Rutledge, Vermont — Where the Walls Are Speaking

Rutledge does not try to explain itself. It lets the walls do the work.

On the main street, a mural stretches across the side of a building, gathering pieces of the town into one steady image — fields and agriculture, an office building in the background, a church, a gazebo, families, and people moving through daily life. It feels less like a scene and more like a record, a way of saying this is who we are without speaking out loud.

Across the street, an old brick building has been turned into Roots, a restaurant that opens into a small courtyard at ground level. The space is simple — tables, chairs, brick, sky — but the walls that hold it carry something newer.

One mural shows a young African American girl, her expression calm, leaves drifting in front of her. Only after spending time there do the words become clear — protect, love, respect, trust — written into the leaves themselves. They don’t announce themselves. They reveal themselves, the way meaning often does.

Facing her, a bald eagle rests on the opposite wall. It isn’t posed in drama. It simply watches. Steady. Present. Another kind of quiet.

What ties these murals together is not their subject but their patience. They live where people eat lunch, pull out chairs, and cross the street back into town. They don’t interrupt life. They sit inside it.

In Rutledge, even brick and paint seem to understand that the most lasting things are the ones that don’t rush.

~D

~D