There was a fog crawling over the sand
When I listen to your heart I hear the whole world turning
I see the shooting stars
Falling through your trembling hands
- Meat Loaf
People wonder a great deal about where I live because, as the townsfolk know, my work is tied intrinsically to this particular neighborhood and to this particular house. Periodically, I will try to give you glimpses into the way we live as a town which influences why I do what I do. Part of living in Little Cow Harbor is loving dearly and always being entertained by our neighborhood stories. People tell stories of things that happened fifty years ago and laugh just as hard as if they happened yesterday. My husband says that one must be very careful though, in our neighborhood they are quick to laugh, but never doubt it: they will eat you. Because, in our neighborhood, they
will eat you. For the moment, you needn't worry. While our neighborhood can indeed be excruciatingly gut wrenchingly scary to those who don't live in it, this is a classicly funny itonlyhappenshere tale.
We live on the north shore of a fish shaped island, sheltered from the pounding ocean, high on a series of steep hills. The rest of the island is flat. Our town, shop-wise, is literally one block long and is stashed up in the hills. It is often said that everything within our town is a
secret. People have said that the town itself is a secret and that they didn't even know we
had a town because we have only that one tiny block which no one can find. Whereas other towns have parades and fairs throughout the year, we have only
one event. One glorious
secret event: Fireworks.
The Fireworks. Word goes out by word of mouth like it usually does for everything in our town and for just one evening in the summer, we have the best fireworks on the whole island for the whole year. And, from various vantage points on our town's hills and beaches we can even watch fireworks in another state when they have them. The date of our fireworks is said to be a secret. "If you don't know when it is, it means you're not invited" is a widely used, albeit rude, catch phrase of our mightaswellbexenophobic neighborhood.
A very kind neighbor spoke to me today about the blog and about my exhibit and how much my efforts and Orchid's beauty were being enjoyed. The conversation inevitably led to talking about our neighborhood and talk of our neighborhood led to speaking of The Fireworks. I said, "It's the only time we all get together. It's like a bunch of lemmings when we come out. It's so totally great because you get to
see everyone and how they are dressed and what they are dragging around with them is part of the hysterical fun. You have people dressed in their pajamas!" She said, "I know. And you must be talking about us. We
always dress for that in our pajamas!" I laughed and I said, "What!?!" Now, you must remember what I've already told you about this being an animal neighborhood. When I say 'animal neighborhood', I mean we all have animals, we all love our animals and between us all, we have a great many wild, exotic animals and pampered pets. My neighbor says, "Yes. We dress in our pajamas for the dog. The poor dog gets so scared when the fireworks start going off and we try to calm him down. Certainly he doesn't want to be left alone and we don't want to leave him. So we dress in our pajamas and pretend we're going to bed. We tell him good night, and we go outside to our yard with our lawn chairs and watch the fireworks!"
