On a rainy morning a few days ago, I drove toward the hills to interview a couple of artists (I really love my work, do I mention that often enough?) and the leaves had caught. That’s what it’s like, a match taking hold. I passed by blazing trees. As if they’d suddenly turned overnight, they were that much brighter against the dark skies. And I felt exceedingly fortunate to live here, in this spot on earth where the seasons really do exhibit wild and variable behavior and the palette changes hues many times in a year.
That said I’m not a fan of winter. I don’t like to be all that cold. I fear slipping on ice and I pretty much refuse to drive when the going gets scary. I’m aware there’s an inherent contradiction to being a season lover and a winter not-lover and living in New England. So it goes. I got here, enamored with Hampshire College (still am, nearly thirty years later) and with all that the groovy valley and the arts-meet-politics-meet-pretty of this spot has to offer. Winter is, it just is, and I have to deal.
Between the buzzing days of summer, all stretched out and hot and even a bit languid sometimes and the freeze, there’s this season of hefty bounty (ever dropped a pumpkin on your toe?). Farmers harvest vegetables that endure, roots pulled from the earth, heavy squashes, hearty things that keep in a cool cellar. If there’s a human or community-wide equivalent to this, it’s almost frenetic, the abundance of gatherings to celebrate harvest—and more.
Maybe that’s why it feels like the right season to be involved with raising money for a community farm. I joined onto Grow Food Northampton this summer and while I can’t give you the expert spiel (if you want that, please talk to Lilly Lombard), I can say this: holding farmland in perpetuity as a community asset, that is, to me, win-win-win (I make a cameo in the bring-you-to-tears short fundraising film).
Part of the autumnal frenzy will be a big Barn Fundraiser for Northampton’s Community Farm (details here). Cider will be pressed; locally sourced ice cream will be scooped (I’ll lend a couple of scoops). Add music and dancing and all that good stuff, along with walking tours of the farmland and you’ve got a heck of a celebration. Overloaded as I feel at this time of year with all of our personal transitions (four schools, so many new routines I don’t know yet who goes where when much less how they get there), my excitement at this dream-that’s-coming-true consistently overtakes all that static and worry about busy. I live in a place where my kids, within the confines of our town, can interact with farming and farms are part of their lives in a way that undoubtedly instills in them an appreciation for local food, the work of food, and the earth. I cannot ask for all that much more.
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At the risk of sounding too positive, I’m just going to plow on and share this association: this past weekend I could not have asked for more, either when I attended Sunday’s glorious Many Hands concert at the Pines Theater. Short version: kids’ indie music from the bopping Grenadilla to the crazily cool Agent 23 Skidoo to my new local heroes Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem, not to mention kindie superstars Elizabeth Mitchell and Dan Zanes made for a terrific afternoon brimming with music. Plus, there were passels of kids frolicking. Add to that, their adults.
I brought three of my kids, including my eldest (not the demographic being targeted) and even he loved the whole event. It didn’t hurt to learn that a friend of his hero’s (Jonathan Coulton, himself featured on the Many Hands CD) is a friend of mine. I didn’t even yet mention these many hands are donating proceeds to the Haitian People’s Support Project. So, I bought big, checking off some holiday shopping with this year’s go-to gift.
Like the farm, the Many Hands concert embodied that win-win-win quality. The hefty bounty here so often is mine, to live in a place where creativity and community and place itself all seem to be of such huge importance to so many people that many hands routinely join together and make good stuff happen. Lucky me.
