Once Upon A Time

Working on Antique Hill at the Tunbridge Fair last week was enlightening in ways it hasn't been before. I haven't heard what the official numbers were yet, but it doesn't take a mathematician to know that it was a slow year. What with rainy, cold weather dampening a couple of the fair days, and the recent flooding and all, not that many folks were in a fair mood, I guess. I was only asked, by a chuckling tourist, if I "was the real Schoolmarm in 1905" a small handful of times. That's my scientific calculation on the number of fair goers right there.

On account of an attack a few years ago, we're required to work the schoolhouse in pairs now, especially at night. The buddy system seems like a good idea, both because the building is set apart from the rest of the museum and because, when it's not busy, you get pretty lonely. I was fortunate to be scheduled with four dear friends over the course of the fair, and I had the absolute best time with each of them in different ways.

In between visitors, we all had these amazing heart-to-heart talks, leaving me feeling like a blessed person to have the people in my life that I have. Something about that little, red schoolhouse invites openness and honesty, it's such a cheerful, serene, no frills place. Very special. It could double as a therapist's office if you ask me. Had I more time tonight, I'd tell you all the stories and love that came pouring out of my wonderful friends in this place last week, but for now, I'll just settle for telling you about my pow wow with Euclid.

Euclid Farnham is our town historian, a handsome, mustached, elegant farmer in his late 70's that embodies all the common sense and class a true Vermonter should. He moderates our town meetings, plays Santa Claus every December, gives slide shows at the local schools, heads up church events, library events, town-wide events, he was the president of the fair for 31 years, a retired dairy farmer, brilliant speaker, writer, just an all-around first class human being. Talking to him is a joy and I'm proud to count him among my good friends.

While Marsha, Louise, and my conversations ran more along the lines of sniffy, tear-filled purging on the subjects of love, life, divorce, children, friendships, relationships, and uh, clothes, (What? We all like them!) and Ben's was four hours of a welcome, lighthearted, clowning distraction, a never ending continual joke and fun time, Euclid's stint in the schoolhouse, Sunday afternoon, left me with a lot of thoughts on how people have changed throughout history. We spoke in depth on the topic of "The more things change, the more they stay the same" and if we believe that or not, in the course of human emotional evolution.

Long ago, when people married, maybe it was for love, maybe it wasn't. Either way, people didn't seem to feel the same entitlement to happiness and success. Now, we come into this modern life thinking "I deserve to be happy. I deserve this and this and this..." According to old journals, people didn't actually seem all that miserable with their difficult lives, their loveless marriages, their hardships and grief. It was just a matter of fact. You get up and get on with your day. There WAS joy, equal to our own. Euclid told me a story about a young woman who died in her mid-forties, and on her gravestone, her face was crudely etched, surrounded by the faces of THIRTEEN children she had born and lost. THIRTEEN. Dead. Either at birth or in early childhood. And yet she somehow kept going, her farm, her life, she JUST KEPT GOING. Were people stuffing their emotions way down deep and suffering in silence, or was it just a fact of life, so completely accepted as the way it was? Did these mothers feel too depressed to function? Apparently not. But WHY not? Can we have evolved that much over the course of a hundred years? Has our idea of happiness changed so drastically? Happiness used to be a hot meal, a warm bed, a cow in the barn, living children. Now it's this idea of getting what we want, not just what we need, but what we WANT as well. And we want the moon.

I'm not joking. We want the damn MOON. Think about it, materialistically and emotionally, we want it all...the perfect home and impressive cars and STUFF galore, health and wealth, satisfying jobs, stimulating travel, well rounded children, intelligent friends, Martha Stewart Christmas's, and a partner who loves us, respects us, reads our minds, is attractive, babies us (not too much, just enough) takes care of us (while admitting that we are perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves and everybody else) is 100 percent sexually compatible, loyal, says all the right things, is a certain height, weight, makes grand romantic gestures, likes the same movies and so forth. Just when did this happen? Not that I think it's bad or anything...I'm certainly not saying we should go back to a time when women were possessions, and happiness was not even a consideration when choosing a mate, but it's just interesting is all. And interesting to think that when hardship befalls us, we don't instantly pick up the pieces and keep on, but instead we stop our whole lives to grieve, to work through it, to get help, to talk, to feel, to purge.

