7 things that happened during zach and i's 10 year anniversary

it was a decennial anniversary, and important things were bound to happen. one of those being that the inn owner congratulated us on our 10 year wedding anniversary. did i miss something, and why have i not been collecting any tax benefits?

to properly celebrate, we took a weekend trip to the eastern shore of maryland, and stayed in a little town called easton only 1.5 hours away from DC. easton has that small town new england feel to it, which is perfect for halloween. if no witch convictions were made back in the 1700s there is still ample opportunity to complete a few trials with the perfect backdrop.

during this peaceful, reflective weekend, i made a few discoveries and learned a few things that i would like to share. here are 7 things you need to know about zach and i's 10 year anniversary weekend:

1. the stick tree artist is in good company. as if one stick tree wasn't enough, we were fortunate enough to run across a forest and path devised by an artist not unlike our resident gales street one. yet, as i walked that narrow path and pondered further, i thought, is it not the expression of the medium that makes the artist, not the coincidental use of the same object of beauty? i can say that our artist has a much more fastidious aesthetic to him than this stick tree forest dreamer, preferring the lone figure to the field, concentrating his efforts on fashioning that one stick in way he sees fit. instead of washing away the idiosyncrasies of the stick (in the general sense of the word) by closely juxtaposing it with more sticks to create an anonymous brown cluster, our artist forces the viewer to celebrate the little deviances each stick brings to bear; in the case of our artist's subject--a slightly off kilter vertical growth trajectory, a jagged stump of a branch where a clean cut was not possible with such small shears, and so forth. yet, whether expressed as figure or field, the stick continues to be the stuff of artist's fancies.
 

an accidental picture, caused by claustrophobia and subsequent panic in the stick tree forest.

2. there is poetry in the rot- i love easton maryland because they take the law into their own hands there. from observation only i have concluded that the law of october states "for every 3 square feet of porch space, there must be no less than 1 pumpkin." yet, even an autumnal paradise has its misplaced participant. in enters the rotting pumpkin.

this lone pumpkin in the grass made me think of a previous piece i wrote that parallels another blogger's plight to not be the figurative cake that her boyfriend munches on, in addition to other tasty lady cakes. her takeaway: don't lose yourself amidst all the baking--be strong. my takeaway: use higher quality, locally sourced ingredients that your boyfriend may prefer in a pastry. OK cheekiness aside, i indulged her metaphor to practice my empathy, albeit from the point of view of a pumpkin:

i was the smallest pumpkin in the pumpkin patch. but i was pure orange--no fleck of yellow, or under ripe green spot.  and let me tell you, i was a round little thing. i wanted the man in the straw hat to notice me. i was long past due on that vine, and wanted to sit, painted with black sharpie, on his doorstep. somewhere in between the waiting i lost myself, and my peel started softening. i sat there, helpless, as i slowly rotted into the ground. when only my stem was left, the man in the straw hat finally came for me. he tossed my stem in a pile next to the pumpkin patch, with all the other pumpkin stems from that harvest.

seems to me like this abandoned little pumpkin is having an equally poor, if not worse time of it than that overeaten cake. 

3. the gourd is king of the land- the law of october also states "for this one long month, all affairs of gourds will take precedent over the people of easton." find another place for your car, biped, the gourds are in town.

4. local is bad- having hung around with zach for 10 years, there's not much i don't know about my dark (haired) companion. however, i did learn one interesting tidbit this weekend--he hates local. while most people will froth at the mouth upon hearing even just the first syllable of the word, zach is much more skeptical about the only movement hipsters have been able to rally around. i don't blame him. if one has a fine palette, how can you limit yourself to ingredients only found in the area? if i were a locavore, i would make it my mission to yell at all the people living in northern siberia for not living solely on a diet of snow, their most abundant local asset. that's what it's all about--celebrate the local, and celebrate it good. however, i think the biggest issue with local, ironically, is proximity. how can i eat that cute little pig down the road when i could eat that faceless pig from canada, already vacuum sealed in a package? there is a reason i call that little oinker a pig and not a pork, I NEED SOME SEPARATION HERE. without it, my world crumbles, along with the local movement. i will rally for packaging that specifies if the animal was butchered in radius < or > 100 miles of the point of purchase. for all those gentle souls like me who would prefer to eat someone else's animals rather than your own, you're welcome.

here is a picture of zach and i eating locally sourced dessert:

this picture was taken by an  intoxicated person in a very fancy restaurant, initiated on their own accord.

5. the local cemetery is bad- we paid homage to all the animals killed in the movement by visiting the local cemetery where they're buried, situated just west of the town center. the cemetery stretched on for miles in either direction, making me believe that easton has been the quiet epicenter of all things local for a number of years now. as you can see, they are taking down the trees to accommodate the explosion of local. i put a red leaf in my hair, a small (but growing) symbol of the bloodshed that has plagued this otherwise quaint town.

6. birds still fly south for the winter- we took a quiet walk through a state park and didn't run into any other hikers. by some misfortune we lost our map in the middle of it, and ended up in the hellish stick tree forest, the place where lost souls meet. luckily we made it out to a clearing, where the oppressive silence of the STF was broken by hundreds of geese in formation squawking overhead. the experience was kind of surreal. at first the squawks are far away, like the distant rumble of a train, but once the geese are over you the sound is deafening, like they are surrounding you on all sides. for a minute after they're gone you continue to stand there looking at the sky, taking in the silence of the squawkless void above.

7. at the end of the world there is a lamp post and a pillar- i am a woman prone to modest extremes. for example, if there is a tip of land, i don't care whether the tip is inhabited by dense forest brush made of cacti or if it's filled with succulent lollipop trees, i must go there. looking off towards the end of the world, i forget all those terrible things in my life--the precious gourds that irresponsible people let go to rot, the sadistic ideals of the locavores, the onset of mania that comes with contemplating the stick tree--and i can concentrate on the good things that make up life. this weekend i got to reflect on my longtime love, a person who got mad at me because i broke my promise to share a suitcase with him to easton. i make this promise to zach now: if you continue to go the end of the world with me, i will share my suitcase with you.