Fragile Magic

So I suppose you’re all wondering, (even those of you in Russia, Australia and Saudi Arabia, and the whole crowd in France – wow!) what our final thoughts on this project are.  Truth is, I’m still mulling it over.  On Tuesday, I’ll be dressing as Abigail again and speaking to a group on living history, and I’ve been trying to condense my thoughts into words.  I’m going to begin with a Rebel diatribe that will hopefully send them scurrying for their history books!

I have kind of mixed feelings about the project.

It was actually easier physically than I thought it would be, in some ways.  Initially, I was truly worried that we would starve to death.  The stove looked daunting and impossibly complicated.  I didn’t even know where the wood box was!  I thought the oven would never work and I couldn’t figure out what all the little doors were for.  I didn’t know how to stoke the fire or what type of wood to use or how to control the heat.  Turns out, not surprisingly, that the stove was a remarkably good design and not difficult to master.  I actually prefer the woodstove to my modern one!

Laundry, in retrospect, was easier than anticipated as well.  Although it's a lot of work, it feels strangely very satisfying to plunge your hands into a tub of soapy water and scrub like the dickens.

What was difficult, surprisingly to me, was the emotional challenge of the project.  I felt a little foolish sometimes, and lonely, especially during the first week.  Although Karl was very supportive and played along when he could, my children were, for the most part, less than enthusiastic about the whole idea.  I think it’s their age; being sixteen is awkward at the best of times, and downright humiliating when your mom actually goes out in public dressed like Little House on the Prairie.  I understand.  However, the kids actually rallied quite well during our busy visiting hours, and were really enthusiastic about showing other kids all that they had learned.

I really lived for seeing other re-enactors, because they understood, and were part of my 1800’s world.  If I do this again, it will have to be with other people who want to play along.

It is really difficult to actually leave the modern world.  I was disappointed at how often I had to drive my car, and I only rarely managed to leave the computer behind.  Some of my re-enactor friends are real sticklers about keeping farb out of our events, and I totally understand why.  Even small reminders of modern life break the delicate illusion of being in another century.  It’s such an ephemeral accomplishment, a fragile magic.

But occasionally, for a moment, you do step completely outside yourself and become someone else, and the reward is immense; it is no less than the ability to achieve time travel.  It comes only in glimpses, for fleeting moments, when for one precious second you really feel part of another world.  It comes when you are standing under a full moon in the middle of a soldier’s camp, with only canvas tents and glowing fires as far as the eye can see, and nothing but the sounds of  laughter and fiddle music.

It came for me in the grocery store, when suddenly my real world felt foreign.

It comes if you allow yourself, for a painful moment, to really feel you are at war.

This took me by surprise at our first re-enactment.  Karl and Claire marched out onto the battlefield for their first battle.  The Alabama firing line maneuvered into position.  My loved ones loaded their guns, and fired at the enemy, and charged, and retreated, and loaded and fired again, laughing all the while.  The cannons boomed and smoke poured over the field.  But when the smoke cleared, I couldn’t see my daughter.  I peered at the whole line-up and she wasn’t there.  Then I looked down on the grass, and there she was, dead.  Dead!  And next to her lay my husband.  My heart stopped, just for an instant.

It’s the weird paradox of Civil War re-enacting: That you are having the time of your life in what is supposed to be a really miserable setting.  But I think that to get the most out of the experience, you have to occasionally allow yourself to remember the real war, and the real people who died so tragically in it.

Something I didn’t realize when we began re-enacting, is how much acting is a part of it.  I had a couple of chances this summer to perform as Abigail.  In order to become Abigail, I realized that I have to figure out who she is, separate from Autumn.  I don’t actually know her very well yet, but I know she lives in constant terror of something happening to her family.  I also know that she’s probably more thoughtful and kind than I am, because caring for her family and friends is the only control she has in a  crazy, war-torn world.  Isn’t it weird that there’s this whole other person inside me?  That’s what living history is all about.

But it’s also about more practical matters.  In doing this project, I wanted my children to learn that life wasn’t, and isn’t, always as easy as the life they know.  I wanted them to learn that their work is valuable and necessary, something they don’t often get to feel in modern life.  I wanted them, like me, to step outside themselves a little bit.  And it worked, at least in part.  All of my kids had to haul water and start fires.  They learned to bake and churn and scrub laundry, and they took pride in their accomplishments, and they discovered that if they didn’t help, or weren’t diligent in their work, that dinner really didn’t get on the table on time.  I want to hold onto these lessons.  I realized that my children are capable of more than I’ve been asking them to do.  We’re raising the bar around here!

I also learned some lessons about the pace of modern life.  In the 1800’s, everything takes so incredibly long – dressing, cooking, washing dishes and clothes, even just getting a drink of water.  Wouldn’t you think then, that we’d have been busier than ever in September?  But somehow it didn’t feel that way.  Someone asked me what I missed the most from the 1800’s, and I answered, “peace.”  (Which is ironic actually, because I usually spend the 1800’s in the middle of a brutal war!)  I think the original idea about modern inventions was that they would give us more time, but they have done quite the opposite, haven’t they?  We race around from one activity to the next and feel more stress and pressure than anyone else in all of history.  We try to fit everything in because we think we can, or because we think others can and we ought to.

I thought the work of the 1800’s would feel more like drudgery than it did, and doubtless if we had kept it up for longer, until the novelty wore off, it would have felt that way.  But instead, our weeks felt ordered by the well-understood routine of the times.  If I really were a Victorian farm wife, all of my friends would have been washing or baking on the same days as me.  Maybe we would have gotten together to share some of the work, and certainly I would have seen more of them than just Sgt Newton on marketing day.

The work we did felt necessary and valuable, perhaps because it was more difficult to accomplish, and impossible to replace – no fast food in the 1800’s!  No water at the twist of a knob, or light at the flip of a switch.  (I still keep forgetting that I can turn the lights on.)  You have to haul water and split wood, and figure out how to keep it burning.  Having to work at home made our lives feel smaller, closer, and simpler.  Sometimes that made me feel lonely and restless, but often it simply felt peaceful.

For years I have struggled with the excessive abundance of the modern age.  I constantly feel overwhelmed by the amount of stuff in our house that needs to be put away or washed or fixed.  I loved having my house pared down to just essentials.  Here is a picture of my kitchen counter today.

Ugh.  (Mind you, we’re still in the process of cleaning up and moving back.)  I was pretty conscientious about keeping everything very tidy, like I figured Ma Ingalls would, but I can’t keep up with it now.  Not sure I can do anything about it, at least as long as the kids are home.

That’s the trouble with the modern age.  We are all trapped in the necessity of busy-ness and having many possessions, and it’s virtually impossible to swim against the current.  (I suppose I found a way, temporarily, but it meant leaving the century!)  Perhaps our changing economy will turn back the tide a bit.  I hope so.  I liked the tranquility of living in a simpler time.

So now we’re back, and modern life goes on.  I have a speaking engagement next week, and the Harvest Ball next month.  I'm also teaching my English class, and I want to figure out how to turn the Shakespeare movie we made last spring into a regular gig for money, and I have work for the church Board, and the homeschool teen group, and leading nature hikes, and I’m studying American history and literature alongside my kids this year, and somehow I have to fit our other homeschooling into all of that.  I feel a little sad and nostalgic about the end of the project, but honestly I’m too busy to really dwell on it.  And the other thing?  A re-enactor friend wants to put together an 1800’s house party for next year, so maybe we’ll do it again.  Wanna join us?

Autumn