I put on my boots, my summer hat, and sprayed myself with tick repellent. The sun was hot and the temperature in the low sixties. I thought about walking on my neighbor’s path, but I’d have to drive there even though it’s just around the corner and didn’t feel like getting in the car.
I walked paying little attention to the dogs, feeling my feet on the ground and my head becoming lighter. I walked without thinking and when I came to one of the biggest trees that I know, the one with three thick branches that curve out like a cupped hand, I sat down beneath it, my back leaning against its wide trunk.
I closed my eyes and let go.
I don’t know how long I sat there, but not more than ten minutes. I opened my eyes when Fate pressed her body against my arm. Then I kissed her head and got up.
I passed a decaying stump alive with vibrant green moss, a hollowed-out home for some small animal. Insects that were otherwise invisible to me bounced light off their wings. Like a magic trick, they appeared to me for only a moment then were gone just as quickly.
Then I saw the bones.
Just a small section of a deer’s spine, they glowed milky in the sunlight. I’ve seen lots of deer bones on my walks. But what was different about these was how clean they were and how there were places where they still came together.
There was something about the way they fit together like pieces in a puzzle, but still had space between them.
The hay was in the feeders, the sheep, and donkeys munching away. Fate, in her border collie crouch, begged to be told to “get the sheep”. I headed towards the pole barn to muck it out and there were Kitty and Anne, looking a little at odds, but alive and well.
Now I doubted myself. I didn’t think I opened the coop before coming into the barnyard, but…
So I checked, I went to the gate and looked at chicken coop. The door was closed as I thought it would be.
That meant that Kitty and Anne spent the night outside the coop. Which is unprecedented.
I remembered taking to Jon on the way home from bellydancing, he was on his way out to close up the coop. It was after 8 pm, already dark for some time. There was no reason to believe the three hens weren’t already roosting safely in the chicken coop.
Next thing I did was check tohe coop to make sure White Hen was there. She was as usual, but she did look a bit confused.
Back in the barnyard, Kitty and Anne followed me to the gate.
I couldn’t understand what made them spend the night in the barn until I saw them go to the place where they always squeezed under the gate. Then I saw that the gate was lower to the ground than it was the day before.
Yesterday, Mike our handyman, came to the farm when Jon and I were at the Eye Doctors to cut up the fallen limb from the birch tree. He also fixed the gates, leveling them out so there was no longer a gap big enough for Fate to squeeze under.
Turns out it’s not big enough for the hens to go under either.
Kitty and Anne must have been in the barnyard when Mike fixed the gate. White Hen was probably in the coop laying an egg. When Mike left, the hens had no way of getting out of the barnyard.
I didn’t notice the difference in the gate until I saw that the Hens couldn’t get under it.
With a little proding, Kitty and Anne followed me through the gate where White Hens was calling to them from the other side.
Chickens fall into a stupor when it gets dark. There have been times when I’ve found one of the hens roosting under the coop. They have no defenses when this happens and it’s easy for me to pick them up and put them in the coop. It’s also easy for the to become prey to a fox, fisher or owl when they are in this state.
But Kitty and Anne were savvy enough to find safe shelter for the night.
I imagine they stayed in the pole barn, safe in the company of the sheep and donkeys. Beside Anne’s muddy wing, both hens seemed fine and went about their business looking for insects to eat the rest of the day.
I’m thinking of cutting a small hole in the fence so they can go into the barnyard. There’s lots of good eating for them there and they help keep down the insect population including ticks.
Even though I know the hens didn’t get into the barnyard today, tonight, when I close up the chicken coop, I’ll peek inside, just to make sure the are three hens roosting.
The donkeys didn’t come out to eat this morning, but the sheep didn’t mind the snow a bit.
The lights flickered as I walked into the house after feeding the animals. They went out, then came back on again. Then they went out for good.
I had a feeling we might lose power when I went out with the dogs and two big branches had fallen from the maples. The snow, though not deep, was so wet it melted in my shovel. So I was shoveling slush. The lower branches on the maples were so heavy with snow, they all but touched the ground
National Grid didn’t have an estimated time that the power would be back as they usually do. The storm is a big one with expected outages all around us. We knew it could be a while, maybe even into the next day before we had electricity again.
