Baby Steps by Elisabeth Rohm

Author:Elisabeth Rohm [Röhm, Elisabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780738216645
Publisher: Da Capo Press

CHAPTER EIGHT

SECRETS

Three things cannot hide for long:

the moon, the sun, and the truth.

—Herman Hesse

The Woodstock I know might not be the Woodstock you imagine. It’s not a town full of tie-dye-clad groupies in a pot-induced haze refusing to admit it’s no longer the 1970s. Okay, maybe it is a little bit like that, but it’s also a small artist’s community that my family and I call home. It’s a place off the beaten path, a couple of hours from New York City, where we gather to be together in the beauty of upstate New York. To get there, I drive north through winding roads and miles of forest, literally removing myself from the frenetic and busy urban world. When I make that two-hour drive, I feel like I’m traveling deeper into my own life to get a closer, calmer look at myself.

Woodstock nurtures the free spirited. Artists flourish and live well here, making albums, writing books, painting, as they have for decades. It’s a high-minded and open-hearted community. On any given day, you might drive through the humble little village and see people protesting against one of the wars or some other injustice on the village green. I’m not sure who they think will see them, but they protest nevertheless, because they believe it’s the right thing to do, God love them!

Every time I go back there, I’m reminded that we all have a voice and we can all express ourselves in this country. And that’s just what my family does, albeit in a less public mode. We gather at the home of my mom’s best friend, Nancy, and we drink wine and eat amazing food because Nancy is a gourmet cook. And we talk. We talk about our lives and what is important to us. We relax. We let go of our work and our woes, and we exist there together in a happy bubble. We all feel comfortable in a town like Woodstock. A friend of mine once told me, “Lis, nobody knows who you really are. They think you are this shiny blonde with ice-blue eyes, and you’re really just this crunchy hippie mama.” To a family like mine, full of crunchy hippie types, Woodstock is heaven.

One evening a few years ago, a bunch of us sat around a table in Nancy’s home eating her food and drinking her wine; Nancy’s dinner parties are raucous and infamous, and everyone was in a good mood. I had been in New York City to meet with a director, and I couldn’t go back to California without a visit to Woodstock, so there I was, with family and friends and Easton, only a few months old, asleep in the next room. I sat next to a distant relative I hadn’t seen in a long time, and she had just congratulated me on my beautiful baby. Then her smile faded.

“I’ve had so many miscarriages,” she said, her voice wavering. “Every time I get pregnant, I’m filled with so much hope, and then things start to go wrong.

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