My sisters and I all went to summer camp in Vermont in the little town of Fairlee. The camp—on the shore of Lake Morey—was all shades of green and white: white buildings with green roofs and green trim; uniforms of green cotton shorts and white shirts; green pine trees and the jaunty white triangular sails of Sunfish skimming the surface of the water. Clusters of open-air tents—nothing more than wooden platforms with khaki-colored canvas sides that we rolled up during the day and dropped at night—were half-hidden among the verdant hills that sloped down to the main camp buildings and, across a small road, the lake itself.

One of my sisters likes to tease me about my ever-present need to elaborate, particularly with regards to cooking. “What did you make for dinner?” she’d ask. And instead of saying, “lasagna” and leaving it at that, I’d have to describe that I made the noodles with half semolina and half 00 flour, and that I cooked butternut squash with a little sage and brown butter and layered that with garlicky sautéed kale and a béchamel sauce with ricotta and Gruyere.

“Po,” she’ll stop me. “I didn’t need to know of all of that.”

The past few days felt oddly like spring, despite December peeking from just around the corner. The sky has been particularly delicate silk blue, as if a piece of sheer fabric was being held up against the weak winter sun.

I’ve started running again in the mornings—somewhere deep in my muscle memory, my body remembers how to do this: to start moving while I’m still yawning, my limbs heavy with sleep. To jog in the hushed just-post-dawn air, slowly enough at first that I don’t start to warm up in earnest until I make it over to the high school.