'Closer to Home Than I Expected': A Note Left at the Richford Library

A patron returned a media card loaded with the RONAn documentary series 'Nous Sommes RONA' and left a handwritten note. A small moment — but the second card walked out the door the same afternoon.

By Ingrid Solberg Culture & Society Correspondent

March 20, 2042 — 3 weeks ago

culture Vermont documentary community Nous Sommes RONA

'Closer to Home Than I Expected': A Note Left at the Richford Library

RICHFORD, Vermont — The card came back with a note.

Sometime last week, a Richford resident returned an offline media card borrowed from the local library — one preloaded with the first episode of Nous Sommes RONA / We Are RONA, the documentary series making its quiet way across the principality through a handful of physical lending programs. Tucked alongside it was a slip of paper, handwritten, describing the episode's Vermont farming community segment as "closer to home than I expected."

Library staff member Colette Aubin-Roy placed the note near the community board display, where it has remained. "It wasn't addressed to anyone in particular," she said. "It just felt like it belonged there." That same afternoon, a different patron borrowed one of the two remaining cards in the library's collection.

Ingrid Solberg

Culture & Society Correspondent

Ingrid Solberg covers arts, culture, sport, and the social fabric of RONAn life. Born in Bergen, Norway, she moved to Vermont in 2031 and became a RONAn citizen at the Republic's founding. Her cultural criticism has appeared in the New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Frieze. She is the author of Small Nations, Big Stories (Penguin Press, 2038), an account of how new states build cultural identity.