Yours Truly, A Pyromanaical City Mouse

Here I am in New Orleans again, a far cry from the Amish countryside of Pennsylvania, though NOLA and farm livin' are much closer akin to each other than my parent's hermetically sealed house in the suburbs of DC. Here there are no screens on the windows to keep out the bugs (not that a measly bit of mesh would be any match for the beefy, steroid-laden insects that terrorize New Orleans anyway), and chickens out in the back yard. Heck, gunshots even resounded off the hills in PA – though from deer hunters, not drug dealers – so that was a little piece of home. And the architecture is drafty here, too, though I don't have to light any fires to keep myself warm.

I lit of lot of fires in PA. In the Shack Shack on Cherrymont Farm (see previous post) I became a connoisseur of newsprint. At first I only used the local broadsheets – Morgantown's little weekly, farmer's monthlies, horse rags, whatever came in the mail. Then I cleaned out my car and out came publications from my recent jaunt around the East Coast – alternative press from Key West, Ft. Lauderdale, Atlanta. My favorite was The Flagpole from Athens, GA: big pages, no staples to hinder my progress, paper supple and easy to manipulate, yet thick and long-burning*. Setting things on fire as a matter of survival rather than entertainment also imbued me with a special reverence for the nightly process.

The Shack Shack during a rare snow this winter.

Yes, it's amazing what happened to my perception of cold out in that drafty little shack. I always disliked winter, even as a child, and have not lived more than a few miles north of I-10 in many years as a result. To be fair, it has been a mild winter, but while walking around in New Orleanian shirt-sleeves last January it would have been hard to fathom sleeping – by choice! – practically outside in 14 degree weather. My little potbellied wood stove was not airtight, so while I could get the shack warmed up relatively quickly, it burned fast and by morning the place would only be a few degrees warmer than the out-of-doors. My mother brought up an electric blanket when she came to visit and it was like magic. Rather than dreading my inevitable extraction from underneath three comforters in the chilly mornings, the electric blanket bought me a couple of minutes of warm extremities, long enough to throw on my jeans, boots and coat and gather up clean clothes for a warm bath in the main house.

And now I'm back in 75-degree weather, gearing up for Mardi Gras and my bicycle tour. Having finished the first draft of my novel before vacating Cherrymont, the fire burns bright inside me.

*A Kindle ≠ kindling, it just smells really bad when you set it on fire. Yet another argument for hard copies.

The Walden Experience

Daddy-o jams out on his birthday

"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live." - Henry David Thoreau

And here I am at Cherrymont Farm in central Pennsylvania, which is probably as close as this city girl will voluntarily get to the Walden Pond experience.

Cherrymont is run by Patrick, AKA Daddy-o, an old jazz aficionado with a gruff voice and a big heart. He dresses like an old Irishman in a wool sports jacket and sweater, his white hair reaching out from beneath a plaid newsboy cap. Daddy-o, like his ex-wife Jane in New Orleans, acts as a surrogate parent to many of the “degenerati” artists that regularly stop through for a few days, weeks or months. We celebrated his 69^th birthday just the other night, and I'm amazed at what he accomplishes around here at his age. Cherrymont is no longer a working farm but there are still chickens and goats and plenty to be done.

Chopper the Dog in front of his home.

Daddy-o and Miss Jane purchased Cherrymont in 1980 and turned it into a flower farm for a spell, “selling perennials wholesale to the trade,” but it was a working farm for a very long time before that. The original part of the main house at Cherrymont may have been built as early as 1715. The huge property was slowly parceled off over the centuries, eventually bisected by the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the 1940s and then reduced to it's current size of 50 acres. We're deep in the heart of Amish country, and many of the local stores are staffed by the wives and daughters of the Mennonite population.

There's certainly a timeless feel to the lifestyle here. We're currently conserving gas until it gets refilled later this week, which means no cooking on the gas range and no baths. This morning I “showered” in the tub with a large copper kettle that had been warmed on the wood-burning stove that is the main source of heat for the house. It was charming in a novel, “wow, people used to live like this,” preparation for the apocalypse sort of way.

The Shack Shack, my new digs.

Daddy-o and Miss Jane have been collecting cabins since they bought the place, and the acreage nearest the house is dotted with little shacks, a barn and a tiny church that is used as a library. I've been staying in Hydrangea House, the nicest cabin on the property, also heated by wood-burning stove. It's a cozy little setup, with a loft for the bed, large windows, and a real porthole at the peak of the roof. I'm just shack-sitting though, and today the usual resident of Hydrangea will be back, so Daddy-o and I are going to go chase the squirrels out of what's lovingly referred to as the “Shack Shack” further up the hill. The Shack Shack used to house a ski-lift motor at Fairmont Park in Philadelphia up until the 70s. It's nine square feet, and will be my new home for the next month, or until I finish writing my novel. With any luck we'll be installing a pot-bellied stove in there before I move in. I haven't been through a real winter – never mind a real winter without central heating – for almost eight years now. I'm hoping the anticipation of the cold is worse than the reality to my thin Cajun blood.

Parents Say the Darndest Things

The best thing anyone's said about my music in a long time:

REECY: ... yeah, my music is kinda dirty.

REECY'S MOTHER: It's not dirty! It just has... adult themes.

I'm putting that on the cover of my next album.

Curbside Aural Glamour

busk  (bsk)

v. To play music or perform entertainment in a public place, usually while soliciting money.

Busking by the canal in Copenhagen.

