Sometimes you stumble on something pleasing. Here we find: fresh masonry.
It’s interesting to consider how many artful efforts sit unheralded in homes and yards across the Land … indeed, the Universe. Hopefully admired by at least a lucky few.
Green Up Day is the classic annual event in Vermont in which the People of the Land tidy the Land ~ especially roadside and riverside ~ of all manner of detritus. Something interesting always, always appears.
This year it was this hoard of acorns, laid bare by retreating snow, that a squirrel somehow lost or forgot. I wish some of our “leaders” would find or remember their nuts.
Look down! They’re right there, for God’s sake!
At the end of an idyllic college reunion weekend, a friend said three words as we watched a classmate loading his car become morose. “Transitions are hard,” she whispered.
Truer words never spoken. I wish someone had said them to me decades ago.
Because emotions are more dealable when you know why you’re feeling them. Such as: “I’m despondent because I’m going through a transition.” Not: “I’m overreacting.” Or “I’m losing my mind for no apparent reason.” At reunion, it was this: “I had the best time this weekend. I love my funny, smart college friends. Now I have to go home.”
Transitioning seasons is a hard one for many. Some lament the end of summer, particularly the gardeners and the sun- and water- lovers. Myself, I welcome fall. Summer drags on too long for me. When the sun shines, we feel obligated to make hay. When we have a summer with little rain, that’s a lot of haymaking. Read: outdoorsy work, socializing, exercising. There’s not much time to … reflect. It feels to me like a lot of “racing around,” as my mother would put it.
Fall’s shorter days heighten our more introspective inclinations, for good or bad. I savor the colors and the smells of autumn (if not the Leafer traffic), the harvest, the stews, the cooler temps, the colder waters. Stick season delights me, while it sends others spiraling downwards. A few weeks ago was monarch butterfly season. Then, termite season. Now: wasps-looking-to get-in-the-house season. Some geese already heading south. Boom boom boom, one after the other. Change.
The longer you live, more change. With each season, an anniversary: we remember something – or someone – now gone. Family and friends who have died. The houses loved, with so many memories, sold. My pal I used to take to the summer fried clam shacks or the fall apple festivals now unable to leave his residence! Nieces and nephews I rarely see! Who, when small, had inventive costumes for Halloween. (One Halloween the youngest declared she would be: “a marshmallow on a stick”. And she was). Little them, all running up and down streets for tricks and treats. I’m terribly nostalgic for those times. I am gladdened when anyone says they miss when their kids were young. Then I’m not alone.
I asked a college friend, what change was hard about becoming an empty nester? Was it that the house grew quiet, that you missed your daughter’s presence, that three was now two? He said, “All of it … and just … where did 20 years go?”
There’s that – the growing up of the youth below us – sometimes as the people above us, who took care of us, now need caretaking. And when the once-capable parents die, as a sage friend put it, “It’s like losing a roof over your head that you never even knew was there.” Heck, it’s hard enough for me when friends move away.
Nostalgia is an odd thing, defined by Merriam-Webster as “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition.” The American Heritage Dictionary takes it one further: “Homesickness; esp., a severe and sometimes fatal form of melancholia, due to homesickness.” Yipes! I hope I don’t have the fatal kind. I do hate change. Except for a change of heart. That I like.
I think we’re born with a degree of nostalgia, and life circumstances make it grow more for some people. Some of us are barely nostalgic at all (I envy you), and some are what I call “nostalgia monsters.” A scientist might call us “superstalgics”.
A niece and I are both that. We’ll talk about things we miss, and bawl. When I suggested that we are both nostalgia monsters, she said, “I’m so nostalgic that once I rearranged my room and immediately cried because I missed the way it ‘used to be’ an hour earlier.” (One advantage to kids’ growing up: their self-awareness and humor become more sophisticated.)
I’m not sure what function nostalgia serves. It’s mostly just painful. Perhaps, in the way spiritual and artistic and carpentry gatherings connect people within a community, nostalgia connects time within ourselves. It connects our present to our past in a mostly good way. There might be some biological survival-of-the-species value in this. I don’t know. All I know is I couldn’t bear saying goodbye to my elementary school teachers at year-end and I haven’t changed a bit.
It doesn’t matter how logically superstalgics think. We can’t embrace change when our heart is throbbing with sorrow.
