Not a day goes by that I don’t recall our years in southern Missouri, where icy blue waters bubble out of dolomite cliffs formed half a billion years ago under warm seas swimming with corals, crinoids and trilobites. Jogging through our oak-hickory forests, whippoorwills nested on the ground and tanagers sang up high. And the snakes — so many snakes — climbing trees, in the chicken house, under logs, swimming in the rivers, yet not one ever struck at me or my little boy.

I remember our goats and chickens and geese and wonderful dogs, and the sandy poor soil where I worked under the southern sun trying to grow what we ate. Haying with our neighbors, third generation farmers, and gladly accepting fresh eggs as a thank you. Playing guitar and singing “Tennessee Stud” at Opel’s Café on Tuesday nights. The granitic pluton, old and weathered, looked like pink rounded elephants. We built a house and dug a pond. We paddled a canoe on the St. Francois River and fly fished for dinner. We made a life until the rain stopped, the gardens and pond dried up, and living hardscrabble became too hard. I started having dreams of being locked in a department store, where I tried on nice clothes and used fancy kitchen things at night. I knew it was time to go.

My journey took me slowly back north, teaching school, raising kids, making art, gardening. A chance meeting of a handsome librarian at a contradance eventually brought me and my two kids to Vermont, a place where I would finally be at home.

Memories of working hard on our 40 acres, which I won’t call a farm, because we never got the farming thing down very well, are mostly sweet. But the memories that bother me now when I close my eyes are of what was accepted as normal for women in the rural south. Having grown up two miles from a large university, I knew better and should have fought like Shakespeare’s woman scorned.

My son was born at a hospital an hour north of our 40 acres. My doctor, like many of the doctors there, was from a faraway continent, doing his best to pay back medical school loans, practicing in an underserved community. His English was hard to understand. I had read “Spiritual Midwifery,” by Ina May Gaskin, of the farm midwives, and believed deeply in natural childbirth. My doctor did not. When the time arrived, after 12 hours of labor, which I tolerated well, the nurse began to strap down my arms and legs to the delivery table, as if this was just a normal part of birthing. I looked at my doctor in panic and he said, “We won’t need the straps this time.” A couple of pushes and my little one was born. The doctor said to me, “I didn’t think you could handle it.” Strapping a woman down and anesthetizing her so she was not a problem was normal procedure. Cutting her open for a fast delivery was normal procedure. When they gave me the birth certificate, it showed my information as the mother, yet the father’s section was blank. When I asked why, they said it was because being unmarried would make it easier for the next guy who might want to marry me and adopt my son. At that point I was too tired to argue. I chose to have this child. My marital status was nobody’s business. I had no say, and it was all just normal procedure.

A political organizer from rural Missouri, Jess Piper posts on an online platform for writers and political activists. Her site is called “The View from Rural Missouri.” I follow her as she travels throughout the state organizing people to stand up against oppressive politics, representing those who have lost their voices in what has become a very red state. Reading her has brought back a flood of memories.

Not a moment goes by that I do not thank my friendly stars that I live in Vermont, where women have known for a long time that their voices count, but part of my heart still resides back in a canoe, paddling the St. Francois River and finally, yelling like hell.

Micki Colbeck is a naturalist and writer. She chairs the Strafford Conservation Commission. Write to her at mjcolbeck@gmail.com.