We’d gotten the generator a year or so ago but never used it. We decided today we would.
Even though there were only a few inches of snow it was hard to wheel the generator (which is a lot heavier than I thought) through it from the barn to the house. Once I shoveled a path, it was easier, but even though the distance between the buildings isn’t far, I had to stop a few times to catch my breath.
Once I got it to the outlet on the outside of the house, I found that I couldn’t plug it in.
It’s not a regular plug and the outlet is in an awkward position. My clothes were soaked through by the time I gave up and Jon called Mike (who helps us with everything on the farm from plowing to putting down sheep).
He was conveniently just a few minutes away and stopped by to help.
I was glad to have him there because, even though I had instructions, I’d never turned on the generator before. After Mike showed me the sequence of buttons to push and the levers to switch on both the generator and the electrical box on the outside of the house, I wrote it all down with drawings. Then I went over it again and again in my head, seeing it all in my mind till I could do it without thinking.
It was a joy to hear the growl of the generator out our living room window.
All the lights were turned off, but I was able to make tea and cook eggs on our electric stove and have running water. We didn’t have to haul water from the pond to flush the toilet or be careful about opening the refrigerator. The woodstoves keep us warm and with fifteen gallons of gas in the barn, Jon and I had a sense of security that allowed us to relax and enjoy being offline all morning.
We were even able to offer the warmth of our home to a friend who lives nearby and doesn’t have a generator.
About six hours later, the power came back on. I knew just how to turn off the generator (picturing it in my mind had worked) and because the snow was still coming down, we decided to leave the generator where it was and just throw a cover over it once it cooled down.
It’s possible the power will go out again with predictions of more snow and wind. It feels good to be ready for it.
It was after lunch that Jon told me he felt his cough had gotten worse. We went back and forth for a while, trying to decide if we should go to Urgent Care. We could wait one more day and call his doctor but I heard the rattle too.
His cough, though constant and bad since Friday had a dry raspy sound that came from his throat. Now he was feeling it in his chest.
I didn’t think he needed to spend the rest of the day and night coughing and wondering if he had bronchitis or worse. So we got in the car, Jon protesting that maybe we didn’t need to go at all off and on throughout the trip to Saratoga.
We were lucky, there was only one person ahead of us at Urgent Care and we got into a room quickly. The nurse was friendly and had read some of Jon’s books. We talked dogs as well as the medical stuff.
As we waited for someone to come and bring Jon to get an x-ray, he posed behind the big chair in the exam room and I took his picture.
This is one of the things I love about our relationship. Even as we’re waiting to find out what’s going on with Jon, we’re also thinking of our art. About taking a good picture for our blogs, about being creative together.
And I think that really shows in this photo I took of Jon.
We share the same values. Our work helps us get through the difficult times. Sick as he was these past few days, Jon wrote some really good pieces including a very smart and funny poem about fear.
And even though the work I was doing in my studio stopped when we decided to make the trip to Urgent Care, I knew if I had the opportunity, I’d be doing a “Waiting for Jon” drawing on the small pad I keep in my bag.
It turns out that Jon does have bronchitis. He got a prescription cough suppressant and an inhaler, which will hopefully allow him to get some sleep tonight. We’ll sleep downstairs again, so he can sit upright in his chair. I’ll be next to him on the couch, and Bud will spend half the night on Jon’s lap and the other wrapped around my feet.
I think we’ll both sleep a little better now that we know exactly what’s going on with Jon’s cough and that now he has what he needs to help him get better.
The drawing I did while waiting for Jon when he got an X-ray
Jon took this picture of me before I went to our Bellydancing Hafla last month. When I saw it, I said, “ I want to be like her!“
I don’t know who started it.
There were seven of us standing in a big circle getting ready to practice zilling.Julz was looking for the right song on her iPhone and suddenly we were in a conversation about body image and weight.
