{"id":261,"date":"2019-02-09T12:33:37","date_gmt":"2019-02-09T17:33:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/?p=261"},"modified":"2019-02-09T19:13:58","modified_gmt":"2019-02-10T00:13:58","slug":"gypsies-and-the-art-of-being-an-outsider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/gypsies-and-the-art-of-being-an-outsider\/","title":{"rendered":"GYPSIES AND THE ART OF BEING AN OUTSIDER"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Donna\nDufresne<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nhave had a life-long obsession with the Romani people (Roma), commonly known as\n\u201cGypsies\u201d.  It may have started in my\nchildhood, when my mother told me stories about how the Gypsies would come into\ntown every summer when she was a child and set up camp down by the Charles\nRiver. There was also the circus, which would arrive on the train and then\nparade through the town before setting up their lavish tents and cages.  I would get confused between the two,\nwondering if the circus people were also Gypsies, especially since my Uncle\nBarney supposedly ran away with the circus when he was twelve or thirteen years\nold. He was a blonde and blue-eyed rough and tumble boy, and my mother had also\ntold me that the Gypsies used to steal blonde and blue-eyed children. This\nimage stuck with me, especially when my mother threatened to sell me to the\nGypsies whenever I did something wrong. Thank God I wasn\u2019t blonde and blue-eyed\nlike all my mother\u2019s people. As a matter of fact, I may have been too dark and\nswarthy even for the Romani when I was a child. I would turn like a raisin in the\nsummer, if allowed out in the sun, so I didn\u2019t worry too much about the Gypsies\ncoming to steal me. I worried more about what my mother would do to me if I\nmade a mistake.  I don\u2019t know if it was\never true that the Gypsies stole children, or if it was just one of the many\nrumors and racist preconceptions about the Romani, who have never been welcomed\nanywhere in the world. At any rate there were never any Gypsies setting up camp\nin the town where I grew up. I guess they were all down at Salisbury Beach, hustling\non the boardwalk.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nsometimes wonder if there are Gypsies in my family tree.  After all, there was a certain restlessness\nin my mother\u2019s father, especially when she was a child. They moved just about\nevery nine months, as Grampa was an itinerant engineer who would re-tool\nfactories to make them run more efficiently. My Yankee grandmother, who wanted\nnothing more than her very own home with a garden gate, used to stomp her foot\nduring moments of frustration and say, \u201cGeorge, when are you ever going to\nsettle down!\u201d But he preferred the roving life. He was what my mother called\n\u201cThe Black Irish\u201d with his black hair which had turned pure white by the time\nhe was thirty. By the time I knew him, he looked like all my grandmother\u2019s\npeople, green-eyed and snowy white.  But\nthere may have been some travelers back there in Ireland.  If nothing else, they were the sort of people\nwho didn\u2019t mind packing up and moving to America.  Sometimes, when I think of my grandfather,\nwho died when I was three, I see him in a Gypsy Vandoor, caravanning through\nheaven, happy as a clam to keep on moving.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\ninherited those itchy feet and the need to keep on moving \u2013 if not physically,\nat least in spirit.  I cannot bear the\nstagnation of the soul. But I learned long ago that I need the stability of a\nsolid home to anchor me so that I can freefall through the universe. I love my\nnest. It is this solid matter that allows me to spread my wings. However, there\nwas a short time when I was a Gypsy vagabond. When I was twenty-five, I got\ndivorced, quit my job and sold my possessions. \nI bought a backpack and hiked the Appalachian Trail by myself. It was my\nvision quest. But one-hundred miles short of my destination, Mt. Katahdin, my\nfather left my mother for a country western floosy who worked in a diner, my\nbrother, amid trying to heal from a brain tumor, left his wife, and I had to\ncut things short. After picking up the pieces, which seemed to be my job in the\nfamily, I spent the rest of the summer hiking the John Muir Trail in\nCalifornia, camped on the beach at Big Sur, and spent a month or so in San Francisco.  But by the end of October, New England\nbeckoned me home. I missed the color and the solid ground of a home and a room\nof my own.  Untethered, I made my way\nback to New Haven, where old shoes no longer fit, and old friends did not\nunderstand the new me. It was time to move on, which is what landed me in\nNortheast Connecticut.  When you realize\nthat you are an outsider, you pack up in the dark of night and flee. You become\nadept at burning bridges and cutting ties. You don\u2019t look back.