I fear the solitude here has overtaken me...suddenly, my love for humanity is waning...it has been a hard week...one in which my spirit is just disgruntled...is exhausted by humanity...the volunteers, the shareholders, the visitors passing through...and those who fill my daily life...I fear the land has taken its hold on me...and suddenly I am annoyed and perplexed by the people who come into this sacred space....suddenly I feel like this is my space...do not intrude...the ideas of ownership take hold even when i do not own a thing around me...just labor put into it...but hundreds before me have put labor into this land...the land is no more my space then it is the shareholders who have been here since the early 90's...and yet I struggle...just wanting to be left alone to the peas...rutabagas, kale...
Distribution, figuring out what to harvest...setting up, working with the volunteers who come to help...I find myself longing for the alone time milking in the morning...and yet then this morning I washed lettuce with a shareholder who spoke about her desire to create change in the world and not knowing how...and we shared our life journeys...and talked of what it means to be privileged ...what it means to give back...and this afternoon...a couple helped with distributing the veggies...new yorkers who have a house here for the weekend...and they were kind...and generous...and hard workers...they laughed easily...and were human...and it is hard for me to believe they have such wealth...and yet aren't we all just human...and yesterday, the apprentices from 2006 came for a visit...and there was laughter and stories and talks with a kindred soul...which helped ground me again in who i am...and tonight for dinner there were zucchini latkas and strawberry shortcake for dessert...
what wonderful extravagance I exist in you may say...and yet despite such goodness...I have been ill at ease...struggling with the demons with in my own self...I use to work with people all the time ...and now i feel I can't be bothered...ah...the sun has about set...the sky a bright pink...i have become better at trellising tomatoes...a new favorite job...and I am rocky with distribution...the math keeps tripping me up...but i am finding good souls...and today we marched in a 4th of july parade...with signs that said...EAT LOCALLY..Melissa wisely asked..."I wonder what the blue collar workers in the crowd think of that"...I do to...it seems a privilege to eat this way...it is a privilege...a privilege that should be available to all...These are thoughts...but I will not become a hermit...here in my cabin on the edge of a wood...it is easy to become possesive of space...so much space and there is an internal demand for more...in the city...people were everywhere...who have I become...
the lush fields...lettuce, cabbage, zucchinis
2 comments:
I love the last photograph...beautiful. I miss you!
Katie-o... it's okay not to love people all the time! I'm so proud of all your hard work and learning. Think of how much you know and understand that you didn't in March. Learning is tiring, and people are tiring, but these things go in cycles. Enjoy the fruits of your labor.
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