A couple of the women who have young daughters talked about how they never spoke negatively about their own weight or food in front of their kids. Someone else said how when she was in school the other girls always talked about being “too fat” but she wouldn’t join in.“I was always a feminist,” she told us.
As I listened I felt myself being drawn back in time to my childhood. I didn’t want to bring up what I was thinking, I wanted to leave it in the past where it lived. But it was almost as if I were in a trance, overwhelmed by the feelings of a lifetime.
“Every day my father would call my mother from work and ask if she did her sit-ups,” I said.
The amazing thing was that I didn’t have to say another thing.Everyone understood the impact of it.
But I had fallen into the dark hole of my past. I was in the living room where I grew up listening to that daily phone conversation between my mother and father. Then a voice broke through and I heard someone ask, “Why didn’t she tell him to mine his own business?” and another voice, “or go fuck himself?”
“No,” I said quietly from a distance, “she never did, she couldn’t.”
That’s when Julz looked up from her phone and as if declaring a well-known truth announced, “Some guys just can’t hold their arsenic.”
Then she started singing… “ he had it coming, he had it coming…” And Kathleen, who was standing next to Julz, sang with her…
….”So that night when I came home from work I fixed him his drink like usual. You know, some guys just can’t hold their arsenic.He had it coming, he had it coming. He only had himself to blame….”
I imagine I laughed, maybe too loud. But I don’t really know. What I do remember is that while they sang, it seemed to me that they were surrounded by a glowing green light, and between them, they were stirring a pot, or was it a caldron?
Whatever was really going on, they broke the spell I was in.
Suddenly I was back in the moment, back in our Bellydancing class and part of a circle with seven other women wearing long skirts and cholis, with bare bellies and bare feet, while Julz and Kathleen sang an incantation from a Broadway musical that shook me from a memory which has plagued me my whole life.
This all took place four days ago, and I can’t stop thinking about it.
The thing is, something changed for me that night when Julz’s response to my memory was to invoke those magic words.
My first thought was to wish I had grown up around women like this.Women who knew their own power.But then I knew that didn’t matter anymore.I had gotten myself to a better place.
I now surround myself with women who are strong enough to stand up for themselves.Who do not tolerate being controlled.And I am one of them.
For the past four days, when I think of that daily phone conversation between my mother and father, which is really a symbol of the dynamic that I was taught a marriage should be like, I no longer cringe.
Instead, I hear those magic words, “some guys just can’t hold their arsenic” and depending on my mood, I either smile a knowing smile or cackle.
(The song Julz and Kathleen sang was Cell Block Tango from the play Chicago, You can see it here.)
All I could think was “flat tire” even though it didn’t sound or feel like that. It sounded and felt like we were dragging something. But what could I have run over between stopping at the ATM and leaving the bank parking lot?
I pulled the car over and a man walking his dog across the street yelled that we had a construction cone under our car. I bent down to look and there it was, bright orange and bent into an awkward shape. I reached under the car to pull it out, but it wouldn’t budge.
Back in the car I looked at Jon thinking what next? We’d already had to turn home because we forgot to set the thermostat and had gotten sidetracked by a detour. We were so looking forward to our night away, especially since the snowstorm and holidays had thrown us both into a panic in the past week.
I pulled into a shopping mall parking lot to get a better look. When I realized the cone was wedged under the car I laid on my back feet first and started kicking the cone. Jon was standing next to me, getting ready to call triple-A. He later said I was cursing the cone too. I don’t remember that, but I wouldn’t doubt it.
I was able to kick the cone toward the back of the car, most of the way out. When I got up to readjust my angle, a man was walking over to us saying ” I guess you don’t want that cone under your car”. Then he bent down, reached under the car, and pulled the cone out.
Bless him I thought. I believe I could have done it, but I didn’t really want to get back down on the icy pavement. And I knew I didn’t have the strength to just pull the cone out like he did.
We thanked him and the man vanished as quickly as he appeared.
Jon and I had a good story to tell the woman at the front desk when we got to the Inn. She wasn’t surprised by our story, it seems she had run over a cone or two also.
