Middlebury , Vermont ( CNN ) -- I 've spent most of my adult life -- over three decades -- in Vermont . To some degree , it has been like Eden itself , a shelter from the American storm : leafy mountains , red barns and white clapboard houses , quiet dirt roads with covered bridges , village greens , lots of fresh organic food , ex-hippies galore and the open waters of Lake Champlain , which treads a narrow path over 100 miles between the Green Mountains to the east and the Adirondacks to the west . The county where I live -- Addison -- has refused to let in the big box stores , such as Walmart and Costco We prefer our country stores , where you can buy anything from maple syrup and cheddar cheese to nails or diapers for a baby . Bernie Sanders , a socialist , is one of our two senators . We were the first state to allow civil unions . Soon , a single-payer health care system will be put into place -- a bold experiment that might show the rest of the country how to do such a thing . Rumor has it that the number of cows in Vermont exceeds the number of people . And we do n't get many hurricanes or tropical storms up here . They have n't been words in our local vocabulary . The problems with weather usually come in the dead of winter , and they involve large quantities of ice , which gather on the birch trees and bend them to the ground . I sometimes have to head to the nearby college where I teach -- a three-mile journey -- on cross-country skis . And that 's a satisfying mode of transportation . But as everyone knows by now , we just got hit by Irene , with devastating results -- especially on the eastern side of the Green Mountains . More than 200 roads were closed at one point , with stretches washed out by flooding streams . The lovely town of Brattleboro , once the home of Rudyard Kipling , was deep under water , and people are still trying desperately to clear away the mess . One famous old covered bridge is gone -- a pity , as we have the highest concentration of covered bridges anywhere in the United States , and it 's always a shame to lose one . Even where I live , on an old farm outside of Middlebury , on the western side of the state , we had winds that tore up trees by the roots . Power lines were down . Branches still litter the ground around my 150-year-old house , and several shingles were blown from the roof . The Otter Creek , which runs nearby , is dangerously swollen still , reminding me of that great line in T.S . Eliot : `` The river is a strong brown god . '' I 've never seen the river this color before : deep brown . My youngest son , a feisty teenager , just asked me if he could swim in the creek . I told him about the people swept downriver only two days ago , one of them still missing . What is weird is how bright and calm the weather has become , leaving behind so much destruction , stirring up stories that will probably linger by the fireside for decades . The sky is suddenly clear as gin . There is no wind , just the aftermath of nature 's wrath . I feel a sense of awe , thinking of Irene , how it moved through us on a dark Sunday , churning through the night , turning the field beside my house into a pond . Now it has left us -- thank God -- having taken its nastiness elsewhere . It has left Vermonters to pick up the pieces one by one , like Adam and Eve after the Fall , having to deal with the fact that a snake came through the garden . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jay Parini .
Jay ##den : Vermont a haven of farms , red barns , white houses , covered bridges . Bad weather here in winter , he says , with ice bending trees and snow blocking roads . Now , Brattleboro deep under water , ruined covered bridges and homes , Parini says . Parini : Vermonters left to hole up in the calm , bright weather Irene left behind .