|
7 & 1/2 Acres |
2004-12-10 - 10:24 a.m. It's sloppy wet outside and I'm glad for it though if it were still raining I'd be a little more relieved. I'm going to have to start dancing. Actually, there's no hope for it, I'm working today. I slumped into defeat yesterday. I was out walking with the dogs and Basho bolted. Then, I came across the scars of Mister William harvesting poplar logs to sell for veneer and I about broke into tears. It's a bit irrational and I certainly don't tear very easy (sometimes in the dark of the movies, if it's sappy and I get suckered) but I about busted. I busted recently and a bunch for loosing Frankie. Further back, I cried about the separation and such with K-wal. But, this yesterday, was not sorrow or grief or mourning. It was pure overwhelmed defeat. I wanted to lay in the foggy drizzle and decay into the ground--let the warmth of the earth take me and return me to worm shit. But I didn't. Instead, I ended up feeling better. Molly walked with me a bit and helped me find my ground again. Helped me to see that there is no trap--that this is not the end. It's been one hell of a year. I want to say I've never worked so hard but I'm not sure if it'd be true because I always work so hard. Perhaps part of the difficulty of this past year is that I've been churning incessantly without lapse. I had one week off when I was down with bronchitis and one week when I got rained our in MD. Otherwise, it has been full go, or almost full go. If it's not been full go it has been because it's raining or I'm exhausted. This for just about 365+ days straight. Half a month shy. More if you count when we really started back in Nov./Oct. I don't ever want to do this again. I'll admit, I've previously gotten a kick out of a run of hard work, been charged and pleased by it. I once worked 24 hours straight in a woodshop on a tree house and loved it. I now see the cost. I now see the imbalance. The waste of life. I'm a third tempted to bail. But, strangely, I think I've grown older and I now see that as foolish (before I'd of bailed). It's time for me to reap the harvest of this past year's hard work. The company is in very good standing. I'm paid off, and Will will be mostly or entirely paid off. We'll be going into the new year with more equipment purchases that will ease our work even further. I've laid down the law that there shall be no work week longer than four days (we'll probably still get in 60+ hours some weeks--especially this summer). I told Will that I can't do it more than four days on and that I'd have to leave otherwise. We struggled but worked it out. It'll be good not only for me, but him too and the company. I don't know if I'm in or out for the long haul. I know I'm in for one more year. At the end of that year, there may be more harvest to reap which may point me to the next. Or, the harvest may be to move along to different ground. It may also be an answer that hasn't arrived yet. I know one thing for certain--there is so much that I want to do that I feel like I'm not doing. I've got this need and I haven't been serving it. It's a complicated world juggling all these damn balls. Last night I finished watching this BBC production of ORANGES ARE NOT THE ONLY FRUIT based on the book by Jeanette Winterson. Oh, it was lovely and wonderful and how I wish I knew the Bible like Jess to be able to throw it back in the face of awful so-called Christians. The movie ends with Jess (I'm not really ruining it for anyone here) being accepted to Oxford. What's so great about this is that she's leaving, she's overjoyed to be going to pursue her happiness. She loves books and she's going to a place, she says, with a library three stories tall--imagine how many books I'll be able to read. Let's see if I can get this here...her happiness is outside the definitions of her environment and upbringing and is something purely inside herself, defined by herself. Perhaps, it is more clear and pure for her due to the ugliness of her environment (no, this is not true as she does question the "rightness" of her desires--the juxtaposition between the ugliness of her environment and the beauty of her desires is part of what makes this a great story). Nonetheless, she's got this innate desire for women and it makes her happy to be with gals and she knows this as a pure and good truth. It is not a reactionary truth. In going to Oxford, she pursues this truth and it is also her happiness. It's such a beautiful thing. It's not safe, nor easy, nor the majority rule. Especially not the majority rule. But, she decides it for herself. Not some religion, nor norms, nor family, nor nothing. I'm obnoxiously and constantly questioning it, but I know I'm doing it--there's always the dressing of the dead or the selling of ice cream as Jess chores through--but I get impatient and tired. I desire the definition so that I can't see that I am on my way to living it. Not just on my way--that I am living it, this day. So, here after 365+ days, I am blessed. I mourn for the world and I ache for injustice around me and know there is no justice. I also know that life is wonderfully good. And, that this insignificant and tiny life of mine with Molly and our many beasts and plants and land is wonderfully large and good to me. In my own small way, I live in the vastness of the world and I am thankful and happy for it. The end and amen.
|