I have been awaiting the release of Loving Vincent for over a year. It’s a full length feature film that was animated by 63,000 oil paintings in the style of Vincent Van Gogh, and not surprisingly, it is about his life. An ambitious project, I was concerned no one near here would be showing it, but I was happily surprised! A half an hour away there was an adorable tiny theater attached to the town hall of Wilton NH. They were charging an admirable $7 admission. I knew I had to go. I was planning on going alone, though I can’t say I was thrilled at that prospect (this seemed like an experience I wanted to share with someone.) So when I ended up with a friend that day we went together. I didn’t know what to expect of the theater or the film. This could be either amazing or horrible.
It was a very easy place to find, though there was no parking. I found a spot across the street but I guess there is municipal parking nearby. The theater was marked with two sandwich boards on the street. I opened the large church-like doors and was greeted by a large staircase and a couple bathrooms, marked by a large sign reading,”Gentlemen to the left, because ladies are always right.” No ticket booth or consignment stand? No people? It seemed awfully quiet but if there was going to be anything going on it’d be up those gorgeous stairs. Up I went!
At the top there was a tiny consignment counter also selling tickets. The smell of fresh buttered popcorn wafted in the air. I paid the sweet old man at the counter for my ticket and asked to see Loving Vincent as there were two movies running tonight – the other being Victoria and Abdul. How excited I was to find somewhere that played British films!! I always get to hear about all these cool British films but never get to see any because American cinemas don’t play them. I pondered if this place ever played French films… That’d make me absolutely giddy… but back to the story. The ticket taker told us we’d love the film, I smiled and said I hoped so! To my left I found the screening, it was so adorably old timey in appearance, a small theater screen in the front complete with curtains. 100-150 simple chairs were set up. There were perhaps 30 people here. I chose a seat in the middle and settled in.
When the movie started it didn’t take me long to adjust to the unusual animation method. I almost immediately recognized some of the actors from watching too much BBC… It started out rather rough with a somewhat unlikable character, the son of the postman who was given a letter from Vincent to his brother to deliver a year after Vincent’s death. He’s harsh and angry at this task, especially after finding out Vincent’s brother had died six months after Vincent did, and now he had to find someone else to give the letter to. What followed was interviews with half the town, an impromptu three day investigation, that was absolutely heart wrenching. Although the investigation was fascinating, full of twists, turns, half-truths, and missing information, the characters gave something so much more… the emotional devastation wrought by the suicide of a man who clearly left a very big impact on everyone he met. Every character added more depth, more layers, more sorrow. I do not cry at movies but this had me on the verge for over an hour and did manage to make my friend cry. It ended with a revelation that was such a gut-wrenching twist that I also felt a bit nauseous at it all by the time I left but having said this all I can say is WOW. This was probably the best movie I have ever seen – so artfully done it tackled some hard subject matter with such tenderness! If you’re someone who likes art, drama, or sad movies, you must see this. It is a masterpiece! And I will be back to the Wilton Theater, no doubt, to see what else it has to offer.
**Photos were not taken by me. Hopefully for my next adventure I will remember my camera!
There is an observatory at the top of the bridge overlooking 
Everyone exchanged pleasantries and talked about vertigo and trees. Then they turned to me and addressed the elephant in the room – my flaming orange hair. I was suddenly flooded with compliments and told I was “brave.” I laughed and smiled. I think I will keep my hair this color. I got probably ten comments on it from strangers that day. I think it’s a delightful ice breaker. Finally the elevator dinged and we all got out, climbed a few stairs, and voila! We’re in a fish tank at the top of the world! Or so it felt.
