To Heaven and Back Again
An Open Letter in Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Governor’s Institutes of Vermont

by Timothy H. Carter
Alumni - Arts, 2007

To summarize Governor’s Institute on the Arts, I will begin at the end, with the finale where our parents stepped inside our lives for an afternoon and witnessed what we’d been up to, not understanding our laughter or the jokes or songs that hung so heavy in the air; the student concert where we all performed and paraded and were applauded; the concert drawing to a close and the sense of solemnity in the darkness by the curtains bunched to the side of the stage; and the parting ceremony, where all of us brothers and sisters were together with our father Donny Osman telling us how proud he was, and us one by one standing to say what will be missed. We all cried. Some could barely get through the words “love”, and “everyone” without tears washing away their voice. I could hardly speak either, crying “I’m alive, I’m alive” with a feeling like my heart was getting torn from my chest. I remember it rained in the parking lot as if the sky were crying with us. I was sick and lied sideways in the car as my father drove home, sick all over from the lack of sleep, the crying, and the leaving. It wasn’t until much later that I was less scattered and could begin to cherish that I had just spent two weeks in Heaven and had driven back, cleansed in rain.
Governor’s Institute was powerful. It charged me more thoroughly than a thunderstorm does air. It is the type of power that saves lives and it is the type of power that fuels the furnace of creativity. If we were not powerful in our families or in our schools, then we were riveted with power each day walking to the pond for morning poetry classes with Verandah Porche, each afternoon lounging in the basement beneath the stage with Geof Hewitt, and each night sitting in the auditorium for a spectacular performance. In my heart I learned what it was to speaking without talking, to love deeply, and to feel the attention of an entire audience waiting for your next word.
I can’t say I will never forget what happened last summer in Castleton, Vermont, because I know when I grow very old I will lose track of everything. I just hope—no, I pray, that Governor’s Institute on the Arts is the last thing I forget.
I left the institute laden with treasures and scraps of poems, as well as something less tangible but far more substantial. I came away with relationships. This is what the Governor’s Institutes are all about. I am part of a family of artists, and have continued to see them throughout my senior year—in fact, I just returned from a camping trip with my friends, our one year anniversary for one of the most defining experiences of our life. Confucius had at least one thing right: He recognized the importance of relationships. Those who believe in you, those you laugh with, love with, dance with, fail and succeed with—those are the most important people in the world.
I didn’t think it was possible to fall madly in love with an entire population but miraculously, I fell in love with all those artists. Well, maybe not miraculously, because after all, strange things happen when you’re in Heaven.
Timothy H. Carter