Sometimes busking feels like magic: I convert songs into currencies of the world. This summer, the cafe terraces of Berlin became what I referred to as the Bank of the People – when I had no money, I would stop and play a few songs on my way to happy fun times and make a withdrawal. Nothing greedy, never more than I needed, but I was always in awe of the process.

It's hard to tell who will fall under my charms. In Berlin the visiting Spaniards would smile and often tip well, while the Germans might glare at me throughout my set and then drop a 2 Euro coin in my hat with steely-eyed expressions.

When I can pull the trick off I still feel like I'm getting away with something. When it doesn't work though, especially after multiple attempts, my mood generally sours – it's an emotionally taxing method of making money. For example, I once played at a large patio of an upscale restaurant near Alexanderplatz, and one person out of 30+ tipped me. I am always conscious of the fact that I am playing unbidden, and ultimately expect nothing, but I walked away from that crowd in a controlled huff. One week before, I played at two neighborhood cafes and walked away with 25 Euros (about US$35) for eight songs. That was about the best I ever did. Magic is fickle.

And now I'm relieved to say I've returned to the amateur leagues with my musical sorcery, at least for now. Though they are ultimately regenerative, it's tough when you're hawking pebble-sized bits of your soul to unsuspecting tourists. I'd much rather give them away for free.

Hostel in the Forest

The view out my window.

Yesterday morning I awoke to the sound of Kookaburra the Rooster crowing beneath my window. Refreshed, I rolled out of bed and pulled back the patchwork curtain. From the large window of my own personal treehouse I surveyed the scene below me – the chicken coop, the other elevated cabins, and the most artistic compost outhouses I'd ever seen, all surrounded by towering cypresses and pines. If you're ever in southeast Georgia, do yourself a favor and stay a few nights at the Hostel in the Forest.

My treehouse "Elmo", the original built on the property.

Things were slowing down at the Hostel for the one night I stayed – there were seven staff members and only two guests. Yes, the hippie vibe is strong, but the staff all have a calming way about them, and we spent a lovely evening around the camp fire spinning glow toys and hula hooping after chowing down on a home-cooked vegetarian meal of stuffed portabellos. If you ask the staff where they are from they will reply, “I'm from here,” and you can absolutely tell that no matter how long or short their stay has been, they consider this tranquil place their home. The new manager's story reads like a Hollywood script: clean-cut Yankee city boy relocates to rural Georgia to whip hippie hostel into shape. Life lessons and challenges both physical and psychological ensue. In his own words, “I didn't even know I needed this place until I came here.”

I myself felt very at home here, and from the moment I arrived I felt the inclination to pick up some tools and lend a hand. The Hostel, started in 1975, requires constant upkeep, and they often rely on the skills of the guests to keep it in good nick. If I can find the time I'd love to go back down and do some work exchange for a week or two.

http://www.foresthostel.com

Persuing the Battered Suitcase

Many of you heard snippets of this story from my European trip this summer. Below you'll find the entire adventure.

September 2011

"You can turn your back on a man, but never turn your back on a train."

I took the night train from Copenhagen. I could have flown, it would have been cheaper and quicker, but I'd never done a long-haul train trip across Europe, and by all accounts it is the proper, traditional way to move about The Continent.

I was headed to my cousin's house a two-hour drive outside of Frankfurt to see his wife and five kids again before flying back to the States out of Paris. The trip itself was supposed to take around 14 hours altogether, but amazingly enough with only one transfer. That meant I had 12 hours on that night train to sleep, read and generally relax. I even had a compartment to myself for most of the trip, and managed to sleep through the four hours where I was not alone. Before I passed out I'd hopped off the train at a few stops to stretch my legs or have a smoke, always able to tell when the train was going to depart by the electronic sign on the platform, but never brave enough to let the train out of my sight just the same. I slept for a total of five hours, stretched out across three seats, cuddled into the tiny pillow and navy blue blanket I'd “borrowed” from Air Berlin on my flight over. (For the record, I was planning on returning them when I flew home.) When we arrived in a station, the lack of motion would disturb my rest, though I generally just went right back to sawing logs a moment later. Sometimes the train would only pause for a minute or two, sometimes 20.

I finally roused myself at the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, a station I have been through a few times. This was the second to last stop until my transfer to a little regional train, so I wanted to be awake and watch the sun rise over the German countryside in my private compartment for this last segment. The sign on the platform said the train wasn't leaving for another 20 minutes, and I knew there would be a bakery or two at the end of the platform. I took my purse but left the rest of my things sprawled out across my side of the compartment – laptop, pillow, blanket, snacks. My ukulele, rucksack and velvet fedora that a friend had given me last time I was in Frankfurt all sat in the luggage rack above my seat.

Bleary eyed I stumbled down the steep steps of the train and onto the platform. I wandered past a Deutschebahn employee who I'd seen at every stop. She was just lighting up her cigarette. I thought about asking when we were leaving, but the sign was there, plain as day, and my brain was still full of sleepy molasses. I successfully got myself a cup of tea, and was just pouring sugar into it when I heard a conductor's whistle. I started, got a brief rush of adrenaline, but them dismissed the thought – Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof is a huge station with lots of trains, and anyhow the sign on our platform said I should have plenty of time. Just the same I made the 15 second walk back to my platform in ten.

And when I returned to my platform? THERE WAS NO TRAIN THERE ANYMORE. I had not been gone five minutes. Gaping, I stood and stared at the gap where my train should be. Fortunately I'd had the good sense to bring my shoulder bag with me, which contained my wallet, phone and passport, but everything else – rucksack, computer, ukulele – were still on the missing train.

The rest of the story after the jump!

The Title Explained

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life." - Jack Kerouac