The March Hare: Winter '03
Issue 35

Footprints in the Snow * Hopper's Index * New Member Bio: Gare * Lying alone in plush tufts *
Adventures in Straw Bale Home Building * Nature Corner * New Member Bio: Tamar

Lying alone in plush tufts
(my memories of Dancing Rabbit)
by Jillian Rhodes

Saturday, 21 December 2002. Winter Solstice. The longest night of the year? Or the darkest? I can’t remember. Out for a long walk on this chilly evening, I wish I hadn’t decided against that extra layer. The wind is biting. I pause at the creek, toss in a stone. Kerplunk. Not a hint of freeze yet. The splash startles a muskrat, who plunges beneath the water so quickly that I catch a glimpse only of his tail. I wonder where the muskrats will go when the water turns to ice. This one doesn’t seem worried…I spotted Santa Claus on my walk tonight. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in my hometown, a suburb about 20 miles south of Chicago. The cast of plastic yuletide players (Frosty, Santa Claus, Rudolph, Mickey Mouse, the Grinch, Mary, Jesus…) of varying shapes and sizes adorns lawn after lawn, entertaining passers by of all ages with their illumined still-life Christmas pageant.

My Dancing Rabbit internship ended nearly two months ago, landing me at my parents’ house in Oak Forest whilst I search for a job and decipher where the road will take me next. The holiday season, in full swing away from the ecovillage, is a strange time to be reintroduced to mainstream American culture. Thoughts of turkey and visions of crowded shopping malls have occupied the minds of most people in my immediate circle for the past six weeks. It’s a different world here on the “outside.”

I spent my summer as the Cattail food co-op vegan cooking intern. A little trip down memory lane lands me at a wood-burning stove in the outdoor kitchen on a 95 degree day, stoking the fire and waiting for the water in the 10-gallon stainless steel pot to boil. Behind me, Andra is squeezing the grapes through a cheesecloth to strain out their sweet juices, her purple hands evidence of the long hours we have spent here today. Legs ache. Patience runs short. Beads of sweat accumulate on the brow and course down rosy cheeks. We wait for our rewards: the pop pop pop of canning lids sealing and a flesh-cooling dip in the pond. A few steps down the lane, I am lying alone in plush tufts of cool, jungle green grass springing like fountains from the ground at the foot of the dilapidated windmill in Dancing Rabbit’s northwest territory. Surrounded by total silence and stillness, save the whisper of tree leaves in the wind and the slow movement of insects. Yes, thoughts of summer flood my brain with memories of herb drying, tofu making, bread baking, soot-covered t-shirts, blisters on my fingers, slivers in my hands, knitting workshops, toe drawings, dance parties, after dinner walks down country roads, breathtaking sunsets, dogs running free and breaking away from the beaten path to chase rabbits, moonrises over the eastern horizon, a dark night sky full of thousands of stars, the curious stare of cows across barbed wire fences….

I miss the bovine stares. On my walks along suburban streets, those looks come instead from inside the cars of perturbed drivers, who apparently cannot believe the unmitigated gall of a woman who would walk to the grocery store when she could just drive. “Streets were made for cars, lady,” their impatient stares say. I pick up the pace a little and give the courtesy wave in gratitude for their extreme generosity, i.e. their willingness not to run me over for daring to hoof it on a cold day in December.

And I miss the tranquility of life in rural Missouri. Silence is nowhere to be found in the suburbs, not in my house, not without earplugs. The drone of voices in the TV box is heard in every corner. And out of doors, even on my solitary evening walks, the distant whir of traffic and the overhead buzz of yellow streetlamps fill my ears. At this point I would welcome with open arms the air-filling nightsong of the cicadas, the early morning song of the doves in the tree outside my tent, the howl of coyotes, the footsteps of the rodent under and around my tent platform. Only a walk after snowfall provides some semblance of quiet on these streets. Snow makes the streets seem otherworldly, somehow muffles everything, including the cadence of my footsteps. I’m walking on air.

The author, in a pensive moment

But perhaps I have it all wrong. Perhaps the difference is that at Dancing Rabbit, I found silence from the inside out that just doesn’t exist for me in the fast-paced, 24-hour world I find upon returning home. Something inside me quieted as I was able to live more in harmony with my environment than ever was possible in urban or suburban America. At Dancing Rabbit, I began to better understand what tethers me to the earth and to other people. And life began to make more sense. It seemed that I found my rhythm while I was there. Became aware of being an integral part of something greater than I—something intricate and beautiful. I have not found a way to guard the peace that came with that awareness. Sure, I have my own methods for fighting the chaos. I walk even though I could drive, bake bread the old-fashioned way, practice yoga—all in protest to the pace of life others are keeping that I find unhealthy and, frankly, just can’t keep up with. But it feels always like swimming upstream. At Dancing Rabbit, I found a way of living that felt for the first time like the current and I were heading in the same direction.

By the time most folks read this article, I will have started my new job in Long Beach, New York. So it’s back to swimming upstream, and although that seems a daunting task, I’m beginning to remember that the small wonders and simple pleasures of life lived anywhere make the journey worthwhile and even joyful—hearing three different languages spoken at one time on the commuter train into Chicago, finding a letter from a friend in the mailbox, going out to dinner at my favorite Thai restaurant, playing frisbee with my little brother in the front yard, uncontrollable laughter, stumbling across a community garden on a city street, locking eyes with a deer in the woods….I am confident that I will find the beat of my own drummer in this new environment. My memories of Dancing Rabbit will become altered the way memories always do. But the important ones will remain, selected out for some meaning, large and yet unknown.

Footprints in the Snow * Hopper's Index * New Member Bio: Gare * Lying alone in plush tufts * Adventures in Straw Building * Lady Builder * Nature Corner * New Member Bio: Tamar