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\npattern, thankfully, only happens around those Saturn returns or when Mars is\nin retrograde and climbs up Uranus – meaning your anus. It is a rare thing. But\nwhen the wind is just right, you lift your nose to the scent of spring someplace\nelse, and if you are not paying enough attention to read the signs, a tornado\nclobbers you over the head and moves you to the next location. You wake up\nthinking \u201cHow the hell did I get here?\u201d, but you know it\u2019s the right thing.\nEven if you must suffer through the maelstrom, you know the dust will\neventually settle and you\u2019ll begin a new life, where for a certain period of\ntime you are home and they have not discovered that you are an outsider. An\nother.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\noutsider theme is a loose thread in my family. Grampa Johnston had that need to\nkeep moving, and there was a certain kind of non-conformity in my uncles, and\nespecially my mother.  Then there was my\nfather\u2019s side of the family, an odd mix of stolid Yankees and the French\nCanadians who came down to work in the mills in Lawrence. Talk about outsiders.\nPoor Grampa Dufresne would never be accepted by his father-in-law (Grampy\nDunham), who was a hard tac soul and extremely racist. It was bad enough that Grampa\nDufresne was a Catholic, and secondly, French, but his mother was a \u201cgoddamned\nIndian\u201d, dark as coffee, tall and big-boned. It was rumored that she was black.\nIn fact, I discovered after having my DNA checked that an African did enter my\ngenetic pool sometime in the early 19th<\/sup> century.  It\u2019s quite possible that my ancestor made his\nor her way to Canada and married into the Micmac tribe. Or at least tried to\npass off as Native American because it was somehow more noble and\nprotective.  Whatever the story, it was\nabout survival. People who are outsiders can spend a lifetime trying to pass\nthemselves off as something they are not.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nreminds me that I was born on the outside. I have walked that tightrope of not\nbelonging for as long as I can remember. Born into a working class, rural\nfamily, it was clear from the beginning that I was different. Tongues would wag,\nand heads would shake in wonderment as to where I came from. To this day, my 93-year-old\ndad shakes his head when I share a piece of writing and recites the mantra I\u2019ve\nheard my whole life: \u201cHow the hell did an old farmer like me get a daughter\nlike you\u2026\u201d, which I know is meant as a compliment about my intelligence, my\ntalent, or whatever positive attribute he is trying to convey, but in fact only\nreminds me that I don\u2019t belong.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nother dynamic which enforced my sense of being an outsider was that I lived in\na rather posh neighborhood, next to a prep school.  We were poor people compared to the neighbors\nof my early childhood. My parents were care-takers for wealthy estates early in\ntheir marriage, and we lived in the hired hand rental on the farm where my\nfather was sent to work when he was eight-years-old during the Depression. My\npeople have strong Massachusetts accents \u2013 that Yankee Seabrook dialect lacking\nin R\u2019s. But I wandered in and out of my neighbors\u2019 houses where the furnishings\nand the speech were more refined (except for the Polish lady across the\nstreet). I began to separate myself from my family, adopting the English accent\nof Edith Whittier, whose husband owned the farm and the land that cradled our\nlittle house.  Later, I noticed that the\nwealthier people who cradled me from a distance seemed to have a much bigger\nsense of the world. Life was incredulously small in my family, and there wasn\u2019t\nmuch hope if you were a girl, that you would ever be anything other than a\nhousewife and a mother. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inside\nthat family, where I didn\u2019t quite belong, I danced my way through the soft edge\nof confinement, testing the seams, looking for a way out. I yearned to join\nthat class of people whose daughters weren\u2019t held back and who went to college\nand became writers, singers and actors. I did things that those prep school\nkids did -like cross-country skiing. I sang my way into the hearts of the\nmiddle class, hoping they would rescue me. But in the end, I was not one of\nthem. I was still an outsider. I could get only just so close, and then I would\nfind myself somehow discarded like an old suitcase put out in the trash. No\nmatter how refined my manners, no matter how refined my speech, how articulate,\nhow intelligent \u2013 it did not matter. I do not share the same lens of\nentitlement as them. I go through life like a beggar, my hands held out for\nalms for the right to exist. Definitely not something my middle and owning\nclass friends experience.