The Common Ground Fair

Last week we trudged through the forest in Unity, Maine, accompanied by the sound of the train whistle blowing through the trees, to the massive field where The Common Ground Fair is held.  

This isn't just any fair.  Now in its 34th year, The Common Ground Fair is a celebration of sustainable living, from forestry to farming to traditional crafts and cooking.  This year 59,600 people attended over the course of 3 days.

There are maple-syrup and cider donuts,

baskets of flowers, fresh and dried, and bunches of Sweet Annie to take home to make into wreaths.

There's hand-dyed yarn from organically-raised sheep,

hobbit holes in which to peek,

and pumpkins for the picking.

Pixies and elves parade through the fairgrounds, 

casting spells and scattering sunflowers in their wake.

We spent a sweet day there with the horses, goats, and mules,

a fine mist coating our hair, and our bellies full of warm cider, switchel, and Indian pudding.

By the end of the day, my bones chilled by the damp and cold, I longed to climb into the hay and nap with the pigs.  There are few creatures, I think, who know how to sleep as happily and well as they do.  

I should add that I myself don't eat meat and that I am well aware of the ultimate fate of these pigs, but I believe that if people are going to eat meat, the animals who provide that meat should be well cared for and the meat should be free of chemicals and hormones.  The farmer who raises these pigs was sitting in the hay with them as I took these photos.  She talked with great affection and respect about her pigs.  Respect and care for the animal is an important end in itself, but it also means that the meat we feed children will be much healthier and more nutritious, as will our land and water.  The more we support local farms the more we can trust that our meats and produce are being raised responsibly and sustainably.  We can also help to preserve farmland and save it from development and sprawl.  Nothing makes me sadder--or angrier, actually--than to see a housing development named "Cider Hill Farm" after the orchard that used to exist on the land where 100 cloned condos or 25 Mac Mansions now scar the hillside.

I am a girl who loves a country fair.  This one is the best.  You know, as you drive into Maine there's that sign that says "Welcome to Maine: The Way Life Should Be."  A lot of folks go to the outlets at Kittery or Freeport and think they have been to Maine.  No.  The Common Ground Fair reminds us of the way life truly should be: sustainable, healthy, and in harmony with the earth.

Legacy II: I Dare You

I am thrilled that my friend Angela Negro is contributing the first guest Legacy post.  Her blog, Signed by Ange, is one of my favorite places to visit for wisdom, a really good, deep laugh, and a great story. Ange lives in France with her husband and her "messmonsters," where she creates gorgeous art, engages in some serious renovation projects, homeschools said messmonsters, and oh so much more.  She is a an athlete, a traveler, an artist, a mother, a teacher, and, as she says on her website, a wordsmith, whose commitment to the literacy of women and girls, to beauty, and to the encouragement of those around her inspires me more than I can say.  Read on and you'll see just what I mean. 

Hello there everyone,

I must say I feel very honored to participate in Gigi's 'Legacy' series. While I feel a little daunted about writing a guest post for the blog of someone as immensely talented as Gigi, I admit that it's come at an ideal time.  The arrival of the cooler temperatures has coincided with the recent celebration of my 40th birthday and my latest adventure at homeshooling my messmonsters, both of which have conveniently given me extra cause to pause and consider the people and ideals that have shaped my life till now. Merci mille fois Gigi, for giving me the opportunity to put my fingers to the keyboard once again, after such a long absence over the summer months, and set my story down. 

"You can be bigger than you are." were the very first words I read, in the very first book I ever actually remember my father giving me. We had just moved from New Zealand to the sunny Sunshine Coast of Australia where Dad chose to shed his skin and go from tradesman to salesman. This was the 'positive mental attitude' era of the 1980s and consequently brimming with promise, at least as far as my parents were concerned.

"I dare you," he said, as I cried for my old friends and lamented my plight in a new school where the prospect of making new friends seemed overtly daunting to my 11 year old mind, "to be the very best you can be." Dad was ever the tower of strength, a shining example of will power, positive attitude and determination. Life, to Dad, was entirely what one made of it, no Ifs, Buts or Maybes. Certainly no excuses. No feeling sorry for oneself. No feeling sorry for myself. Success in life, and however I chose to measure success, was all up to me. "I Dare You," and many of the other books Dad subsequently passed on to me to read as he pursued his sales career from iced drink machines into real estate, told me that it all boiled down to a question of personal choice, motivation and giving myself the means to reach my own goals... Word after word, as I read that wee book through my pre-teen tears, I slowly became inspired.


