Chapter 95
Durham, North Carolina. 2013-2015.
My hairdresser lives 600 miles away, and her niece just played a birthday concert in my backyard. Only further evidence that everyone is somehow connected.
On my first day off, while working in North Carolina, I wandered out to a Farmer's Market in downtown Durham. I walked from booth to booth between watercolors and peaches, jewelry and carrots, candles and barbecue, seeing how they grew food and art in this particular community.
Through the crowds I saw that poster again: a hand-drawn monkey face with the words “Puppet Show” written along the bottom. Since I had arrived, I had noticed it hanging in grocery store entrances and posted on campus. I made my way to the stand where the poster was hanging, surrounded by various kinds of pottery. A woman’s head popped out from behind a set of jars. She proceeded to explain to me how they were made to ferment foods.
As I listened to her describe her process, this woman became an immediate comrade. She was a teacher, an artist, a mom, and a puppeteer, and for many years she had been involved with the huge outdoor spectacle listed on the poster. “People of all ages from around here have been rehearsing together all summer,” she explained. “This show is not to be missed.”
I bought one of her ceramic trivets and promised to see her there.
I invited a friend of a friend to the show. We had never met before, but he was one of the many recommendations of “people I should meet” when people found out I was working in Durham. I maneuvered through the throngs of people, seeing which one might he him. Recognizing me first, he waved from his seat, and with common joy for our mutual friend, we hugged, and exchanged some stories and snacks before we became surrounded by epic, thirty-foot puppets. The play unfolded into a wondrous tale. The imaginative storytelling filled me with delight. A remembrance of the possibility of what theater without words could communicate to all ages. A realization that a community of thousands throughout this region now had this play, this story, in common.
I hugged and thanked the Puppeteer-Potter for her stunning performance and for encouraging me to come. Full of post-performance excitement, she invited me to her house for dinner later that week so that she could “welcome me to the area and introduce me around” to her family and her artist friends.
“What did you guys think?” I said to a group of people talking outside of their car parked next to mine. Before I knew it, I became a part of their conversation and we were exchanging numbers and they were inviting me to other events.
“I can’t believe you just got here,” they kept saying. “We could swear you’ve lived here for a long time.”
“Well, everyone is so kind and inviting,” I responded, “It feels natural to fit right in.”
“You were the one who talked to us first,” the one man pointed out. “You have the magic of momentum.”
At the dinner I met the Puppeteer-Potter’s sweet, bike-riding, ethical humanist husband and her mom, a striking, eloquent 96-year-old woman who also lived at their home. As we gathered around the table, conversation flowed. When it came up that I had lived in Vermont, the Puppeteer-Potter immediately interrupted me to ask if I knew of a theater there.
“Yes, of course. I’ve performed there,” I explained.
“Then I don’t suppose you know this board member?”
“Oh yes! I’ve worked with him for three years in a row. How do you know him?”
"Because he's my brother and this is his mom,” she said, smiling as she pointed across the table to her mom. We all sat in silence for a good moment reveling in such happenstance, while the connected web of relationships took shape in our minds.
“Well then, who’s ready for some Noise?” the Puppeteer-Potter asked before putting on construction-site-sized headphones to make a coconut-ice-cream-like dessert in her loud blender.
Later that week I added a dress rehearsal for my solo show so that the Puppeteer-Potter and her mom could come on a night they were free of puppet commitments. After my performance, her mom congratulated me and asked if I would like to come over. “I have a special flower,” she whispered. “It only blooms once a year and tonight just might be the night.”
Although exhausted and ready to go to bed, I accepted. How could I not? This was one of those once-in-a-lifetime invitations.
As I arrived at their house, a Night-Blooming Cereus with two huge flowers welcomed me onto the porch. Layered shades of white stretching out from the center. The inner petals stood tall, while outer petals each the size of an open hand, unfolded gracefully, offering themselves to the world. A hello and a goodbye in one motion. A final corona layer, like a lions mane, encircled the whole.
“Aren’t they perfectly beautiful?” smiled the Puppeteer-Potter’s mom. “I wait for them every year.”
The Carolina nighttime hummed around us as we kept the flowers company and ate another round of Noise. Everything about these people and their home was so special.
Before leaving to return north, I stopped in to say goodbye to the Puppeteer-Potter and her family and to surprise her brother who was visiting from Vermont. As I walked up, worlds collided. The person who he had hired for work Vermont years ago was now standing across from him on his family’s porch in North Carolina. “Yes, it’s me,” I explained. “I’ve been here doing work and last week, I met your sister at the farmer’s market. You have the most remarkable family.”
Once he digested the story and connected the dots, he remarked that it made perfect sense that his sister and I had met.
I’ve returned several times to Durham, greeted by meals made by the Puppeteer-Potter. I eagerly pick up my fork, ready to engulf myself in garden vegetables and fermented things that I never dared to try before while listening to their new stories. The last two times I visited, the Puppeteer-Potter’s sister-in-law gave me a haircut in the living room while the Puppeteer-Potter’s nephews updated me on their latest glassblowing project, and the Night-Blooming Cereus sat on the porch patiently awaiting new buds.
“Do you know anyone who would want to have a house concert?” the Puppeteer-Potter wrote in between one of my visits. “My daughter is returning from Guatemala and looking for places to play.”
Yet another invitation I couldn’t refuse! Having a barbecue bash at my house in Providence, replete with ukulele tunes, would be a perfect way to celebrate my birthday North Carolina-style! Sure! Why not?
As the Puppeteer-Potter entered my house months later, she immediately recognized the puppet poster that hung on my fridge. “That’s what originally drew me to your mom,” I explained to her daughter as I heated up some water for tea. “I also have a teapot made by your mom and I bought this tile from her on the first day we met.”
“Hey, I made that!” she said laughing.
And as I placed the tile onto my table, the Puppeteer-Potter’s daughter told me the story of how she had carved the two people on it walking hand in hand.
