Sustainable Entertainment

The first meeting of the Cabin Fever Abatement Salon took place yesterday afternoon, while the sun shone brightly on the new snow.  A young woman, the farm manager at that pearl of West Pawlet, Consider Bardwell Farm, told the touching, often sad but ultimately victorious story of her father, a fifth-generation farmer, and his struggles to continue working on the land.  It was clear as she spoke that in her own case the farming vocation has not, as so often happens, skipped a generation.

Afterwards, I sat by the fire rewarding myself with some leftover hummus and a glass of wine, and thought about those seventeenth-century Parisian ladies who, sick of rowdy parties where drunken noblemen got into fights, spat on the floor, and abused the servants, invented a kinder, gentler entertainment:  the salon. 

It should have been called not the salon but the chambre a coucher--the bedroom--for that was where the gatherings were held.  The hostess lay on her bed (I never could find out whether she got under the covers), which was on a slightly elevated platform.  The space between the bed and the wall, technically known as the ruelle, or little street, was occupied on one side by the servants standing ready to pour more of that exotic delicacy, le cafe, and on the other by her friends.  Depending on the degree of their favor with the hostess, some friends sat on chairs, others on mere stools.

As the drafty palaces and spartan furniture of the 17th century gave way to the cozier interiors and welcoming armchairs of the 18th, the gatherings moved from the bedroom to the salon proper.  Eventually, the in-home salon was replaced by the more democratic coffeehouse around the corner.  But the custom of living room  entertainments persisted until the early 20th century.  The young lady playing the piano for her parents' dinner guests;  the fledgeling poet reciting in a tremulous voice;  the returning traveler astounding the company with stories of naked savages--all are examples of the human talent for making entertainment out of home-grown resources.

Then, with the advent of radio, the movies, television, and the shopping mall, people stopped looking to themselves and their friends for entertainment, and the salon was no more.

Now that foes both natural and man-made assail us on every side, self-reliance--that grandmotherly virtue--is once again looking like a good idea, even an attractive one.  Some people are growing their own vegetables;  some are making their own soap.  Some discover that within their friends and neighbors lie rich deposits of wit, adventurousness, quirkiness and passion, just waiting to be exploited.  And the quaint old salon, updated as locally-grown, sustainable entertainment, makes its long-deserved comeback.

Death And Dying

Yesterday, some fifteen friends and neighbors crammed into our living room for the second salon of the season. There was wine, white and red, and cheese and chips and dips and a tray of spicy deviled eggs.

I find deviled eggs laborious (all that peeling and filling) and messy (the filling sticks to my fingers no matter what I do). However, since we were going to talk about death and dying, I decided we needed something cheerful to look at--I think deviled eggs always look cheerful. Also, there's nothing like a mouthful of cayenne to make you feel alive.

The speaker was a friend who has been a nurse for many years, in oncology and cardio wards. She spoke with feeling about sitting with dying patients, about their needs and the needs of the families. She spoke about helping people to let go, about ensuring their comfort, and about the horrific lengths to which modern medicine, if allowed to, will go to prolong a torturous life.

It was a beautiful afternoon, with the sun shining on the snow outside and the chickadees and nuthatches coming and going from the bird feeder. People spoke eagerly about their own experiences around the death of friends and loved ones. Others spoke about their utter lack of experience: after all, it is entirely possible in this country for a person to reach adulthood never having seen a dead body, or stood at the bedside of a dying relative.

From the beginning of the talk, there was a feeling of warmth and relaxation among us. There was also amazement that here we were, on a day that made us all, even though we knew better, think of spring, talking about death--the ultimate taboo as well the only certainty.

There was humor, too. One woman told about a friend, who had always been a controlling type, deciding after a long illness that it was time to die--and being annoyed that she couldn't make it happen by sheer force of will.

After a while the talk meandered to other topics. There was an update on the sheep that had gotten into the grain bin (she's chewing her cud!) and talk about when it's too late to breed a bitch for the first time. Some people had brought puppies in crates in their cars, and went outside to let them out. In other words, life took over. The deviled eggs were all gone.

Next month we're going to talk about bees.

We Inaugurate the West Pawlet Salon Season

(My TV Show will resume in the next post.)

It couldn't be simpler. During the winter months, on a predetermined Sunday afternoon people drive up our steep driveway, stomp the snow off their boots, and cram into our living room. There is a fire in the stove, some wine, some dips, some nuts. Then things get quiet, and one of us tells her story--or his--while the rest listen.

The speakers are neighbors and friends, people whom we know but haven't had the chance to really hear in crowded fire department benefits or holiday parties, people with interesting lives and strong passions. There are lots of them around here. There is the world-class glass blower who lives just the other side of our woods. There is the painter/graphic designer/garden inventor who also teaches me yoga. And many others encrusted like gems in these woods and hills.