At what point did feelings outweigh practicality? When did they take the top billing in our lives? Are we handicapped by the massive myriad of choices available to us, or are we lucky? Reviewing my own sadly failed marriage, dissolved from nothing else but feelings, I know without a question that one hundred years ago, I would be still be certainly happily married, And I'm not even kidding about the happy part. Because back then, 'happy enough' was all the happy you were gonna get. And you accepted it.

Is that terrible? Euclid and I discussed the horror of being one of those 1880's, poor, farm women, burdened by toil and baby after baby, but literature tells us that they, for the most part, were "happy" people, or at least as happy as we consider ourselves to be. Now, we've invented new unhappiness to take the place of the old. It's such a mysterious thing...on one hand, we should be counting our lucky stars that we have the freedoms and options we have, and yet we never stop wanting more. (Sorry Feminists, I'm on your side, but I'm just playing devil's advocate for the sake of this blog and my curiosity at the moment. And anyway, I'm not meaning to slant this towards women, ALL people were in a similar position, happiness wise. Men were just as trapped in many ways.)

Neither Euclid or I could make out which idea was better, maybe it seems obvious to others, but honestly, I can't say for sure. It's difficult and heartbreaking to make decisions, I, personally, never know if I'm making the right one...is it better to have the decision made for you? Or is it unacceptable to be stuck in a just-make-the-best-of-it situation..."Life's hard, and then you die?" Is that how it should be? Now or then? It's all hypothetical anyway, we ARE living in the now. But I just spent several days imagining myself living back then, and let me tell you, it makes for some deep, dark questions on who I am, and how I really would have been, once upon a time...

It's a different world, that's for sure. For better or worse, they don't make 'em like they used to.

Avry-isms

Doing the straps on their car seats this afternoon, Ira asked Avry, "Do you still have to be buckled up too?" Avry said, disgusted, "Of course. EVERYBODY has to be buckled, 'cept for people who are dogs, 'cause nobody cares if dogs go dead."

And on the way home I decided to stop and get the kids an ice cream since they'll pull the plug on the creamee machine any day now, and Avry rapturously announced, "I LOVE the cone SO much, I wish I could have it without any ice cream in it, but I want the ice cream because that's my favorite part!" Well, OK then.

Falling

Ira put his hands on his hips this morning and, looking up at the sky, shouted: "God, throw down some snow! I wanna roller skate." I'd like to retract his plea, if it's all the same to you, God. You can hold off on the snow for a good, long time still.

The Fair's over, which means it's officially Fall...leaves are turning, air's crisp...I like Fall, like the way it smells and feels. Wouldn't mind it lasting well into rollerskating season.

Here are a few shots from this year's fair...I didn't feel much like taking a zillion pictures, it was a looooooooong four days. Mostly wonderful, as always, just tiring.

My dance group's performance was a bust, not my dancer's fault, the sound system crapped out, but luckily it was a wet, cold night and only a small handful of folks had to watch the disaster that was our show. We did the best we could, and I'm proud of everybody for pulling it off when we couldn't tell what the heck song was coming out of the speakers. Ah well, better luck next time.

Antique Hill was fun and amusing, the way I expected it to be, heard lots of stories from old-timers, plenty of "I think children should still recite the Pledge Of Allegiance" and "It was better when kids got smacked for giving the teacher any lip" and "We said the 23rd Psalm every morning."

The boys got pretty exhausted this weekend, so very grateful to our super nannies for their patience. And now here we are: Fall. Extra quilts coming out, no heat yet and it's already frigid in here most mornings. Gotta get cracking. I thought we could hold out until October before needing the furnace, but maybe not. Hey God? Instead of answering Ira's prayer for snow, can you just throw down a few cords of wood? Please and thank you and Amen.

9-11

I was eating dinner with my friend Rusty the other night when he said, "I know it's a cliche' today and all, but DO you remember where you where when you heard the World Trade Center was hit?" I do, and it was the day my photo studio officially opened for business. Written right on all my tax info and all. I had a full eight hours of portraits booked, and the first one had just arrived. The radio was set to some classical station, I'd just placed two toddler sisters, in their matching vintage dresses, on a miniature park bench, and their mother was waving and hopping and whistling behind me. A symphony cut out to an announcement that was already half over, but we got the drift. A plane had just hit the first tower, something was happening to the Pentagon, then another plane...mass confusion, bedlam... The girl's mother just walked out my door and got in her car, either to listen to her own radio, use her phone, or just be alone a moment, I'm not sure. I was stuck inside with two kids who were happily hitting each other with a sock monkey and giggling, spilling a bottle of bubbles kept on hand for catching their attention. I have no idea what I was feeling. Isn't that crazy? No idea. The rest of the day's customers were no-shows. I remember my parents saying something along the lines of "We should all go hole up at camp until the world ends". And arguing about whether or not to pick up Myra from college.

