 places in Vermont — is here. As I visit each one and write about it, the name will become a live link. I sometimes paywall these and sometimes don’t, depending on my mood. Here are a few free ones. But in general, most of the series will be paywalled, so if you think you would enjoy reading more of these, here’s a coupon to help you subscribe a little cheaper.
I was in downtown Montpelier, running a small errand that had turned into something larger in my head. I’d gone to pick up a special order at the bookstore and take a walk to clear my mind.
There was a coding problem waiting for me at home — the kind of problem where step-by-step debugging won’t help, where the solution doesn’t arrive because you grind at it, but because you look away long enough for your brain to do its quiet work. Remote-work benefit: I’ve solved more than one bug in the shower or while sketching at my drawing desk, only to return to my work-work desk and knock it out in minutes.
It was on that walk that I saw her: a lone woman standing at one of Montpelier’s most protest-prone intersections. I’ve seen all sorts of characters at that corner — including one memorably stubborn man who spent an entire afternoon with a hand-lettered sign declaring “Charlie Kirk Died a Hero; Change My Mind.”
But this woman had chosen simplicity. Her sign read only one word:
TRUMP
— with a circle and slash through the name.
I stood there for five minutes and watched the ritual play out.
A car would pass, the driver laying on the horn in a jubilant staccato.
A pedestrian would stop, blink in theatrical surprise — someone hates Trump?! in Montpelier, Vermont?! — then beam with delight, fold their hands in gratitude, and say, “Thank you.”
Another passerby slowed down just long enough to pump two clenched fists in a little semaphore of solidarity, grinning as though the act itself had lightened their day. Each reaction was a miniature celebration.
And the woman? She responded the same way every time. A small smile. A single nod. Nothing more. She never spoke, never matched their energy, never even raised her hand.
She acknowledged each interaction with the serene detachment of a monk, and then reset to neutral, waiting for the next.
Something about the peace of long Vermont drives lets me solve find-the-language-for-a-feeling problems, just as the shower or the drawing table often lead me to solve work-work problems. And that worked again — during the drive to Calais, I came to understand why the whole scene had felt uncanny and creepily familiar.
The woman was doing something I’d seen before, just never in the flesh.
I’ve seen real life interactions that belonged online — usually florid, unhinged rants that felt like a Facebook comment thread brought to life. But this was different. What felt familiar wasn’t the content, but the structure.
This was the infrastructure of online life transposed into the real world.
She wasn’t protesting.
She was collecting likes.
Extra space to allow for how the app messes up paywall breaks.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Holly’s Substack to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.