Tag: greenthings

Humanity

Leaving the farm.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

Is it on? Is this thing on?

I sat down to write about how it felt to climb down off the tractor and to know I won’t be climbing back up. There is so much in this for me. I tried paper and pen but couldn’t bear it. The beauty the beauty. Unbearable.

It was heavy. My whole chest was physically constricted. And I know it has to be done, is being done, but I still have not come to grips. I cannot believe it.

I’ve gotten a job, a grown up job that has benefits and the same hours every day and a salary, and possibly sick days and things like that that i haven’t even considered.

And I’m starting tomorrow. And it precludes/excludes the ‘squeezing in of hours’ that my life before allowed.

And I’m in mourning. For the woman who started there, as a way to fill in the times when the kids were with their dad. It was really like that. They were young, i was always there. Always.

Seeds

I started there probably seven years ago, my eldest would have been 13, and the youngest just six. It felt like a lot of money because it was farmwork and when i did it in high school, i was just paid $7 an hour, under the table. So it was way way more than that, and I would start having references again. It was a step, a little one, an it got me talking to people in the world again.

And I helped people pick out the good veggies and the farmers washed and harvested and put everything out at the beginning and away at the end of every night.

Now i harvest (only a little bit but i do.) and wash, and set up, and break down, and make the board and think about next week’s setup and keep it all stocked and i know so many of the customers intimately. And I seed the baby plants and run the plant sale and I take care of thousands of eggs and chickens per week and I drive the goddamned tractor. I’ve watched the farmer’s kid grow into a really cool girl, and i love my farmers isn’t just a bumper sticker over here.

Sigh. Sky.

And I worry that I’ll lose my connection to the work and the joy and pain of being outside year round. And what if my dad stops being proud of me? Or Grammie, or Joel, or Kate Crowley? Or the goddamned farmer? What if they move on like i was never there? I WAS THERE. (From heaven, three of them, because i have issues and need therapy. Always.)

And then, there is the beauty. I don’t think you know how beautiful it is out there. The dirt in a tractor tire, the lean of a fence post, the water sluicing the dirt off the carrots, the shocking color of the Swiss chard. I don’t think you know the wild variety of egg. Shells and breakage and boxes and delivering the food to people, feeding, knowing that what is happening, the exchange of energy is pure goodness. Pure.

Dirt is the way. The beginning and the end. And I WAS THERE.

What? I was.

Humanity

trying to keep my cup small

Lovelovemotherexpletive

its easier to overflow when you start small, fyi.

wish i could teach the value of small things to other people. there has to be a crack somewhere so i can get in, so i can show this. just a sliver.

the value of small things.

realizing that as much as i love people, and i really do, i can’t handle more than two or three at a time. this is a direct reflection of my hearing loss. the insecurity is overwhelming and I feel directly the shrinking, the ways in which i try to make my own self invisible to counter the possibility of embarrassing myself, or just being lost while surrounded by people. so, i left a conference i wanted to be at today, because it was lunchtime and too much small talk. and i don’t exactly know how i feel about leaving, but i am trying to honor my small cup, and i was overwhelmed and starting to feel isolated, and i needed to leave. so i did.

i’d love to grow flowers, but i listened to a flower farmer at this farmer’s conference and I don’t think I want that. I want to make a hundred dollars in a summer from the yard, or maybe double or triple that, but I don’t want to be a farmer. i don’t have the wherewithal for it. (unless you know two or three people who could build it all for me? cuz, man, if i could start with a greenhouse and some long beds? maybe we’d be talking.) but still, just the stand by the road. that’s it. that’s all. little cups.

i’m hoping to switch things up a little this summer, maybe give me some time to grow my own garden. last year i didn’t have the time and it was a shade of sadness.

yesterday i was bemoaning my lack of writing, and lovely bob leaned over and put his arm on my shoulder and said simply, ‘you do not have the time.’ and he was right. and here i am, finding it and forgiving myself for the times when i choose a movie or a nap instead of productivity.

trying to keep it small, folks.

small things have great value.

love you much,

kate

Browsing at a TJMAXX and not buying this, but loving it?: My medicine after leaving the conference.

Humanity

Farm

Lovelovemotherexpletive

I don’t think it’s just me, but I’ve hit the wall (and climbed it) of apocalyptic thoughts, feelings and mind lapses. I’m mostly happy about it, the theatrical world knows my connection to the fears we all have right now. Which, in itself, is a whole post.

I’m thrilled by all the movies/series which suit me right now. Last of Us. Any Walking Dead. A million more i can’t think of right now.

But man, one of the weirdest things I keep thinking about is farming.

I’m aging out of the work a little bit; the heat is too hot, the baskets too heavy, the monetary payment is too light. (It’s time to get into serious retirement discussions, selling the house cannot be my entire plan. It cannot.)