But you know what? The birds were still singing. Those small sisters were still blowing bubbles and laughing. And all around us the world was falling. ENDING. Some people go around thinking that every day of their lives. Not everyone though. Is it wrong to blow bubbles and sing? I don't think so. See, I decided perhaps the birds and kids have the right idea. Of course, I feel horrified, absolutely horrified, about what happened. The pictures of people jumping from windows, and falling to a more preferable death than what awaited inside, make me sick. I can hardly type those words, in fact. But still...

Since I'm on an anti-political kick at the moment...I won't say what I think about the whole deal. I know that sounds shitty, but I'm tired of being angry or scared or helpless/hopeless feeling. Politics may be the single biggest factor in some people's depression issues. I'm needing to focus on up-close things right now. I'm needing to focus on the good, amazing, beautiful things in every single day. My children, my home, my friends and family, the sunset, jokes, happiness. Politics don't exactly lend themselves to positive thinking. So, I'm ignoring most of it. I know that ignorance is NOT bliss, I've said that before, but give me a break Tax Cuts, Budget Deficit and Oil Crisis. I'm just going to try to be a decent human being for a bit, keep on keeping on, and pretend I've never heard of you. My recycling will still get sorted, my groceries still organic, I will still disapprove of war, but for God's sake, turn on the angry political ranting, the conspiracy theories, the debate about which president sucked more...and I'll politely tune you out. It's not because I don't care, or don't have an opinion, it's because I need to. No offense to those of you that sink your energy into making changes and do so much, I'm proud of you. I understand your drive and anger perfectly. It's just my time to step back...if I dwell any longer, well, it won't be pretty.

That being said, I'm wondering how on earth I'm going to pay for my recent trip to the ER with a simple sprained ankle, and where the money for this winter's heat is coming from. I could get super furious at a system that's made to eliminate the lower class, but life is hard enough without being ticked off at the Whys and Whats of the situation. Not to mention short. Life is dang SHORT. (That tiny girl, up above? She's a teenager now, nearly six feet tall. All grown up. Only yesterday she was smacking her hysterical, chuckling baby sister with a sock monkey while the Twin Towers collapsed.) So, that's the scoop. I'm sorry if I sound like a bimbo, or irreverent about sensitive subjects, but it's the only way my head can rest. If I get back on the political bandwagon, you'll be the first to hear it. For now, please pass the bubbles.

It's A Small World After All

So, you know when you just learn something and then it coincidentally pops up immediately? Like people tell you a fascinating new fact about gorillas and then boom! ...You drive right by Gorilla Street the very next moment. (OK, that made no sense, but you get what I mean, right?)...Is there a word for this phenomenon? Knowledge + Coincidence = What? This has been happening daily to me lately, and it's awfully strange. But fun.

I've started dating John. You might know him. You might not. Anyway, he seems to be the king of this weird phenomenon. A magnet for it. One example: My sis-in-law Tamera, and her husband Sean, just moved into this darling house in Plainfield VT, (making the long trek from San Fransisco in a cramped uhaul with two cats running wild in the cab with them) which is awesome, very glad to have them less than an hour away, the kids are in ecstasies. Anyway, I was describing their cute, brick house to John...then the next day, he tells his mother about it (she lives one town over, in Marshfield) and it turns out that her partner used to own it, and once threw a naked man who was sleeping with his ex-wife down the stairs in that very house...some coincidence, huh? And also it turns out John's mom's next door neighbor is my cousin Tim, who was at their place the other night when they happened to mention their son was dating me...apparently THAT was a funny scene. If you want to use the word 'funny' to encompass all manners of awkwardness.