Yesterday's interesting person is Angela Miller, of Consider Bardwell Farm--see it and sigh here. She showed up straight from the little cafe that she runs on weekends in the antechamber of her barn--a kind of civic gesture on her part so that the citizens of West Pawlet will have somewhere to go. She was carrying an assortment of her magnificent cheeses in an unassuming plastic bag (and I'm not the only one saying that these cheeses are magnificent--I'm merely agreeing with a bunch of national cheese judges).

This is a woman who uses not only the right and left frontal hemispheres of her brain, but the back parts, too. Four days a week she's in her farm, turning cheese wheels, hefting hay bales, dealing with goats in childbed. The rest of the week she's in New York City, being a literary agent. After her talk, I tried to get her to say which world she would rather be in, but it became apparent that she needs both to be happy. And she is.

We passed around little plates with samples of cheese--cow, goat, aged, more aged, each named after a nearby village. We drank more wine. Cheeks grew rosy, and the talk turned to books. Then the sunlight grew dim and people had to go do evening chores, let out the dogs, see to the children, get home before dark. On went the hats, boots, coats and scarves, and the first salon of the 2010 season was done.

Guests, Then Goats

Yesterday we held the last salon of the season. There was a fine talk, clear and articulate, by a friend/reader/writer about the history of the spy novel. There was wine and Vermont sharp cheddar. And there was hilarious conversation about belly dancing, Facebook, and whether or not women should color their gray hair (this being Vermont, both genders voted Nay).

We won't meet again until the last Sunday in October, which marks the end of leaf season and the beginning of stick season. Between now and then Vermonters will disappear into their vegetable gardens, not to emerge until the first killing frost.

After everyone went home I found myself in a funny state, tired and over-stimulated and unable to relax. The dogs had been imprisoned in the bedroom during the salon, since their wagging tails wreak havoc on wine glasses, and to make it up to them I took them into the field. The weather was anything but friendly, drizzly and muddy and a cold wind blowing--more November than almost April—so we didn't stay out long.

I dried their bellies and sent them inside and went to do the evening chores. I fed Blossom and Alsiki their sweet grain and put fresh hay in their feeder, then sat down on the plastic milk crate that I keep for visitors. Alsiki put her little hooves up on the crate so she could get her face close to mine. Blossom came over to my knee. Using both hands, I stroked and rubbed and scratched and talked utter nonsense at them. Alsiki, who has long lashes on her lower lids, always wants me to kiss her nose. Blossom likes to suck on my finger, though I'll have to break her of that because her molars are razor-sharp.

Meanwhile, next door, the chickens were hopping on the roosts and saying their good nights. “Good night, Charlemagne.” “Good night, Buffy One.” “Good night, Charlemagne.” “Good night, Blackie.” “Sleep well, Charlemagne.” “You too, Buffy Two.” And so on.

I kept on stroking and hugging and rubbing Blossom and Alsiki. Their breath was sweet on my face. Their hair was soft under my hands. Their eyelids were at half mast.

So were mine. Eventually, it was either lie down and spend the night on the hay, with two goats in my arms, or behave like a human being and go back to the house. Reason prevailed. I tore myself away and turned out the light, leaving my critters to their slumbers.

Back in the house, I sighed a big sigh and felt that I had, to paraphrase the Shaker song, finally come down just where I ought to be: somewhere between the world of guests, and the world of goats.

Music in Winter

Yesterday we had the fourth salon in our debut 08-09 winter season. It coincided with a day-long fall of wet, sticky snow. Some people canceled, but a number of hardy souls assaulted our long, steep driveway and arrived unharmed.

Tim and Lynda played recorder-flute duets from the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical periods. We drank red wine and ate Vermont cheese and listened as the snow fell and fell. The musicians stood in front of our porch's tall windows, so that from the living room they were silhouetted against a background of woods whose every twig was outlined in white. Closer to the house, finches, titmice, chickadees, nuthatches and one fabulous cardinal fluttered around the feeder. The snow fell, the music wove ribbons around our souls, and we marveled that such pleasures were so freely and easily available to us. Chamber music doesn't get any better than this.

At the end of the program we demanded an encore. Then Tim and Lynda put away their instruments and we sat and told silly stories and laughed until dark.

It's been—still is—a long winter. But the salons have helped lighten the mood. They have featured friends and neighbors who do interesting things: a breeder of prize-winning Romney sheep, a dairy farmer turned politician, a painter who makes a living from her work, and our two musicians. The next salon will coincide with the start of mud season, a time when Vermonters badly need a shot of something—energy, optimism, laughter—to get them through to spring. We'll have no problem finding an attraction. There are adventurous cheese-makers, writers, sculptors, glass-blowers and milliners within a stone's throw of our front door.

Then spring will come and every last one of us—sculptor, writer, glass-blower, hat-maker, painter and shepherd—will disappear into our vegetable garden, there to hold our own salons with the earthworms, the seedlings, and that most hallowed guest, the toad.