But I’ve been wafting back and forth in my apocalysm daydreams, while seeding hundreds of baby things, wondering how future generations will know how to get broccoli. I mean, food is the most important thing, right? Food and water. And, will the home gardeners save us all? Really? Better get out those zucchini recipes.

When we finally decide to stop flying produce from country to country, or spraying it with shit to slow down the ripening, or to speed it up, as the case warrants, what then?

Will ‘we’ tolerate not having bananas? Will i be able to grow bananas in New England?

I know, i know, focus on the here and now. Be mindful, be present. And all that is true, and yes, my small world is all that i can control.

When my sons want to eat meat at every meal and I feel such exhaustion that i throw frozen meat patties on a grill again and again, its that whole butterfly wing again, and I’m upset also that its such a recurring thing in my brain and yet millions of millionaires exist and I don’t think they are wrapped up in tinfoil about this.

I suppose they’ll get the last bananas.

Sigh.

Tell me I’m wrong. About the bananas, I mean.

-love love.

Humanity

The end, my friends.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

i should definitely not type this.

However. Tomorrow, they all go back to school, and my work day ratchets right out to fill the space. A whiz-bang.

I’ll be fine. It also happens on a tuesday, when they spend their night at their dad’s. So i will come home to a house that is quiet and empty of all the things. except seedlings, the house is full of seedlings. And i’ve been told the farm is ready to take more of my seedlings, so there will be two locations full of seedlings in a hot minute. So much explosion of growth.

And writing. (i’m not ending it)

I’ve had a really hard time getting my writing job done. really hard. I’m so damn afraid to take a break because I fear never going back. I still owe one and a half books, so I’m tied to it some. BUT goddamn. All I feel is dread about myself, and my inability to lock it down, focus, fit it in, make it work while the kids are home, spend all my spare minutes on it, all that jazz. It is not the feeling I want flourishing right now. It hurts my head.

But what happens if I stop it? If I stop saying I am paid for my words? What then? I feel a blankness descend when I think about a life when I am not talking about it, or playing with a word or two. what the hell man. I’ve painted, and stopped. I’ve grown things and stopped. I’ve quilted and stopped. The constant has been here, this blogging crater I fall into once a week or so. What if I stop writing? Will I curl up and die on the inside? I might. I don’t have a lot of faith in my inner fortitude on this one.

Will I be more upset with myself if I don’t die? Will THAT be the real death? The ability to soldier on without the beauty of the word? The end of it all. the no-spark.

I know. Maybe you can’t follow all that. Its a mood. Like the bookstack I might never get to.

like taxes.

like taxes.

  • love you guys,
  • love love.
selective focus photo of pile of assorted title books
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Pexels.com
Humanity

Who she what? January.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

Cynthia Lee prompt today:

Introduce yourself.

and its time, to reintroduce myself to this new crew, here. and, happily, it can fall into list form.

  1. I am she who is a mother, to three, through and through. they consume much of my world, and i feel the skin peel off when they are not here, and the great joy that they have love in other houses, even though that is complicated and more skin peels.
  2. I am the one who compulsively defends. Compulsively. I think it is in my personality to see all the sides, the justifications, and sometimes that hurts the ones I am actually loyal to. “Who’s side are you on?” is the refrain of the hurt. I’m always on their side, though, every single time.
  3. I am one of those captured by beautiful things, and you’d be surprised at (and not) what I am caught by. Chaos, Simplicity, Complexity, Decking materials, fireplaces, typefaces, brick, deterioration, pattern, waterdroplets, owl pellets, dew.
  4. I am she who sinks deep into thought, the otherworldly, the rehash of things long done, the pitterpatter of fairy toes, the simply blanks of looking. there is a meditation in my blankness that not even i can understand.
  5. I’m of age, a weaver of my beauties, a grasp at tendrils of divine, a pull of greenlife, a beat of mothering. I cannot wait to see what comes of that.
  6. I worry. I think to prepare for the worst, and know I could not ever handle that, and know I could, too. And I am betwixt and between which one I could stomach.
  7. I am the hedonist, the seeker of pleasure, gratification and sense. Finding one to match that is proving elusive. There are so many rules I can’t understand, and stumble over. Intuition and expectation street fight in muck.
  8. I’m the eyeroller. (thank god not every call is facetime) The one who allows so much bullshit to pass without confrontation. Zero confrontation. Do not mistake my lack of confrontation for respect. It is not that. I will let you have your ego. You keep it. Tend it, love it. I don’t give a shit.
  9. I’m the one who struggles with taking care of myself beyond pleasure. I am not good at the hydration and the physical fitness. I am not. I love the donuts. I’m not on many of my lists of things to do. I am also she who works on that list, every day. I’m trying, sometimes.
  10. I am the one who loves the list, the way in which you get the small capsules to read, the bits. I wrote a story in my 20s called Bites, and I loved the format and still do, of small bits and nibbles of story, and the blanks are yours, yours to roll around in, like poetry.

love love,

me.

Woah. I am she of the up-close, too. Good lord.