“The fire’s gone out, neglected while I was busy turning mountains into molehills, which is often what I’m doing. I can’t wait to kindle the soft spark, under the dry kindling, later tonight. To think that keeps me warm, is thrilling. A little supernatural, but you wouldn’t notice, unless your habit is to tone things down to ground level. JD showed up, with a six pack, knocking on the back porch door. I’d asked him if he could doctor-up our temporary wood shed by the cottage, to be “less ghetto”, and he delivered. Like an old time preacher, utilizing screw guns of a modern sort, able to undo what had been done, or redo what had become undone ... well ... either way, his sermon and his righteous tools of which, he has many, came to dwell among us, and a couple of beers. I’m not so fussy anymore, as to how exactly things go down. I feel that my flexibility should be recorded, now, in the Guinness Book of Records for surely, I’ve pulled ahead of all my competitors. “Longest without a completed outhouse”, for example. Or, “Been more ridiculously confused by friends with mixed agendas, than any other human in zip code 05443”. I take pride in my accomplishments. This energy of mine, which flip flops between goddess, ignorant fool and targeted individual, brings a kind of “never-a-dull-moment” feeling to the day. I appreciated it, JD handing me a 2nd bottle for me to drink alone, as he headed back to family life. I can’t say who has the easier row to hoe. I truly love that which can’t be quantified. I’m sick of graphs, I’m sick of statistics. I don’t feel warm & fuzzy about “case counts” if I ever did, and now even less so. Which explains a schism I’d never dreamed could occur, amongst like-minded folks, & sensible people. It’s how I feel, moving back to a town that had been pretty much vacant, a few decades back. I mean, I had myself a cabin, for a cheap rent with no running water, and had enough time to walk a half a mile to shampoo my hair, in a river pool. It wasn’t a big deal, back then. No one saw me, ever. No one cared if I existed, I was just a rumor. I found an old fiddler named Ray Grimes, who wasn’t dead yet, and made a point of going down to his place, with my guitar. I didn’t have anything I was trying to prove. I was just trying to learn. I was aiming to play dances, in the old way, but that didn’t come for me, until years later, in another part of Vermont. We rented that grange in Chelsea, next door to legendary fiddler, Harold Luce, back in the 90s. The generational split was a tough one, but he finally showed up, and we did a dance together. But who cares now. It’s kind of water over the dam, for that only a few remember. Harold’s house’s gone downhill since he died, it never did stand up straight since I knew it. He rented out his tables to local events, for a donation. We used them, everyone did. I don’t know what happened to his tables. They remind me of you. The first one I fell in love with, after I moved to my new town. Back when all the parents of that millennial generation were arriving on the scene, and were still shepherds of their flock. We had no idea what we were doing. It was all about draft horses, hockey on ponds, and bringing up children with enough room for them to thrive. Parents still vain and youthful, & jealous of each other’s spouses. And naive enough, to think it would all work out, sort of better than it did.”
