The Wannabees
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
I confess. It's true. My sister and I want to be like Martha Stewart. For years, I refused to give her magazine anything but a cursory glance, for this very reason. I didn't need any more ideas because already I was a Martha Stewart Wannabee. And then, culture-hungry in the country, I succumbed and ordered a year' subscription. Now, every issue leaves me lusting after the Martha Stewart Experience.
Even when she went to jail, I was in awe of this lady who managed to be an innovative trend-setter. "You would be just like her," my sister said upon reading about Martha's microwave cooking discoveries. "If you were in jail, you would be doing something to spark things up!"
If Martha Stewart Living hadn't complicated our lives enough, Jessica now bought a subscription to Country Living. When she got her first issue she came storming out of the bathroom. "Look at this!" she wailed. "It's what I thought I'd do when we moved to the country." And she spread before me a wonderful country story of people being innovative, charming craftsmen, re-doing, re-making, re-vitalizing themselves and their surroundings in the country.
"Read this," she commanded, "there are wonderful, delightful quotes. There are heartwarming pictures. I can almost smell the apple pie. Look at the country charm oozing from every photograph. I want to see what I do reflected like this because I can't see it any more!" She stopped, almost in tears. "I'm weary!" she said, "Our life no longer looks quaint!"
She's right. Ramona, which for so long was our place of peace, has ceased to be that peaceful haven. Involved in the city up to our ears, we have trouble separating ourselves enough from town dramas to always feel the charm in the midst of chaos.
We now drive through other towns and comment on how peaceful they look, these lazy little hamlets. "How delightful," we say when puppies are in the road obstructing traffic. By contrast, when dogs are in the road in Ramona we now find ourselves the keepers of the city ordinances which specifies dogs should be contained on the owner's property. Nothing cute or quaint about dogs running loose in Ramona.
We sit at the breakfast table discussing our dilemma. We thirst for quaint country charm. These girls from California are not quite the same people who came to the country. We are no longer naïve to the harshness of country-living. We grieve for our lost innocence.
But here we are, with our roots sunk deep in Kansas soil — the Martha Stewart Wannabees. My sister would like to be the indoor Martha with a complete chef's kitchen, whipping up gourmet meals with tools and utensils to spare, only to sit down on a sun drenched patio and eat the repast with charming, influential, famous guests.
I will be the outdoor Martha Stewart, growing magnificent gardens with glorious flower beds sweeping through perfectly manicured yards. We will have porticos and gazebos and arbors and screened in porches with fish ponds that clean themselves. And, like Martha Stewart, my pets will all be color-coordinated. Black and white is good. Gone are the cats that are tabby and gray even calico. Only black and white. Our chicken flock will be black and white. If we were to get a dog, it would be black and white. I'm getting carried away as I envision gardening in black overalls.
"Time is ticking," my sisters voice interrupts my obsessive meandering mind. "I just can't wear myself out before I've done the things I came to do." She pauses. "I'm scared I will come to the end of my life and discover that I haven't done anything significant
We're Martha Stewart Wannabees — even when there's two of us — and we forget that we don't have a million bucks and a staff of 50 professionals. It's another day in the country and we've got ourselves a dilemma.