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So,\nit\u2019s no wonder that every once in a blue moon, I\u2019ve packed my bags and\ndisappeared into the dead of night, looking for my tribe \u2013 my real people. For\na while, I gleaned onto my so-called Native American heritage. I dived into the\nSeven Arrows<\/em> book and every other\npseudo Indian spiritual pathway until I realized that most of the writers where\nin fact white middle class people who somehow had the same idea as I \u2013 that we\nshould return to the \u201cnoble savage\u201d ideal, even if it meant that we were\nrobbing their culture. The backdrop of my \u201cquest\u201d was that old TV ad for the\nclean water act in the seventies \u2013 where the Native American chief is paddling\na canoe down a river which is riddled with litter and pollution. The scene ends\nwith a closeup of his beautiful chiseled face, the face of my father and my grandfather,\nwith a solitary tear running down his cheek. I would think to myself, \u201cThese\nare my people \u2013 not those stupid white people who pollute!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When\nI hiked the Appalachian Trail, I regarded it as my vision quest. Indeed, I did\nhear my spirit name in the ethers while I traipsed across some mountain top\nnear a crystalline and leech filled pond. I tried to change the word to French,\nbecause the real name was a tad bit too new-age \u2013 even for me. But in the end,\nthe real thing stuck because it does in fact describe the essence and the\nelements of my being \u2013 water and air, mostly. My old friends didn\u2019t much like\nthe name I\u2019d started using after I returned from my quest. They were more\ninterested in smoking pot and drinking, and that didn\u2019t fit me, so I waited for\na sign, and then disappeared into the night.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although\nI continued to identify with and search for my Native American \u201cpeople\u201d, I soon\nrealized that I wasn\u2019t going to be welcomed into that fold either. After all, I\nlook hopelessly white, even though I was never quite white enough for my mother.\nThis was made evident to me when an angry young man showed up at a sweat lodge\nmy husband and I had built, when we organized a sweat gathering. He ranted and\nraved for what seemed like hours about how we were stealing from his culture\nand had no business appropriating his sacred ceremonies. He demanded we tear\ndown the sweat lodge, then got into his car and drove off to sell tobacco and\nother Indian contraband on the so-called \u201cRes\u201d. \nThe trouble is, what did he really know about the sweat lodge ceremony from\nthe Sioux Nation, when he was a Pequot, for God sakes. Furthermore, I probably\nhave more \u201cIndian\u201d blood than he, if, according to my family, my grandmother\nwas really a Mic Mac princess and not half black. But he did have a point. My\nMicmac people wouldn\u2019t have used a sweat lodge either.  I forget his name \u2013 it was Beaver something.\nWe chose to call him \u201cBeaver Breath\u201d amongst ourselves, thereafter.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back\nto the Gypsies. When we first bought our land in Pomfret, there was a\ncampground around the corner. Every summer, the \u201cGypsies\u201d showed up in a huge caravan\nand camped out in their very fancy and expensive rigs.  One day in the tiny little Abington Post\noffice, I noticed a very dark-skinned couple buying stamps. I was sure I\nrecognized their language as \u201cRoma\u201d. I guess that in my mind I had become an\nexpert because I had recently immersed myself in a series of books about the\nRomani people, written, of course by white people who had run away with the\nGypsies and then made a gazillion bucks writing about their experiences,\nenthralling other white people like me, who were outsiders.  After they left, I asked Toni, the Post\nOffice lady, if they were Gypsies. She clicked her tongue in disgust, and said,\n\u201cYep \u2013 and you better check your wallet.\u201d \nShe went on to explain that they showed up every summer at Boupree\u2019s\nCampground.  I went home and fished out\nmy tape recorder, determined to sit by their campfire and interview them about\ntheir underground, outsider lives.  My\nhusband grabbed onto my feet the way that did when we were driving too close to\nthe edge of those cliffs on Cape Breton, and I, like an errant dog, had my head\nand half my torso hanging out the window to breathe in the salt air. Perhaps it\nwas just as well not to barge into the camp of strangers. After all, I was outside\ntheir box, and who knows if I\u2019d have been able to bust through that wall.\nStill, I wonder if I missed an opportunity. I could have written a book about\nGypsy nights around the campfire which would be read by white people like me.\nBut I guess I wasn\u2019t ready. Who knows where the Gypsies have gone. You just\ndon\u2019t see or hear of them anymore. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