Back to fall. Stick season was at one time, for me, a harbinger of the noisy, wonderful family gatherings of Thanksgiving. But my family doesn’t have those any more. My mommy was the center of them, as a mother so often is. Maybe, with age, you have less to look forward to in general. For yourself. You can be happy for the pivotal events in the lives of those younger, but for you, not that much is happening. Maybe you can’t get off work for holidays, or traveling has become difficult. Maybe money is tight, and you can’t visit your people. I get it all.
So if you wax gloomy as the leaves fall, I feel your pain. I won’t say, “Let us embrace change!” any more than I’d say, “Let us wrap barbed wire around hot dogs and eat them!” But I for one can and must distract myself from nostalgia. “Life is for the living,” my sage friend says.
I yank myself into the present. I help others as able, attend the New World Festival, the Tunbridge Fair, the Morrill Homestead Apple and Cheese Festival, consider crafting holiday gifts. I ponder the Covid-19 test called BinaxNOW and wonder if the NOW indicates urgency, or if it’s an acronym (No Organisms Within?), and whether NOW should be applied to other products, such as TortillasNOW, Old SpiceNOW, or – definitely – ImmodiumNOW. Needs an exclamation point. Good day.
Ann Aikens is an author, columnist, speaker, and blogger. Her darkly comical book of advice, A Young Woman’s Guide to Life: A Cautionary Tale, was published in 2023, her Upper Valley Girl column since 1996. Find bookshops at annaikens.com; her blog is uppervalleygirl.com.
The Night Blooming Cereus is ever mystical. Today I opened my window, and found this bud… way earlier than usual. Had no idea it was coming.
Then I moved some of my crap to better photograph her and found this down below:
For God’s sake, this bud is well on its way! Plus, I’ve never had more than 1 bud at one time in all these years. So…we’ll see what happens. Buds fall off. This big baby got jostled BAD the last few days as I didn’t even know it was there. I give it…a week till show time?
An Independence Day miracle, children! Will report in as able.
You’ll never guess what this is, so I’ll just tell you.
Years ago, a neighbor kid was practicing casting his fishing rod out in the yard. The fishing hook got caught way up, in a dead tree branch. He got his line free by yanking hard enough to break the brittle branch. Since, a little piece of that broken branch has hung from a piece of fishing line attached to a higher branch.
I do not understand the dynamics of what happened. But I do welcome unsolved mysteries in nature. Whenever I see the broken branch twirling on the invisible fishing line, seemingly hovering in the air, it cracks me up. It really cracked me up after yesterday’s storm — the snow piled high upon it, the fishing line invisible as always. I may be the only person who knows it exists. I’m definitely the one that appreciates it most.
Another solid dumping, two feet expected by 2 a.m.!
Or maybe you’re a birder. Git your binos on?
If you look closely, you will see 3 birds frozen in flight — always weird.
Oddly, this photo was not converted to B&W.
Also of note: this article in The Atlantic says crows are moving to the city.
Free eBooks on the Amazon start Monday – click the $0.00 eBook on the right, not the Kindle one, to goose my algo. A REVIEW would be so welcome! Join my email list at annaikens.com and you may win a PRIZE. Great good fun.
Years ago, after a heartbreak (the first of many), I decided to stretch myself. I learned then that, of all things, fear can boost you out of the hole. Fear trumps all other emotions – logically I guess, as a survival mechanism.
I had worked at and frequented comedy clubs for years, so I went that route of fear: performing (not, say, cliff diving.) After said heartbreak, I took a comedy class (lame), attempted standup (terrifying; developed periscope-like tunnel vision of audience), and somehow got into an improv group (practice sessions riotous, even though I never got to “play,” as improvers call it, on show nights, my motorcycle constantly croaking in sketchy NYC neighborhoods after shows).
Anyway, here goes: How To Be Funny
Hang Out with Funny People
Imagine if you ate breakfast every day with Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner. That was Rob Reiner’s youth. No way he (the director of the fake “rockumentary” This Is Spinal Tap) was not going to grow up to be funny.
Callbacks
This is when you refer to something mentioned earlier in your “set” – or conversation – that made people laugh the first time. Everyone loves callbacks. They’re like, “Oh, I remember that funny thing; that was funny, even funnier now, HAW, how clever!” This is not your classic callback, but close enough, and funny as hell.
Footnotes and Parenthetical Insertions
Use for unexpected laffs. The weirder the better, I find.
Sarcasm
Growing up, our parents used sarcasm to great comedic effect, especially while driving. “Yo Einstein, find a parking spot already, it’s not that complicated.” “Hey Quicksilver, the pedal on the right is for the GAS.” I later learned that my favorite aged kid is eight, because they’ve learned sarcasm but still respect authority. This doesn’t last. Well, the sarcasm does.