When she gave us the key to our room we found out that it had been upgraded to a suite, at no expense to us. They had redone the bathroom since the last time we stayed there and in it was the sweetest clawfoot bathtub I’d ever seen.
One of the things I love about this Inn is the big clawfoot soaking tubs. Big enough for Jon and me to get in together. But even though this tub wasn’t long enough for me to stretch my legs out, I couldn’t wait to get in it.
It was like a sleigh or a swan boat or the chariot in a carousel. Like something that belonged in a dollhouse. It was charming and magical. Soon after we settled in, I squeezed the personal-sized body gel into the hot running water and stepped into a bubble bath.
I came out a long time later relaxed and a little giddy.
Jon couldn’t figure out the bath tubes appeal or effect on me. But the Inn Keeper as well as the woman at the front desk understood it. “It’s a girl thing she said.”
I couldn’t explain it any better to Jon except to say that it’s like looking into a doll house and actually being able to sit in one of the chairs.
Then Jon suggested we come back for a night for my Birthday which is in January. But that seemed too soon so we pushed it back until March. Jon insisted we get the same room, with the little clawfoot tub. He liked seeing how happy it made me.
And our one night away really worked. My mind actually stopped spinning for the whole time we were there. And when it started to get going again as we drove home at least I was able to see what was happening and try to deal with it.
I still smile to myself when I think of that little bathtub. Like a magical sled, It really did transport me to a quieter calmer place. Maybe I can hold on to that feeling for a while. It’s a good reminder that a calm place exists inside of me.
Our Bellydancing Class. Some of us have been Belly dancing for just a few months and others from almost 30 years.
We stood in a circle facing in. Julz led us in Gratitude, a dance we do at the beginning of every class and performance. It’s a way of giving thanks to each other, our teachers, the music, and space we dance in.
Then, when Gratitude was done and the music continued, Julz kept leading us in improvised dance. After a few moves, she looked at Kathleen who was to her left and Kathleen picked up the lead. We worked our way around the circle passing the lead to the person next to us until the song ended.
We didn’t plan this, we didn’t talk about it. This is not how we change the lead when we dance, yet we all knew what to do.
How did we know?
I can only say that it speaks to our connection to each other. That we have learned to listen to each other without words and to trust that we will be heard.
This is how we communicate when we dance. Not with words, but with our eyes and our bodies. With lifted eyebrows or a hard stare, an exaggerated shift in the shoulder or a turn of the head.
And this is how we began our Hafla last night in my Bellydancing Class. Our yearly celebration, where we dance, eat and dance some more.
In the past, we’ve had Hafla’s where we practice dancing to certain songs or invite other dancers and family to join us. But this was the most casual Hafla I’ve been to in the five and a half years I’ve been dancing.
And it made me realize that my feelings about Bellydancing have changed.
Instead of being nervous and worrying about what I was doing wrong, last night I just enjoyed dancing. I had fun. I wanted to dance every chance I got. And when I wasn’t dancing I was standing on the side watching and Zilling.
It’s as if in the past few months, I’ve come to see that I really can learn to dance. That I can continue to get better and better. But it’s more than just my ability. It’s my attitude that has changed. I now understand that dance is a part of me. An important piece, that I’d been missing most of my life, that makes me whole.
Last night when Julz put on a playlist and asked who wanted to dance, I was the first one to step up. And I took the lead.
Soon there were four of us, Emily, Callie, Trish, and me. I didn’t think of it at the time, but the idea that I could dance comfortably with those three women, not afraid to make mistakes, and really enjoy it was unprecedented for me. (click here to see a short video where I do make a mistake)
At one point Julz and Kathleen showed us a new fusion of Bellydancing and Tango that they’ve been working on. Then Emily and Julz danced to a song they only recently realized they both loved.
In between, we snacked on Emily’s homemade parmesan and black pepper sourdough bread and Julz’s mini gluten-free cheesecake cupcakes.
At the end of the night, I wondered out loud what it was about Bellydancing that always made me feel so good, that made us all come back week after week, year after year.