However,\nI swear that I bought my truck from Gypsies. I had read that the Gypsies in New\nEngland whose niche market was once horse training and trading used to travel\nthe race track circuit. New England and the Northeast in the warm months, and\nFlorida in the winter.  I was trying to\nresearch the status of the Roma in New England, and learned that a number had\nsettled in Worcester, and were running used car enterprises.  Now that\u2019s an outsider city. All of the\nVietnamese nail salon workers in Northeast Connecticut live in Worcester, which\nhas a huge community of immigrants. What\u2019s odd to me, is that immigrants and\noutsiders such as the Romani, somehow thrive on an underground network. They\ngravitate toward their hidden communities like iron filings dancing with a\nmagnet.  You know you are truly an outsider\nwhen you can\u2019t even find your magnet.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\nwere in desperate need of a new used truck when the breaks totally went on the Silverado.\nSomehow, we found a website for used cars and answered an ad for a Dodge Ram in\nWorcester. It wasn\u2019t that old but had an excellent price. We drove up to check\nit out. The garage was tucked away in a dubious neighborhood shackled by\noverpasses for three different highways. \nThe first thing I noticed, was not the shiny blue double cab truck, but\nthe strikingly dark and handsome young men working in the shop.  The truck had a cracked radiator and a\ncracked windshield. The radiator went during the test drive. No worries, they\noffered to replace both the windshield and the radiator and came down to $6,000\nfor the truck after repairs. Arrangements were made for the \u201ctransaction\u201d. We\ntransferred money, so I could write a check and pick up the truck while Michael\nwas away. This is where the whole thing got a little shady.  There wasn\u2019t a title to the truck. The father\nof the shop owner would deliver the truck, but he had to go to Norwich to pick\nup the title. First, he would meet me at the mall in Killingly, and I would\ngive him the check. Then he would drive to Norwich with a couple of other cars\non his tow truck and get the title.  Obviously,\nhe was a horse trader. He would call me when he was back in Killingly, and I\ncould pick up the truck, the keys, and the title.  Michael would have had a fit, and never would\nhave gone for it. But I, being an outsider, go with my hunches and intuition,\nand therefore agreed to the transaction. After all, I was convinced that these\nguys were the hidden Roma, and if they knew I was one of their tribe, they\nwouldn\u2019t do me wrong.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nwaited several hours, sweating out the conventional thoughts suggesting that I\nmay have been duped.  But then, just as\nit was getting dark, the Gypsy dad called me. He wanted to meet at MacDonald\u2019s.\nSo, I got a ride from my neighbor, and waited \u2013 and waited. Either he had\nskipped town, or operated on Romani time, which is akin to Latin time, Indian\ntime, and my own poor sense of time \u2013 unlike my German husband, who always<\/em> knows what time it is.  The Gypsy dad, aloof as he was during our\nearlier meeting, got his cheeseburger, and sat down at the table where the\ntransaction apparently was going to take place when he saw fit.  I made nervous small talk, telling way too\nmuch about myself. He told me nothing. \nBut when I mentioned that I was a singer\/songwriter and that I had a\nband called Gypsy Romantique<\/em> and\nwrote \u201cGypsy Jazz\u201d music, he suddenly perked up. The fa\u00e7ade crumbled, and he\nsmiled for the first time. He was oddly interested in my music, which was\nsurprising \u2013 because God only knows nobody else ever seems interested.  Gypsy dad pulled the title out of his jacket\npocket, and the keys to the truck.  We\nparted as though we were best friends, him saying \u201cIf the truck gives you any\ntrouble, make sure you call us, and we\u2019ll fix it. Let us know if you ever need\nanother car.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\nthat was that.  I drove my luxurious,\nhumongous Dodge Ram home. It\u2019s lasted at least ten years and is still going \u2013\nalthough the rust is taking a toll. I think the truck could have been a lemon.\nIt obviously was involved in an accident. \nBut it was blessed by Gypsies, and I like to think they blessed me\nbecause they recognized me as a fellow outsider.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donna Dufresne I have had a life-long obsession with the Romani people (Roma), commonly known as \u201cGypsies\u201d.  It may have started in my childhood, when my mother told me stories about how the Gypsies would come into town every summer when she was a child and set up camp down by the Charles River. There … <\/p>\n

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