After a solid month of enduring the logging triage planted directly in front of the house, which includes a 7:30 am wake up to heavy machinery and chains saws, we are leaving the side of the mountain for a little peace and quiet. Imagine three tour buses idling outside your house in concert with a full blown city crew repairing a geyser of a water main break and you will have a fair sense of the animated picture we are escaping.
It's a shame because I will miss an amaryllis that I've been waiting to flower, but gardening while wearing noise canceling ear muffs isn't exactly how I want to spend the whole month of June and besides, I look ridiculous. So off we go toward civilization for some silence.
I'm not seeking the Sara Maitland type of silence where you go off like any number of biblical crazies for forty days and forty nights. (An experience that released her from inhibitions, created soaring feelings of bliss heightened her sensations of taste, and touch, and produced halucinations.) The silence of living in the middle of nowhere on the edge of sanity is what I do on a daily basis, I don't need to do any additional testing on that point.
The silence I am looking for will have running water, electricity, good company, much wine and I won't have to wake up before 9:00 am if I don't want to.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
You don't say...
"Well that's quite a change, living in the middle of nowhere from Chicago." Yes, and some days worse than others... They stand there looking at me expectantly.
My road has become busy, class-four-road-in-Vermont busy, and I'd rather it not because the etiquette baffles me. There seems to be a number of different protocol that, frankly, I don't care to acknowledge. The most common being a wave, as if you know the particular party passing, but are in a rush and so can't stop and say hello. (My only concession to this is a nod of the head.) Another is a stop-and-chat, which, of course, is the least welcomed.
Today I was relaxing in an adirondack chair in the front lawn playing with the Little Miss and a box of rocks when a foreshortend armada of jeep and jacked-up truck came up the road and stopped in the clearing across from the house. Alright, that's vexing, but I'm not queen of the road yet, so I ignore the intrusion. The crew get out to stomp around a bit and then from the corner of my eye I see them tromping my way. Good gods what next. I really want to sit in peace on a Saturday afternoon without offering tea and cucumber sandwiches.
No, they want directions to a camp - Dustin's camp. No, I don't know a Dustin and there aren't any camps farther up the road. Okay simple enough. Such as, "Is State and Jackson that way?" or "How many more blocks to the Heuttenbar?". Off you both go, glad to be helpful and with some sense of direction. But no, it is not that simple in a skulker's market. The trompers proceed to ask questions about the conditions of the road. Talk about the weather. ("Fine day, indeed.") Ask me about my "camp".
No, I live here year round. Oh. And then they goggle at me.
Perhaps, that's the time I should offer the tea and sandwiches?
My road has become busy, class-four-road-in-Vermont busy, and I'd rather it not because the etiquette baffles me. There seems to be a number of different protocol that, frankly, I don't care to acknowledge. The most common being a wave, as if you know the particular party passing, but are in a rush and so can't stop and say hello. (My only concession to this is a nod of the head.) Another is a stop-and-chat, which, of course, is the least welcomed.
Today I was relaxing in an adirondack chair in the front lawn playing with the Little Miss and a box of rocks when a foreshortend armada of jeep and jacked-up truck came up the road and stopped in the clearing across from the house. Alright, that's vexing, but I'm not queen of the road yet, so I ignore the intrusion. The crew get out to stomp around a bit and then from the corner of my eye I see them tromping my way. Good gods what next. I really want to sit in peace on a Saturday afternoon without offering tea and cucumber sandwiches.
No, they want directions to a camp - Dustin's camp. No, I don't know a Dustin and there aren't any camps farther up the road. Okay simple enough. Such as, "Is State and Jackson that way?" or "How many more blocks to the Heuttenbar?". Off you both go, glad to be helpful and with some sense of direction. But no, it is not that simple in a skulker's market. The trompers proceed to ask questions about the conditions of the road. Talk about the weather. ("Fine day, indeed.") Ask me about my "camp".
No, I live here year round. Oh. And then they goggle at me.
Perhaps, that's the time I should offer the tea and sandwiches?
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