Photo by Joshua Slate

Living Madly: Harvest Home

By Emilie-Noelle Provost

*This essay is dedicated to my sister Morgan who loves fairs so much she got married on the Ferris wheel at the Franklin Country Fair in Greenfield.

****

When I was very young, my family used to go to the Marshfield Fair every year. I loved seeing the brightly colored chickens and fancy rabbits all lined up in their cages, some with blue ribbons attached. I still remember being surprised by the way a sheep’s wool felt when I touched its head—not nearly as soft or cuddly as I’d expected.

One year at the fair, after much bargaining and begging, my sister Nat and I were allowed to have cotton candy. I was amazed by the way it dissolved—literally disappeared—the moment I put in my mouth. Our faces, hands, and clothes were stained pink and blue for the rest of the afternoon.

When my husband Rob and I lived in western Massachusetts, we never missed the Tri-County Fair in Northampton. We’d go to see the demolition derby, an almost implausible display of twisted steel, broken glass, and spilled gasoline that inevitably ended with a fleet of tow trucks dragging the defeated vehicles to their graves.

When I was eight months pregnant with my daughter, I went to the Franklin County Fair in Greenfield. It was ninety degrees outside, my ankles were swollen and I was too big to fit on any of the rides—not that they would have let me onto one anyway. I had the poster from that fair framed. It’s been hanging on the wall in every house I’ve lived in for the last twenty-six years.

These days, I can wander for an hour or longer looking at the handmade quilts and prize-winning vegetables. Giant pumpkins! Huge zucchini! I love seeing the jars of homemade preserves arranged in rows—strawberry, blueberry, grape, rhubarb— the glass containers of honey, the bounty of perfect pies. I still look forward to the fried dough and fresh lemonade.

There’s something satisfying, even mystifying, about watching a skilled craftsperson spin raw wool into yarn, or seeing a blacksmith repair a horse’s bridle right in front of your eyes, sparks flying, the intensity of his glowing coal fire beating back the September chill.

And who can resist a game of chance? Pop a balloon, win a prize! Or the Tilt-a-Whirl, the wildest ride there is, especially if you know how to choose an especially twirly car.

There’s something about fairs has always felt both familiar and ancient to me—the hawkers, the vendors, the scent of raw earth, the barrels of apples. And that’s because they’re both.

Harvest fairs harken back to the beginning of the agricultural age, when we gave up our nomadic existence to grow our own food, when we decided we were better off—safer, happier—living together in communities, away from the perils that awaited us in the wilderness.

Our modern agricultural fairs, generally held between August and November, are the descendants of the harvest festivals celebrated by the ancient Celts in Western Europe which took place on or near the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox, what we today call the Harvest Moon.

These earliest festivals gave birth to medieval harvest home celebrations which were traditionally held on the last day of the harvest. Harvest home festivals included feasting, music, dancing, games, contests, decorations, and rites meant to discourage and dispel evil spirits. If you went to one, you’d recognize it. Without all the flashing lights and electronic bells, the fairs we go to today are more or less the same.

Before corporations ran farms, before anything we wanted or needed could be delivered to our doors courtesy of Amazon, we had only ourselves on which to rely. We existed on a knife’s edge between just enough and cold, hard starvation; between the comfort of a hearth fire and a raging blizzard. Death was always just around the corner, just one drought or blight away from taking us all.

At a fair, the fruits of our collective labors are writ large for everyone to enjoy and stand in awe before. At its most basic level, a harvest fair still says: Look what we’ve done! Hopefully, we’ll survive until spring. But in case we don’t, we’re going to roast the meat and drink the cider and be grateful that today we’re together and alive.

Fairs feel magical because they resonate in our DNA. Even in our age of smart phones and artificial intelligence, there’s something about fairs that draws us to them year after year.

Perhaps this is because fairs attest to the reason we’re here in the first place: the ingenuity, tenacity, bravery, and strength of our ancestors. They allow us a glimpse into our ancient past, an intimate view of the bare rock foundation upon which our civilization is built. Or maybe we’re attracted to fairs because they remind us of what it means to be human, living on that knife’s edge with only our wits and our love for one another to get us through.

Whatever the reason, I’ve never met anyone who didn’t love a fair. I’ll wave hello if I see you on the midway.

###

Emilie-Noelle Provost is the author of The River Is Everywhere, a National Indie Excellence Award, American Fiction Award, and American Legacy Award finalist, and The Blue Bottle, a middle-grade adventure with sea monsters. You can see more of her work at emilienoelleprovost.com.