Got a call this morning that Maria’s Bedlam Farm yarn is ready for pick-up in Brandon, Vt., which is where we are heading shortly. We don’t know how much yard will be there, but Maria will post the details on her website later today or tomorrow. I think most of it is already sold, but I’m not sure. Check her website later for details. We are excited to get this yarn from Zelda and the gang. Word is it is nice. I’ll be back this afternoon, hopefully in time to post another of Florence Walrath’s journal entries.
Someone asked me yesterday if I missed Bedlam Farm, it was so beautiful it seemed like a fairy tale. This morning, Maria and I were talking before the sun came up, as we usually do and she told me that Bedlam Farm was like a fairy tale for her. She didn’t want to say that before, she said, for fear I would think she was unhappy.
She loved the same things I did. The studio, the path in the woods, the porch looking out over the valley, the chairs at the top of the pasture, the big and beautiful barns, animals grazing everywhere. And yes, I thought, it was a fairy tale for me also. I never lived in such a beautiful place before, never imagined it, so comfortable in such a big old roomy farmhouse, where I sat writing on the porch on a Spring morning, songbirds my music. I rode my ATV down the path, walked the dogs there, had room for sheep here, donkeys, there, chickens here. Had lunch at the top of the hill. Every day I told myself I will spend the rest of my life on this beautiful farm, I wrote seven books here, became an artist and took thousands of photos here, met Maria here. It is blessed, magical.
Maria was right, it was a fairy tale. I felt that way too. I suppose the thing about fairy tales is that they all have to end. They need to end. My Bedlam Farm fairy tale ended with divorce, the recession, my own descent into chaos and the great collapse of the old publishing model. Fairy tales are not always consistent with the real world, but then, we never understand them when we are in them. I loved every day at Bedlam Farm, the most creative and affirming place I have ever known.
But do I miss it? No, truthfully I don’t. I am in a different fairy tale, the next chapter of my life, another inspiring and magical place, another creative place. A place of rebirth and affirmation. And so much love. Like the bees in the hive, we are busy building our new story, moving forward.
I do not look back. I do not regret the past. I do not lament changes in fortune. Everything is a gift, an opportunity. We find new paths, write new books, will make a new porch. We listen to new and different songs. Someone else in need of a fairy tale, a new life story, will find this wonderful place and I will cheer them on, my heart will lift for them as they make their own new story, chase after the music of life.
I hope to have several more fairy tales in my life. One fairy tale I always dreamed of us the awkward and ungainly man, uncomfortable in his own shoes, alone in the world, losing his creative spirit, meeting the sensitive and loving artist on the road. She had no place to do her work, was alone and frightened. Take one of my barns, he said, use a part of my castle. She accepted, to her surprise, and she found her art again. And then, the world changed and the man and the artist said we need a new castle, a new place for us together.
And a blind pony appeared and led them to another magical place, a beautiful place for them now, and they lived happily there, forever and ever, and with great love and encouragement, and they never lost their art or creative spirit again, and another wanderer appeared to take the castle and build a new and wonderful life of their own. I love fairy tales, especially when they come true.
I do not live a life of regrets, of looking back, of missing things. How could I? I have so much, I am nothing but lucky.
The winter pasture grips, hangs on, but Spring is prying it’s fingers from the ledge, from the doors, from the pastures. Can’t hold on for more than a few days, and as it goes, sighs and preens and shows us what austere beauty is, teases us with what is to come.