Another goofy coincidence happened this week, I was in the Hanover Co-Op, when I noticed all these mylar baloons on the floor in the corner. Upon closer inspection, I saw they were shaped like animals with dangling cardboard feet and leashes, and were miraculously floating just a few inches off the floor. Some brilliant mastermind figured out all the details so you can actually walk an inflatable pug dog and have it follow right behind you, bobbing along completely realistically. (I was really into these, as you can probably tell.) I led one up and down a few aisles, other shoppers giving me the wow-now-she's-a-piece-of-work-whatta-freak eyeball before I decided I had no real need for an eleven dollar balloon shaped like a pug dog. Next day, a friend shows me a video saved on his phone of his son trying to pop an INFLATABLE MYLAR PUG DOG.

Is any of this important or meaningful? No. Just curious. And I like silly parallel occurences.

Yeah, my life, which is on an uncharted course at the moment, unsure and all very new and foreign, is suddenly filled with many, many chance happenings, deja vu, coincidence after coincidence, seemimgly random encounters with the very same person you were just speaking of, odd moments of supernatural connections...rather interesting, to say the least. Such a small world. Once you actually pick your head up and look around anyway. Maybe I haven't done that for a while.

What's that game? Five Degrees Of Separation? Where you can connect any two people in no more than five steps? Here in Vt, I feel like you can cut it down to TWO degrees of separation. And throw in a few gorillas, naked men, shocked cousins, and helium-bloated pug dogs for good measure.

Some Pics From The Last Couple Weeks...My Studio & The Birthday Boys

Fair

Things are pretty sad at our house at the moment...unstable, ugly, hard. Not referring to the recent Hurricane Irene, but a personal storm, also of epic proportions. Justin and I wrote a blog post explaining all this separation business months ago, but then I was shamed into not posting it because it was "too private"...I still feel like I want to tell you the whole story because it is so unlike me to NOT, only it'll have to be much later, after some more of the rawness wears off, I guess. I'm sorry. And I'm sorry for hiding it for so long. What seemed like a good idea once does not seem terribly smart now. Everyone is freshly shocked even though it's old news to us. People are offering sympathy, lectures, advice... which makes it feel like it just happened all over again. Reopens the sore spots that might have healed. But then, hindsight is 20/20 and all. Yeah, I'll say.

Tunbridge has also been battered severely by the actual hurricane, giving me even more of a sense of disbelief and a surreal outlook on everything today. I have a hard time wrapping my head around change. Yet change has happened so drastically since early winter that I feel nearly autistic in my emotional blankness some days. Almost like stone inside, and immune to it all. Defense mechanism, I guess. But other times, I can barely breathe. I cry about the stupidest things. For now, I'll push that down deep again, because that's how I cope. I can't walk around being a basket case in front of my kids. Smile and dance, that's what I'll keep doing. It feels fake plenty of the time, but it has to happen. Fake it 'til you make it, baby. Yes, I know it's not healthy to repress, and I need to talk. I am. But I can't do that every minute or I'll go insane. Sometimes I have to pretend it's all normal. Writing helps the most, and I've done plenty of that. Don't worry, I'm OK. Seriously. I'm not the first person this has happened to. I'll live. For now, let me write of something lighter, something happy. My home life weighs in at 'Fair'...... not 'Good', certainly not 'Excellent' but also not 'Poor', so have no fear. We'll weather this storm, and be better people for it someday. Well, here you go...on the topic of 'Fair', my thoughts on the upcoming annual event I enjoy so much:



When Fall rolls around, I do what I've done every year for the last 16? 17? years, (I need to figure that out at some point)...I work in the antique museum featured at the Tunbridge Fair. Our Fair is really quite famous actually, known as "The World's Fair" after a well-known politician likened it to the one in Chicago, probably as a joke? But anyhow, the name stuck. It's a delightful mix of modern day carnival and traditional county fair. Award winning cattle, needle point, pies, giant, creepy, misshapen veggies on display after you walk through the brightly lit midway hawking Justin Bieber posters. Sometimes I find the contrast sort of jarring, mostly I like it. It's unique, that's for sure. Maple milkshakes and electric blue sno-cones go hand in hand.

Some years though, I never even leave Antique Hill, because to me, that IS the fair. What I think of as the best part anyway. A whole, tiny village perched on the knoll above the grandstand and the tilt-a-whirl. A turn-of-the-century one-room schoolhouse, blacksmith's shop, printing press, post office, general store, colonial kitchen, Civil War encampment, cider mill. Weavers, rug hookers, old-time fiddlers spread across the yards between buildings and barns. The smells up there evoke primitive pictures...black powder, roast chicken, apples, musty books, woodsmoke... HISTORY, man, that's what it's all about. And History is my drug of choice. I'd snort it if I could.

