Friends and neighbors matter. We had three cords of firewood stacked in the back yard with three days to go before the Open House, A Creativity Conference on Friday (and rain predicted for that day). We ended up with a fearsome firewood mob at the farm. Tyler, who helps us out on the farm came over on his jazzy four-wheeler, he is a working fiend, and then Ed and Carol Gulley came over to drop off Ed’s Junk Art for the Open House.
Ed and Carol unpacked the art, saw the firewood stack and attacked it – “we’ll get 90 per cent of it done in ten minutes.” That was just about right, we tried to wave them off, they didn’t need to stack our firewood, but they simply insisted. Tyler came roaring in and Maria joined in. The Gulleys moved a huge chunk, then Tyler finished it off. It’s all cleared away.
Carol and Ed are dairy farmers and their code of conduct is to help neighbors and friends anytime and anywhere. We love the Gulleys, it feels like we have known them for years, and we are very excited about Ed’s art. Photos to come. We are glad to have the firewood stacked, we weren’t sure we had enough time to do it ourselves. Ready for winter, thanks Ed, Carol and Tyler.
There are good witches and bad witches, I have always been told, my wife is either a witch or a woodland elf or some descendant of Shekinah, the feminine face of God, creativity and the environment. Mandy Meyer-Hill, on the right, is a healing witch, she is a massage therapist, and Athena Burke, on the left is mystical and musical witch.
Together, they are a coven.
Fierce individualists and prophets, the three are close friends they text each other constantly and meet once a week at the Round House Cafe, where they give off a bright light, laugh and shriek and turn rude and impatient people into toads and spiders. They have known one another for a while, there is great trust and love between them, they never are awkward together or run out of things to say.
Like most witches, they don’t talk much about what they talk about, but they are always excited to bring their news to one another, I suspect they cast spells on people who give any of them trouble. Some of the people who anger them vanish mysteriously, are stung by bees, chased by dogs, or fall mysteriously into raging waters. They are almost always laughing, when I see them, except when they are crying, which they sometimes are. Sometimes they are quite loud, at others they lean into one another and whisper very quietly.
Angry and clueless men avoid them, dogs rush up to them, they are fond of sweets. The sun always seems to be shining when they gather. I love seeing these three together, friendship born and nurtured. I wonder sometimes if I could ever belong to a group like this, and sadly, I think not.
Is it because I am a man, and I rarely, if ever, see men gathering in this way? Maybe, but I have tried a dozen times in my life to form a gathering of gentle and loving men, and we always have a great few meetings, and then, one by one, we melt away, drawn to work, busy with chores, frightened of intimacy. Are there men who are good witches? I suppose there might, but I don’t know any.
The good witches have a commitment to one another that is deep. When they are in trouble, they call on one another. They tell each other things they couldn’t tell anyone, even their husbands. When they have good or funny news, they text like mad. Their cell phones are always beeping and bonging, except when they are together, when their phones are silent. It is hard being a woman, I think, but most people don’t know that it is also hard being a man. We don’t know how to do what the witches do, we don’t make time for it, stick with it, grasp it’s importance.
Athena and Mandy are important to Maria, they rarely miss a gathering, it is important to them, like work and family. It is family in a way. Some of us have the families we were born with, some of us make our own.
We stagger under the great weight of obligation, domination, we are terrified of getting close, being open. I went to lunch several times with a man I liked, we talked about creativity, our fathers, I talked about my breakdown on the big hill. How great, I told Maria, a man I can really talk to and listen to. Then he was unavailable, I had the sense he was avoiding me. One day I called him up – I believe in being direct – and I asked him if something was wrong. He hemmed and hawed, and then later in the day, he e-mailed me.
He was uncomfortable, he admitted, the lunches made him a little bit nervous. He wasn’t used to talking about things that counted, he said, he didn’t really know what to say. I told him he did well. I haven’t seen him since, I doubt he will call me, and our friendship would most likely not have worked out. He made me a little nervous too, I could see he was about to jump out of his skin.
So I love the good witches, and I grasp the importance of them. It is probably not something I will ever have or know – it is not easy to find men who would do it, I only know one, the other died earlier this year – but I smile every time I see them or think of Maria and these women. They are a community of their own. Today there was a cluster of bees, and one of the witches coughed and whispered, and they all turned into hummingbirds and flew away.
The carpet was laid this morning in Connie Brook’s new children’s reading room at Battenkill Books. The space adjoins the store, and is part of it, and will be open in about a month. This is a very happy and proud Connie Brooks, and she has every right to be, she is model for independent bookstores, she is holding her own and then some, an integral part of the community, she manages her store wisely and well, it is beautiful and very well stocked with great books, and now, she will have a room especially for kids.
Connie is usually very calm and even, but she bursts into big smiles when she shows off her children’s book room. This is a great victory for our town, still bouncing back from losing it’s independent pharmacy. Battenkill Books is on the move. I should mention that as always, I will sign and personalize any of my books purchased through Battenkill. 518 677-2515. I love this store, and we are lucky to have Connie running.
Contrary to rumors, independent bookstores are not disappearing, they are holding their own. Connie is on the move.
Socks are factoring into the Open House for some reason, everyone seems interested in Maria’s. I buy most of Maria’s socks at Heather’s Over The Moon Store on Main Street – she always yells at me for it, and I get a lot of messages about Maria’s socks. Last week, I got a new pair, and this one was from Mass MOCA, the sprawling museum in North Adams, Mass. They are zombie socks, Maria loves them.
Maria is an artist, and she dresses like an artist, and it’s part of my job to make sure she has the socks of an artist. Since Maria never ever buys anything new or retail, and would never buy a pair of zombie socks, this is a great way of giving her gifts and contributing to her artistry. She did yell at me for buying them – she caught me at the register, she had gone to the rest room – but when she saw them, she relented and smiled. Perfect for her.
I warned heather today that some visitors to the Open House are already planning an assault on her bead and socks shop – it’s right next to the bookstore, Battenkill Books. She got a new shipment of socks in today, I might run over there myself before the mob strikes.
A neat thing this morning, Fate seemed to summon the sheep in front of her, and instead of butting and charging at her, they all gathered in a semi-circle and seemed to listen as she gave them a speech of some kind. I know this wasn’t what was happening, but it sure looked like what was happening and the idea stuck in my head. What might she be telling them?
“Listen up, sheep, I’m six months old now, and getting bigger and stronger, and my eye is just coming in. Don’t be fooled by this blue eye, in a few weeks you’ll be doing push-up and standing on your heads for me. You’re my bitches, all of you, and you will do what I say or you’ll get a nip on the nose. Okay? Here’s what will happen. When I come for you, you will follow. When I tell you it’s time to leave the pasture, you will go. In the meantime, anyone who butts me or charges me will get a nip on the nose? Clear?”
The sheep seem to be nodding their heads. They look like they are getting it.
