Stick season: the period between fall and winter in Vermont when the leaves have left the trees but the snow has yet to come.
I am not from Vermont, nor have I ever visited. I have never experienced a true “season of the sticks” and maybe you haven’t either. But in some way or another, we can all understand what it means to exist in the “already but not yet.” That dry and bleak, yet necessary, transition period in life that comes and goes just like the changing seasons. A time for waiting. A brief intermission between life stages. The span between closing one chapter and starting a new one.
If I know anything about the human life, it is that everyone goes through these shifting periods, especially as we age, change and grow. If you believe that you have never experienced this, you should go listen to Noah Kahan’s album “Stick Season.” Maybe it will change your mind.
Kahan released the record on Oct. 14, 2022. “Stick Season” consists of a mix of alternative/indie and folk pop tracks that truly transport you into the depths of winter in Vermont.
This album feels as if it should be played as you drive around your own hometown that you have now left, daydreaming about what it used to be and how it used to make you feel. Kahan grew up in Vermont, and as an ode to growing up and moving away to start his adult life, he wrote “Stick Season.”
In the album, Kahan speaks to the idea of homesickness. Not only do the tracks explain how it feels to miss home, but he also alludes to the fact that a person can even hate their hometown after moving away.
For many people, this stage of life eventually comes around. Many idealize the place, or even places, that they come from (myself included). Yet one day, something changes and they no longer miss what their hometown had to offer. Instead, they resent it.
The longer I am in college the more I realize that this change often occurs in the hearts of college students everywhere. One moment, they love their home and they grieve moving away from it as they walk towards the great unknown that is “higher education.” However, semesters and years go by, and eventually, they can go days and weeks without even thinking about home or the lives they used to inhabit.
In actuality, community tends to form wherever we spend the most time. College students spend three-fourths of the year in school. So, it makes sense to plant roots in their college town rather than where they grew up. Over time, this becomes the norm and the term “home” no longer holds the same meaning that it used to. Frankly, this is just the truth about getting old and moving on from where we grew up. Kahan writes about this specific feeling of distance in the album’s title track and lead single, “Stick Season.”
“And I love Vermont, but it’s the season of the sticks, and I saw your mom, she forgot that I existed and it’s half my fault, but I just like to play the victim,” Kahan sings.
The key theme that Kahan describes here is how easy it is to be so close to someone, but over time completely forget that they exist. We do this with people, but we also do this with places.
The further people venture, the more likely they are to change. I think it is possible to love and hate a place at the same time. I also think that it is easy to miss a place and yet hope that you never have to go back.
Deeper than this is the reality that no one is to blame for these feelings. Distance is simply a byproduct of change. So, it is okay to grieve for a place. It is also okay to grieve the version of yourself in that place that you used to love.
It is also perfectly normal to idealize and romanticize your hometown. I have found that the longer it has been since I have visited a place I loved, the more fond I become of its memories. And the longer it has been since I have visited a place I hated, the more I dwell on the things that made it painful.
Ultimately, Kahan’s album probes listeners to reminisce about the good old days, to think about the people we used to know, to think about ourselves, about life and change. However, at the end of “Stick Season,” he calls his audience to more than that.
“And I’ll dream each night of some version of you that I might not have, but I did not lose,” he sings. “Now you’re tire tracks and one pair of shoes and I’m split in half, but that’ll have to do.”
Kahan provokes his listeners to look at where they are now. He asks us not to look too much at the past or the future, but to be where our feet are planted. He challenges us to come to terms with the idea that fondness and bitterness can coexist and that it is okay not to choose one over the other.
