The Adventures of Fric and Frac: Adventure 548: Woodstock-Barnard Loop/Post V

Stay balanced, Iron Man!

Waiting for the Barbarians
by C.P. Cavity

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
The barbarians are due here today.
Why isn't anything going on in the senate?
Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What's the point of senators making laws now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.
Why did our emperor get up so early, and why is he sitting enthroned at the city's main gate, in state, wearing the crown?
Because the barbarians are coming today and the emperor's waiting to receive their leader.
He's even got a scroll to give him, loaded with titles, with imposing names.
Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts, rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes beautifully worked in silver and gold?
Because the barbarians are coming today and things like that dazzle the barbarians.
Why don't our distinguished orators turn up as usual to make their speeches, say what they have to say?
Because the barbarians are coming today and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.
Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion? (How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly, everyone going home lost in thought?
Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come. And some of our men just in from the border say there are no barbarians any longer.
Now what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.

If I keep my eyes off my news feed, I don't have to think about barbarians (My Bunny recommends it). And if I keep my eyes on the hillsides of Vermont, like I've done all week, their spectacular hues arrange themselves like soft music lifting my hopeful spirit. I don't think we've ever experienced fall colors in Vermont this vibrant. We've been fortunate all week. Tony fixed Johnny's car. Monday's rain abated, and the weather since then has been crisp and cool. Better yet, each day new colors unveil themselves. I read that the green in the leaves is merely a mask, that the color in each leaf is always there waiting to appear. i love that. Does that mean there is a brilliance in each of us just waiting to surface, just waiting for the right inspiration, the right conditions, the right moment. Are we all we need to be just under our veil? Is it as John Muir says, "In the eternal youth of Nature, you may renew your own." I think, yes. Vermont in the fall has that effect: it renews the spirit. I guess that's why we've returned so often. And I most certainly relish Annie Dillard who says, "The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there." I'm trying to be there, to be present, to wonder, to admire, to commune, to hope, because as Naomi Klein says, "Hope has never trickled down, it has always sprung up." I'm gratefully sprung, gratefully enriched, and gratefully aware that life is good, especially today.

Johnny Boy, a man of truth and wisdom, isn't bothered by any "stinking" barbarians.

Deb stays strong if she carries just a little "snack".

Notice the battery pack strapped to Judy's bike. No wonder she's grinning.

We met a woman here named Dana who spent her work life in Lexington, MA as a kindergarten teacher. Delightful, she invited us to indulge in a little rake therapy. Most of us took her instruction and those of us who raked some leaves felt better for it.

The biker babes sharing one of Dana's fresh baked apple turnovers.

Lunch at the Barnard General Store (One of my favorite country stores) for Judy and me was a "Danforth" sandwich: turkey, cabot cheddar cheese, cranberries, and leaf lettuce. Quite yummy.