I had meant to go to two covered bridges today but being as I got out of the house rather late and kept finding happy detours it was getting dark… still, I had time for one more little excursion. I hadn’t visited Ashuelot before and I was delighted to find it’s this adorable little historic town with one of the most charming covered bridges I have ever come across. I parked aside the road and marveled at the fact it had not one but TWO pedestrian pathways over the bridge. The river below gurgled and churned and blocked out all noise from the traffic surrounding it. There was something so unbelievably peaceful and fun about this particular bridge even though it seemed to be situated near a lot of activity. A sign on the front even advertised “Dinner on the Covered Bridge!” some sort of quaint annual event.
This entry is a little different than most. It’s not an advertisement for some great place to go it’s more just a story about getting lost in the woods and finding myself both physically, and perhaps more metaphorically as well, through only the most ridiculous of means.
I must admit I haven’t been taking the greatest care of my health lately. Instead on days when I feel great I WAY overdo it and then crash for a week and repeat! This time around I was so accustomed to the crash I wasn’t even aware I was in a downward spiral until today when I woke up and was suddenly able to focus and move without pain. WOW. That’s different! This led to a morning filled with me bouncing around listening to oddly aggressive music and finishing painting my Droog Cockatoo sculpture.
My music these days might be a bit alarming to those of you who knew me in the past. I have somehow morphed from this terribly pleasant, quiet, shy, feminine, little house mouse to someone bouncing around swearing like a sailor, wearing garishly awful costumes on a weekday, singing loudly to increasingly aggressive and offensive music, and denying everything I was ever brought up to be – ladylike, prim, proper, well spoken. Every day I inch closer to the real me and every day I am more excited to learn it all anew. And shit, I wish someone had told me all 90’s music didn’t suck. I was always forced to listen to shitty boybands and Britney Spears by my bestie at the time. Fuck, if I knew how beautifully twisted Marilynn Manson, how deliciously sarcastic My Chemical Romance, or how delightfully dysfunctional Placebo was I think my teenage years would have been so much more interesting! So onward I go listening to a delightful clusterfuck of angry, dysfunctional, deeply sarcastic, and utterly gender fucked music.
I only mention all the above to show you what kind of kick ass, loving life, sort of mood I was in when I decided to fill my pockets with random baubles and head into the woods, a camera slung over my shoulder like someone who knew what they were doing…
There’s a big logged out clearing near the dam. I decided to go through to the back of it where there was a nice stone wall to sit on. I wanted to take a few crystal photos with the wall and the lake as its backdrop. This I did before deciding to follow the deer path that ran along the wall to the dam. I made my way to the dam just fine. I spent some time playing in the grass here, snapping photos, enjoying the sun, just relaxing and having a good time. Once I had felt well rested enough I headed back whence I came but found the path I was supposed to have taken in was…. grossly 
overgrown and lacking in any trail markers. I walked in what I believed to be the right direction sometimes where there was an obvious trail (or two, or three) and other times when I was just clomping through underbrush. I did not end up back at the trailhead. In fact I have no idea where I ended up… but I did find some ruins of some sort… some granite had clearly been quarried here, or placed here. I snapped a photo and wondered before getting back on a trail which led me into a loop three times. It was starting to get dark, I had walked way farther than I anticipated and I still couldn’t find my way to the right path. I had to start making some decisions. I decided to keep walking until I hit a road but I didn’t hit a road. I hit an intersection of two joining lakes and no more path. Fuck!
I wheeled back around, by now it was getting dimmer and darker by the step. I was practically jogging – sweating, overheating, starting to get a headache from dehydration because it was hot and I didn’t bring any water with me. I passed the same trees, mushrooms, and various other landmarks again and again before I finally came to a stone wall. The stone wall. I could get back from the stone wall! But the stone wall didn’t lead me back to the right trail, just the same bizarre loop path I kept getting on. I was frustrated. I gave up. I found the stone wall and followed it in the opposite direction of home knowing it’d lead me to the dam and from the dam I could wander through some nice people’s backyard back up to a road. I knew how to get home from there (although it was a hell of a walk.) I stopped by a roadside lake scene, snapped a few more photos, and continued walking in the heat and the sun.
