The hardest part is first getting settled. People already have their eye on me because I’m in a flower-covered, 15″ tall wig. My newest addition to your costume, a vintage veil from Goodwill, is aesthetically stunning but also makes my wig tilt back precariously. My biggest fear today is that I’ll tilt my head wrong and the wig will just come toppling off, and the illusion of some mystic statue fortune giver will melt into a frozen bald girl with a white face.
This doesn’t happen, though. Instead I get settled, full jar of fortunes at the ready, folding fan in the other hand. Then it’s the waiting game for who will be the first. This is my first time being a statue at the evening farmers market. I’m hoping people will come once the market is in full swing, but for now I’m just being watched by a couple old guys on a bench by the burrito truck.
My glazed-eye stare rests on the Local Burrito truck. Local Burrito has a Facebook and a Tumblr, I learn. Then a woman comes toward me, bends and drops a dollar in my basket. I smoothly shift to life, bending and offering out my jar of fortunes. She takes one and smiles at me, and I am energized.
I GOT A DOLLAR, I GOT A DOLLAR, I GOT A DOLLAR, HEY, HEY, HEY!
The market ends up being a great choice because of one big thing: KIDS! Toddlers and children are at the market with their parents, and point and gawp and sometimes, sometimes I come to life for them and I see their look of astonishment. Some come up to me with a parent-given dollar, afraid of me at first, but when they shyly came up and I bent, smiled and met their eyes, they were usually delighted. That was worth it all.
One young girl stopped with her mom to give a dollar, then they sat on the bench in front of me because the girl wanted to keep watching me. “You think she’s pretty?” The mom asked. “Yes, she does look like she is at a wedding with her veil. …No, my hair wasn’t that tall when I got married. It was a bun at the side of my neck.” And I listening as the mom had a conversation with her daughter.
Something about being a living statue is addicting. Maybe it’s moments like when the man stopped for a fortune, read it, then came back and gave me another dollar. “One for me and one for the horses,” he said. “This is really wonderful. You made my day.” I wonder which fortune he got.
Or maybe it’s just getting to overhear conversations, to stand still and watch people and soak up humanity like a sponge. 
I couldn’t do this every day, and possibly not even every week, but it is a singular experience to look at yourself in a street window reflection and see a rather magnificent doll instead of a human being, to interact with humans as an Other, then to come home, pull off the beehive that Marge Simpson would envy, and grab a beer, talking easily with friends in white face paint and enjoying the luxury of being you, a human being.
And Then I Fell Out the Window 