Coming Out As A Farmer

I keep promising myself that Sundays will be my Sabbath day — that I will diligently plan out one day of rest for myself amidst this rugged farm life each week. Some weeks it happens and some weeks it most definitely does not. This week, it is happening. I am writing to you all from one of my favorite hot springs in New Mexico — my fish tacos are on their way to me right now as I type. I love to come to this place for many reasons but one of the reasons is that this place smells like New Mexico. It smells like sand and cedar wood — like lavender oil and sage. There is nothing more comforting to me than the smell of this land, this place. This I the smell of my home, the place I have felt the most belonging in my life.

I’m mostly here today because I pulled some massive muscles in my back this week and was rendered useless on the farm. It has been both a mixture of relief and also existential hopelessness— watching Heathar and Jack move from project to project, accomplishing the labor of our farm and keeping it all afloat while I worked on lying still and relaxing all the muscles in my back. Quite an accomplishment, eh? I felt that sensation of life moving on without me, trenches being dug and garden beds being made all while I laid my back to rest and wrestled with the purpose of my usefulness on the planet. If I cannot use my body to contribute to the creation of our current 5-acre canvas, what good am I really?

There is something, however, that I am learning to trust about the feminine quality that I bring to the farm — while this might make gender sound uncomplicated, bare with me for a moment as I explore the binary of my own feminineness. It’s safe to say that I don’t bring the muscle to the farm. (Heathar and Jack wake up in the night and lift weights if sleep is illusive for them) I bring the slow pace of connection, the sitting down to a meal, the moments of meaningful eye contact, emotional questions and a bouquet of flowers on the table. I seem to bring the flow of the feminine when I ask how everyone is doing amidst the work at hand. This makes me smile as this is my way in all of life — sifting through and feeling into the moods of others. I will take this role for there is no other one that I can do. It falls into my hands over and over again and it is one that I gladly will claim.

I did not grow up doing physical tasks — maybe this is incredibly obvious at this point. My tasks have always revolved much more around the intimate, interior world of my psyche: reading, writing, reflecting, feeling, listening — I have existed in the realms of yin and find myself now, learning how to be in the yang of action and the body. My body does not move easily or always willingly. When I was 12, I was hit by a car while riding my bike through a crosswalk, blacking out before my sacrum met the asphalt and developed a nice crack along its side. My body has needed slowness and gentleness since that point. If I move too fast and too often, it lets me know. Being in a place that requires so much movement and physical activity is ironic as three — nearly 40-year olds — navigate the physical needs of our bodies. It seems though, that when one of us goes down, the others are ready to step in — the graceful rhythm of the cosmos blessing us by not having all of us incapable of working at once.

I just have to tell you that as I type this, there is a table of 20-year old Japanese travelers sitting to my left. They are screaming in Japanese and seem to be enjoying their prickly pear margaritas in the best of ways. While I understand zero percent of Japanese, I can understand certain English words when they are screamed out. So far, I am getting: CHARCUTERIE AND RITZ CRACKER! These words have been said at least five times each. At best, I would find the opportunity to use the word “charcuterie” one time in a day but these folks have used it multiple times and I am impressed by the way they are fitting it into their conversation. I am dying to know what they are actually talking about. But that’s the thing about the mystery, once you find out the reality, it’s not usually as exciting.

Anyway…

I am actually getting ready to leave the farm for a couple days which feels kind of like pulling myself out of a Velcro onesie — even though I’ve never worn a Velcro onesie, I imagine it’s quite difficult to get out of. I do love a onesie by the way and will happily wear any and all kinds of them, even a Velcro one. I’m going to Santa Barbara, California which may as well be an entirely different continent. I am not sure how to make my New Mexico fit in other places, especially the prestigious, academic, mostly white  environment that is my graduate school program. This is my very last weekend and I am going to celebrate my actual and most formal graduation in order to close out this chapter of my life.

The other night, Heathar said to me, “Don’t change who you are for anyone. You’re amazing. When you go to California, let them see who you are and what your life is like here.” First of all, this is a wonderful thing for a wife to say and also, I know that amidst my Santa Barbara peers, I stand out. I am easily recognized outside of the LA high style and lightly polished leather loafers of my professors. I have on watermelon crocs right now which appear to be more hot pink than watermelon. I threw my Dickies jumpsuit in the wash before I came to the hot springs because it was covered in small piles of chicken shit. My life is very different and far away from the friends I have gone to school with.

Accepting my life as a farmer in part, means coming out as a farmer. It is more than just posting cute pictures of my chickens on Instagram, it is a slow and messy way of life. It means having knowledge around more than how trauma is stored in the body (which is some of my favorite kinds of knowledge to know) but it is also about letting myself become familiar with the intimate workings of a chicken’s digestive system — it means becoming friendly with the mundane and profoundly essential elements of life. This does not always appeal to an academic crowd and it is still a taste I am letting form in my mouth.

The point being, I don’t want to hide the farm from anyone. I don’t want to pretend I am more sophisticated than I am. I don’t understand or resonate with the fluorescently lit halls of psychotherapy office suites in the heart of Orange County. I don’t wear high heels and I rarely wear make-up. I live a simple life where we burn candles and turn on red light bulbs after it gets dark at night. Our local winery closes at 6pm and our neighbor just had to get rid of her ram because it knocked her over and almost broke her back. This is the rural life, this is the life of the slow ebb and flow of New Mexico. This is my life and I want to hold it with me while I travel to exotic destinations like Southern California.

I imagined taking Heathar with me to my graduation and while the farm cannot spare her, I also would feel that it would be like capturing a giraffe and releasing it into a Whole Foods in New York City. Needless to say, she would be out of place. Not out of place in a way where she could not handle it and not out of place in a way where people would not notice her incredible kindness and dimples, but out of place in a way that would make me sad to look at her. All the while, I would feel the farm pulling on her. I would feel her counting down the moments until she would be able to let the chickens out in the early morning sun and plant tomatoes alongside of the bees. It would be the kind of sadness that comes when you feel you are holding someone back from something that is truly meant for them.

And so I will go and wear the farm as proudly as I can. I will try and let the soil and the sage seep out of my words, emanating My Place as I walk through the halls of the great graduate institution that is Pacifica. I will try and do New Mexico proud, so I can come home and tell her all about how everyone felt her through me. I will go and be an ambassador of this wild and complex place. I will go and let people feel her through my hands.