Over the years, during one or another of my multiple moves to exciting new horizons, that tiny hard cover book disappeared. The tricks and tips, and various lessons on life I avidly learnt from within its pages, thankfully, didn't. They have helped me navigate my way through all of the hairy situations, major challenges and embarrassing disasters that life, in its ultimate wisdom, has a tendency to throw to all of us. While the book has dropped out of existence, 29 years later the title remains firmly stuck in my mind. It's the first thing that pops up when times get tough, even now. 

So strong was its effect on me that I've recently started making a career out of wanting to inspire the rest of the world the same way. Often a well chosen phrase is all it takes to shine a new light on a tricky situation and guide the way forward.

More than anything, it's the most precious legacy I could ever leave my 3 messmonsters.  At the risk of sounding evangelical, being ultimately responsible for my own inner happiness has come to represent the epitome of freedom to me, and this in turn has engendered as much an infallible faith in life as an inherent, indestructable, unquenchable joy. I want that for the whole world. But if I can't give that to the world at large then I can at least offer it to my kids. 

"I dare you, to think creatively,"  I heard myself whispering tonight as I softly kissed my 11 year old Chickpea, who was all sullen and digging her heels in about having to read a real book (ie: not about horses) for her homeschool French programme. "It's all right for you," she said, "You like reading and I DON'T! So you were good at school and it was easy for you." 

"You decide what your attitude is to reading and learning Chickpea. I can't do that for you. I can only say that the day you decide to accept each challenge with an open attitude, is the day that learning will happen naturally and without effort for you too. Go on! I dare you to adventure!" 

Thinking of my dad and another sulky 11 year old, all those years ago, I smiled as I turned out her light and left her room... 


Words and image copyright Angela Negro 2010

Just Sit There and Look Pretty

Debi at Emma Tree has offered a challenge to respond to the phrase "Just sit there and look pretty."  As soon as I read her challenge I knew I had to participate, because pretty and I have a troubled past.  

I don't think I am unusual.  Pretty is something I have alternately rejected and longed to be.  I have allowed my self esteem to be bound up in pretty.  Smart and funny and creative and caring are in there, too, but they don't cause me nearly as many problems as pretty.

In a few weeks I'll turn 43, and what do I think of pretty as I introduce her to middle age?  Well, I don't think they'll get along very well either, but I'll tell you one thing, smart and funny and creative and caring just keep getting better and better all the time.

In response to Debi's challenge I decided to make a paper collage, and as I cut and pasted, this image of Rapunzel emerged from the clippings and flowery bits.  I have long studied and taught the history of fairy tales; they are part of who I am.  Like many girls, I was raised on them.  Of course, in the 70's there were far fewer Disney versions, so I actually read many, many fairy tales from books.  These days there are countless new versions of tales, including the retellings that are meant to empower girls rather than make them feel like damsels in distress. 

And yet, the old tales persist.  In some, the female protagonists were actually quite powerful, but in others, like poor Rapunzel here, they were passive characters around which everything revolved.  Rapunzel just sits in that tower day after day, letting her long golden braid down for the evil witch to climb.  Eventually the prince discovers her and shimmies on up to her tower, but Rapunzel's job throughout the story is to sit there in the tower (and then later in the wilderness) and look pretty.  She is rewarded for all the pretty sitting with a happily ever after of her very own.  

I recall many Rapunzel nights in my youth, sitting by the phone (which was, of course, attached to a wall by a cord, so I might as well have been in a tower) for some prince of a boyfriend to call.  In fact, I remember an awful lot of time in my youth wasted on wanting to be prettier.  And now that I'm heading into the age when I could be labeled a "cougar" or a "matron" or some other equally ugly tag depending on how I choose to dress, I still waste time and money on special creams and lotions and potions to make me appear youthful.  Maybe I no longer identify with the young heroines of fairy tales.  Maybe now I am the evil queen in Snow White, asking my mirror who is the fairest of them all, whipping up concoctions made of roots and leaves and spider's legs.  Which leads me to this question: notice how the older women in so many (but not all) fairy tales are depicted as evil while the young girls are good?  I think this has everything to do with power.  We are not evil; we are powerful, and that can be frightening, even threatening to others who would like us to sit there and look pretty.  

As women age, we become forces of nature, full of wisdom and strength.  No tower can contain us, no king can control us.  We are the makers our own ever afters.  

Go check out Debi's amazing blog for links to others who are participating in this challenge!  xo