And my personal favorite…
The Absurd
Example: Rodentologist and author of “Raising Hamsters Right” urges owners to guide their rodents with a firm hand from the get-go. “Establishing dominance is the name of the game. Letting your hamster think it’s in charge can have disastrous effects.” (Point being: Who can train a hamster?)
Be Like My Dad
He recently had a flu shot and his shoulder hurt. I said,”You should probably be drinking a lot of water.” His reply: “I’ll probably be drinking a lot of gin.”
See Live Comedy and Improvisational Comedy
Best viewed with a group, IMHO. Get a posse and go. GREAT standup show coming up at Randolph’s Chandler in October called the Ivy League of Comedy. Go! Saw them twice and they so rocked. Anyone who knows where to find good improv locally, I’m all ears. My contact info below. Nothing is funnier than improv. You’ll LERV it.
Create a Flash Mob
While working banquet at a stranger’s wedding? Bar mitzvah?
Or, If Unmotivated…
Watch flash mobs on YouTube. The bystanders’ reactions are priceless.
Tell Disgusting True Stories
Like how when I lived in a tiny walk-up in SoHo, New York, I subsisted on take-out pizza, sushi, and bagels. Never cooked. One day after 2 years I opened my oven and an absolute waterfall of cockroaches cascaded out. (They call that The Nest.) My neighbors thought I was being murdered, from the screaming. Imagine if you passed out, and they’d scrambled all over you? This story always gets a laugh and amusing faces of disgust. Note parenthetical insertion.
Tell Flagrant Lies to Amuse Self and Friends
At a boring party? Spice it up. Haul your friend over to someone you both don’t know. Ask the person what they do for a living (very American). Acknowledge their work. Then say, “Sheila here is a rodentologist studying the rat population of minor cities. She started out as a trapeze artist, didn’t you, Sheila? It will be Sheila’s job to keep a straight face and elaborate. (Note: This is a callback in two ways: the hamster reference, plus this game is straight out of improvisational comedy.)
Watch Funny Shows/Movies
I know a cosmic person who says his secret to inner peace is meditation and watching funny movies. With his mom.
I’ve been thinking, since recent flicks “Barbie” and “Theater Camp” had me howling, that what the world needs now (besides love*) is funny, yes, funny. Come on writers and directors, crank out those comedies — highbrow, lowbrow, we don’t care. Bring it awn. Go see comedies in the theater. The shared experience crushes home viewing.
Suggested Movies: A Short and Largely Obscure List of Comedic Brilliance
Not necessarily entirely comedies, but mega-comical moments:
Bridesmaids, Go (clever ensemble piece; the Amway scene!), Wonder Boys, Mother (Albert Brooks and Debbie Reynolds GEM), After Hours (Linda Fiorentino hottt!). Barbie is worth it for the dance numbers with Ryan Gosling, a former New Mickey Mouse Club alum who can DANCE.
Mel Brooks: Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, and High Anxiety.
Forget Paris: the pigeon scene with Debra Winger
Stuber: So, so good. You won’t regret. Kumail Nanjiani and Dave Bautista!
The Spy Who Dumped Me: the chase scene alone…Milla Kunis and Kate McKinnon
Three Woody Allen movies you may not have seen that kill: Small Time Crooks (Tracy Ullman), Hollywood Ending (absurd plot, luminescent Tea Leoni), Manhattan Murder Mystery (Diane Keaton)
Cricket On The Hearth: old-school animated Christmas movie my nieces love.
Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion (when they ask for a Business Woman’s lunch)
Pink Panther flicks (“It’s not my phaone.”)
Bill Murray: Scrooged and Caddyshack
Groundhog Day: romantic to boot!
The Royal Tenenbaums
Overboard: I’ve seen it 10 times and I do not re-watch movies.
Anchorman (I’ve never seen)
Christopher Guest: Best in Show
Napoleon Dynamite: The dance sequence, you’ll be afire
Alan Arkin (total god): Glen Gary Glenross, Little Miss Sunshine, The Russians Are Coming The Russians are Coming
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World: another old nugget
Meet the Fockers (I’ll tell you a funny story if you ask at contact info below)
Shows: Maybe another column, with Dear Reader’s input? Your call. Good day.
*Nod to Burt Bacharach
Ann Aikens has released a darkly comical yet uplifting book of advice, A Young Woman’s Guide to Life: A Cautionary Tale, available on Amazon and local Vermont shops. She has written her Upper Valley Girl column since 1996. Information at annaikens.com.
