Green Mountain Flash completes the three-part memoir series 'The Spaces Between,' chronicling 21 years (2002-2023) of finally learning to stay in Vermont after decades of wandering. This concluding memoir follows a lifelong nomad's transformation from restless wanderer to a reluctant retiree in the Green Mountain State. Coming 2027
Vermont, 2002-2023: Where the Road Finally Leads Home
The Green Mountain State becomes the final landing place for a man who never learned to stay. Here, where mountains promise freedom but deliver boundaries, the same restless soul who once caught rides with his thumb out builds a different kind of life. Webmaster for Stratton, then Stowe. Designer laying out ten years of Eastern Edge Snowboarding magazine. A golden retriever named Buio who introduces him to Veronica—not the woman prophesied in the canyon, but the one who stands by him, loving him, until he finally learns how to stop running. They marry on a catamaran in Antigua, returning to the waters where paradise was lost, surrounded by many of Andre’s old friends from back in the day.
Back home in Vermont they build a wedding photography business that actually succeeds. He founds a public access TV station. Creates. Contributes. Stays. Yet still spends more than he has on the ultimate escape vehicle—an overlanding rig equipped for anywhere but here.
Dogs in the back seat. Every sunrise a potential departure. Yet he never makes it past the county
Why Vermont Became Home: Exploding the Geographical Cure Myth
Through thirteen years of failed recreations—Hood River's adrenaline, Maui's magic, Antigua's ghosts—we witness a man discovering that you can't outrun what travels in your bones. Then come nine nocturnal seizures in 2019, electrical storms at 4 AM that mirror a lifetime of running. The body rebels.
The Choice That Changes Everything
Pharmaceutical Lamictal or cannabis CBD. He chooses the plants. They work. After a year that saw him lose 90 pounds on healthy keto, the seizures finally stop. Not through medical compliance but through accepting what the body has been trying to say all along: Stop. Stay. Be here.
What Happens After the Adventure Ends
When the thumb comes down. When the wind dies. When the only journey left is inward. It's about discovering that paradise isn't a place you find—it's what remains after everything you thought would save you fails—and everything you built while running turns out to be home.
From a recording studio that records music no one ever hears comes the perfect metaphor for a life spent preparing to live. From believing escape equals freedom to understanding that freedom means choosing your cage. Where Veronica teaches what Thea couldn't: that love isn't a comet blazing through your life, but Tuesday after Tuesday after Tuesday of choosing to remain.
Raw, Unflinching, and Unexpectedly Tender
"Green Mountain Flash" completes the triptych that began with a young man fleeing his father's golden ring promises and ends with an aging man learning that some wounds don't heal—they teach you how to experience life differently.
The Flash You Wait for at Every Sunset May or May Not Exist. That's the Point. You Wait Anyway. Because after fifty years of searching for home, the most radical act is realizing you're already there.
Read the Stunning Conclusion to "The Spaces Between"
Where "Surfing the Interstates" was about leaving and "Sahara Dust" was about losing, "Green Mountain Flash" is about the terrible, beautiful necessity of staying.
The wandering was the point. Until it wasn't.