I thought that maybe it was in the way we moved. But everyone had their own ideas.
I don’t remember who said what but we all agreed that it came from working together and creating something new each time we danced. That the dance is collaborative, the leaders constantly changing, and understanding that we need to work together to make us all look good. This means we have to leave a certain amount of our egos behind. There’s no showing off to make someone else look bad.
And when we take the lead, we trust that the people who are behind us, who we often can’t see, will follow. Trust is a big part of it. We couldn’t dance the way we do without trust.
I do remember Julz specifically saying that dance is in our genes. “When the men went out the hunt” she said, ” the women would dance. They danced as they walked to the stream to get fill up jugs of water. It’s what they did.”
When I got home I told Jon about the night.
That’s when it came to me that our conversation was just like our dancing. We all listened and got a chance to say what we felt, and what we were thinking. One idea led to another until we felt we understood why we were all there together.
Last night’s Hafla was very special.
Maybe it had something to do with the Winter Solstice. I have no doubt that women have danced together through the ages on this longest night. Perhaps we tapped into that. But Solstice or not, it wouldn’t have happened without each of us who was there. Each of us dedicated to the dance and each other.
Julz told me that Bellydancing saved her life. I know what she means even though our circumstances are different.
Bellydancing brings me back to myself. Or as Jon says, it’s who I really am. It’s still hard for me to believe that sometimes, but it’s getting even harder for me not to believe it.
I wish I could remember who sent me the sheep fabric, but as often happens when fabric comes to me I get a lot from different people at one time. And the past month I have been blessed with lots of fabric.
Some of that fabric came from Karen who send a big bag of scraps. So big some of them will go to Sue Silverstein’s art class.
But in that bag were these small pieces already sewn together. My first thought was that using them was like starting a puzzle with some of the pieces already put together. But then I remembered the sheep fabric and knew they would go so well together.
Working on the Sheep Potholders
I’ve been making potholders for weeks now. They’re selling quickly I imagine mostly for Christmas gifts. I wake up thinking of potholders, the ones I’m working on and the ones I have to put in the mail.
The saying Make hay while the sun shines, is running on a loop in my head. I even found myself singing it as I was bringing firewood into the house this afternoon.
And the potholers I’m making are humming along.
If I didn’t have other things to do (like finishing them off, posting potholders in my Etsy Shop, and putting them in the mail) I’d be in my studio all day long designing potholders.
These are the ones I designed today. I’m planning on putting them up for sale early next week while there’s still time for me to get them in the mail for Christmas.
One of the Cat Potholders I made today using some of scraps
When Karen gave me the bag of scraps, I was a bit overwhelmed. They were wonderful, mostly thin strips of fabric, but there were so many of them.
Jon asked if I wanted help when I dumped the bag out on the dining room table and started organizing them. It didn’t take as long as we thought it would. We just kept rolling up the strips of fabric and putting them in piles with like colors, or tried to anyway.
Some of the rolled-up scraps of fabric
At one point Jon texted Sue Silverstein to ask if she would like some of them. I knew I could use the scraps but also had enough to share. And both Jon and I know by now that Sue would make good use of them.
As I rolled, I was thinking of the cat fabric that was on my work table in my studio. I found the perfect material to go with the cats, the last time I was in my studio. That would be the bulk of the potholder, but I still needed some smaller pieces to frame the cats with.
Now I had that fabric too.
The cat potholders came together quickly, the big flower fabric balanced with the smaller prints of the thin strips.
I hope to have these all done by the end of the week.
At some point this morning while I was making potholders, I ran out of scraps. So I organized the fabric left on my work table and found I had some odd pieces.
Without much thought, I started sewing them together. As the piece grew it was quickly too big to be a potholder, but I didn’t want to stop working on it. So, not thinking of what it might be, I just kept at it.
If I weren’t going to Bellydancing Class tonight, I have a feeling I’d work on it till dinner and go back to my studio after that.
But it never hurts to give a piece a chance to breathe.
And I might have time to do a little more before I leave…..