Cutie pie Ginger! At top is Marshmallow; RIP our classic darling. You brought only joy.
Delivering a eulogy for someone you’ve known for decades isn’t easy. There’s a bottomless treasure trove of memories, so it’s hard to select the right ones. The ones that will matter to most of the funeral attendees — or that might matter the most to one person? Or maybe that matter most to you, as a speaker? Without the eulogy going on for like two hours. I bet someone, somewhere has set a record for the longest eulogy. Maybe in other countries or galaxies they are very long indeed.
Recently we held a service for sacred Aunt Natalie. Natalie was not technically our aunt, she was our cousin once removed, the cousin of our father. She grew up in Vermont, became a teacher, married a state trooper, and had my two cousins—I mean second cousins. They were the reason my family visited Vermont, and came to love Vermont for more than just her natural beauty.
O, her seasons, all distinct! The fifth season called Mud Season. Stick Season, when the leaves have fallen off the trees, revealing magnificent textural backdrops – and awful housepaint jobs. Grit Season (when winter’s road-sand blows around after the snow’s gone) and Manure Season (when the entire state is fertilized, to our vegetably anticipation and olfactory dismay). Surely there are sub-seasons involving flora or fauna that Dear Reader relishes. Not Black Fly Season.
Sometimes I’ll be in the middle of one season and flash forward into another season entirely. Do you do this? It’s mind-blowing because Vermont is like a different planet in each. I time-travel to the alternate season and think, “Wow, winter: white!” Or: “Summer…wow.”
As with the seasons, I flash back to years gone by. Younger versions of us, the now-gone people still alive — all laughing — us kids up to some mischief. Feels like yesterday. It blindsides me when I’m driving. I cry. As friend Lee says, “It always seems to happen in the car.”
Back to the cousins. We visited Vermont because our Scottish great-great-great grandparents, blacksmiths, had settled there. The introduction of the automobile caused my dad’s father to pursue other work, in Ohio, where he met his bride. Their summer trips back to Vermont got my dad hooked on ‘mont. Once a parent himself, he got us kids hooked. Back then, kids didn’t get to choose family vacations (as if!). Thank God our parents chose Vermont.
You visit a place not just for her physical characteristics, but for her people. Think of places you’ve been (Maine, the south, islands, Italy) and the locals there with qualities different from people at home, lending that place its particular flava.
When even one person leaves the planet, the flava of Earth changes, no? Most of you have lost someone close to you. In my (second) cousins’ vernacular, it’s wicked hard.
My Aunt Natalie was born with a spark. Neighbors, hairdressers, toll booth operators … she left an impression on each. You know how some relatives were old your entire life? Natalie always looked to be 50 years old, even at 80. She always wore shorts. But mostly I recall her sparkle and humor and a kind of innocence that seemed like it was from another era. Because it was.
Swimming with Natalie by moonlight in Silver Lake! As my sister said, she had a way of making the everyday magical. She was a true lover of children. Whether you were you pounding out Grand Old Flag on the piano or had sketched an inscrutable picture of nothingness, she’d exclaim, “BeaUtiful!” She made children feel valuable, which I think many children did not feel in decades past.
Ah, cousins: the gift of noisy fun. Those classic Thanksgivings, Memorial and Labor Days, and of course The Fourth. Something called “bull beans.” Treks via inner tubes to the Barnard General Store for penny candy. Making a game of anything at all. The parents sending us to Richardson’s with returnable bottles to get them “supplies.” We got candy.
Countless holidays over countless years, always with music, always with laughter. Ever effusive, Natalie would tell my mother, “You make the BEST salads!” My dad would howl, because what’s really involved in a salad? When it was time for my family to leave Vermont, I would cry and my brother would hide, so that leaving became – briefly – impossible.
Natalie passed bit by bit from our lives. But these memories remain forever indelible, of an energetic and vivacious woman so greatly loved. As Dear Reader knows, we never forget those we adored. Our pain at our loss is a beautiful pain. An honoring. As sad as it makes us.
Thank you, Aunt Natalie, for years and years of fun and art and music and jubilance and adventures and hilarity … and most of all, most of all, for your smile and voice and laugh.
If Dear Reader knows what I’m talking about, maybe today at some point: look up! Say Hello to your people gone by. Tell them you remember, you remember all of it. That you just know you’ll see them again. Good remembering, and good day.
Ha, I know an Artist-in-Residence! At the large, cool, and prestigious Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, NY. You can take classes with her there, elsewhere, or online.
She makes beautiful art out of single-use plastics and more.
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