Ropes Slacken More

Lughnasa                                                               College Moon

At the State Fair yesterday. Realized, as with the garden, how much my thoughts of next year and the year after were tied up in what I did today. I no longer went through the Agriculture building with a keen eye for new information, stuff I wouldn’t have found otherwise. Say, a new apple. Maybe a new way to compost or treat troublesome weeds. A different method for keeping bees healthy.

Also, that building where local groups like the Sierra Club present information, help you connect to networks in state. Didn’t even visit it.

That’s why, when Kate and I both realized we’d gone as far our legs were going to carry us, we hit the skyride for a trip over the fairgrounds and back to the express bus lot.

Still, there were memories there, of years volunteering at the DFL booth or the Sierra Club booth or, long ago, as a State Fair chaplain (mostly monitoring lost kids. though, come to think of it, I wonder how folks would feel about that these days?). Cheese curds. Foot long hot dogs. I can even remember drinking beer at the fair. That’s reaching pretty far back into my Minnesota past.

The sense of pulling back, pulling away, of not-quite any longer a full Minnesotan took something from the fair for me. It was not mine in the same sense it had been before. Not as much a shared experience, like the weather, that helps define Minnesota. Not shared fully because part of me has gone ahead to the mountains. To the Great Western National Stockshow.

The circus tent has considerable slack in the ropes. The rings and the bleachers have been packed. The moment when the elephants are called to strike the big tent? Not yet. Not for a while. But we don’t want to let them wander too far away. They will be needed.

Back to the packing. The end of book packing for right now (the bookshelf immediately beside the desk will remain loaded until this room has to be vacated for staging.) is in sight. Perhaps today. Then there are files and art objects, office supplies, novel manuscripts. Still a lot to do, but a lot less than existed three months ago.