I've held all sorts of positions over the years, sometimes changing costumes several times a day, moving from one time period to another. Dipping candles for hours on end in a sack dress and mob cap until I could see bubbling wax in my sleep for nights afterwards. Basting a chicken over an open fire while I kneel, bare foot on the warm, cinder-spotted, stone hearth. Wrestling myself into a corset and huge, feathered hat to tend the Post Office, counting change and stamping cards, (occasionally whacking my head on the antique telephone because my hat creates so many blind spots) All prim, and proper, and dainty, speaking of the three R's as the 1900's schoolmarm. Encased in a large white apron, stabbing at pickles floating in a giant, murky jar in the general store.

Can't decide which is my favorite. The school or store. Both feel right. Not only do I love dressing up and smiling at slightly frightened small children for 12 hours a day, but I've learned so much after all this time, not only about history, but about human nature in general. I've learned how to read people, body language, all of that. I'm not a terribly talented person in a lot of ways, but I've got this going for me. I can size up a person (MOST of the time...I've certainly been surprised a time or two) in an instant, owning, I believe to this particular job.

People are ultimately the same. There are several categories in this "sameness" but still, same they are. I can predict, often word for word, what certain types of folks will ask or comment about. And this skill has slowly grown to expand my awareness of people year round, not just during the Fair. It's handy. Handeeeeeee.

When I work in the kitchen, the questions and comments are the most predictable. You're middle aged men in loud Hawaiian shirts like to learn over the railing and say either "What's for dinner?" (To which I like to reply, "Whatever you kill and bring back to me.") or "When's dinner?" Other questions include: "Is that a real chicken/baby/potato?" "How long does it take that chicken/potato/baby (kidding on the baby part) to cook?" "Bet you girls are hot in here." "Bet you girls wish you had a microwave." (And I like to answer that one with, "What's a microwave?")

In the Schoolhouse every person over the age of say, forty, likes to remark, in a smug tone tone, "My grandmother went to a one-room schoolhouse." As I grin and affect an attitude of amazement, I wonder if it has ever occurred to them that nearly EVERYBODY'S grandmother went to a one room schoolhouse. Sweet elderly gentlemen will sit down at the scarred desks and look around for a moment before saying "If my teacher had been as gosh-durn purty as you, I'd never a graduated!" And I, of course, always feel flattered by this adorable geriatric flirting, and coyly threaten to get the paddle out of my desk if they don't behave. They usually shuffle out, still chuckling, while I pray the next batch of visitors didn't overhear our banter, so I can do it all over again in five minutes. "Where's the dunce cap?" they'll ask. "Bet you girls are cold in here."

These repetitious questions are both exhausting and comforting. Tiresome when I'm cranky because nobody has any idea that they aren't the only ones to ask them and you literally have to act like it's the wittiest, most original thing you've ever heard...a million times in a row. But also nice that all you need are a dozen stock answers and there's no need to really think, you can just lose yourself in the time period. And I do.

Why do I do it? Because I feel at home. In those places, in those clothes. Sometimes I feel a bit like the tourists are intruding into my world. My time. Of course I'm glad they are interested, and I'm quite willing to tell them anything they'd like to know, I WANT them to love history! But really, I mostly do it because it's where I belong. I'm homesick for 1900 all year long until that September week when I don my real clothes and lift my skirts clear of puddles while soldiers tip their caps to me.

Having my kids similarly able to ease into a bygone era, as if they were meant to be there, is wonderful too. Seeing other children in the historical setting really makes it seem REAL to the busloads of 2nd graders on field trips to the fair. History is no longer dry and uninteresting when real, live, little boys are gathering firewood for the evening meal and helping the blacksmith. Real, live, little girls are peeling potatoes and practicing sums on the chalkboard. Just as real as any today. All fighting or laughing, simply being kids. Having my family go back in time means more to me than I can say. To understand, appreciate and transition between centuries is an amazing gift. Switching gears and stepping into long ago comes as easy as a trip across the hall for us. History repeats itself, they say. So, we should be all set, whenever. And people are all the same, now, then, here, there.

September approaches, Fair time growing closer, (which really rates up there in the Excellent category) and we look forward to the past.