Fecundity: My latest post over at IMAGE's Good Letters

Check out my latest post over at IMAGE's Good Letters blog. This is one is inspired by 5 am walks with 7 week old Alexander Day, re-reading Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and a site-specific performance of Hamlet performed by Sweet Briar's theater-troupe-in-residence, Endstation Theatre Company.

Here's a taste of that post:

Our habit is to next make a loop around the back of the barn where there is a rutted lane for farm vehicles and a couple old storage sheds. A visiting theater troupe is using this as the stage for an out-door performance of Hamlet. At night, standing on our porch, we can hear them rehearsing. The startled, incredulous voice of Hamlet himself rises above the low mumble of the other actors.

The desire to walk through their set is triggered by an odd impulse, one I don’t quite understand, but I think what I’m looking for are signs of transformation, some signs that the landscape is being altered by the troupe in preparation for the performance.

Each morning, as Alex and I walk through this narrow lane I am comparing what I see before me to the morning before. One morning I noticed a bench I hadn’t before. The next, noticing nothing different in the lane, I opened an old door rotting on its hinges to find a crutch and a medieval-looking wooden rake. Just yesterday I noticed several halogen lamps had been discretely installed under the eaves. Slowly, I am watching the stage being set.