![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Thoughts on a Lunch Break, XIII
Jul. 1st, 2013 12:22 pm- I should be writing.
- This counts as writing.Write Right?
- I thought going away to England and walking a lot would be relaxing. I thought it'd be a nice sort of renewal and revival type thing in the middle of a whole lot of job-related blah and workout-related stress. I didn't think it would be so damn transformative.
- I don't know what, exactly, happened. But somehow the idea of farming got floated and drifted around and then began to probe its long, sinuous tendrils into our thoughts and ideas and hopes and became a Thing, then a Distinct Possibility, and finally a Plan. We both fell in love with being outside and constantly moving and free from the drudgery of offices and cubicles and eight-to-five schedules. We've both been prioritizing Good Food more and more and wanting a garden and chickens for years and years now. And seeing all those small farms, all those healthy, happy, grazing livestock, being preached at by a lady farmer who couldn't understand the American man who came all this way to the English countryside to then go and look for a big-chain grocery store where he could get the same damn thing he could get at home instead of savoring the uniqueness available to him right there -
When we left that particular farm to continue our walk, Lady said something about how the farmer lady had been so delightfully crotchety - but polite - and I said something about that's probably why I liked the farmer, because she could be Lady + 30 years. And it was windy and it was beautiful out and there were cows within ten feet of us and sheep on the other side and the shadows of clouds scuttling across the rolling hills and I thought that could be me in +30 years. And right then I didn't want to go back to a cubicle, not ever.
Doug has a magnet on her fridge: What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? It's cheesy, but it's true. Lady asked me, about a month ago: where do you want to live when we finish here? And I thought: damn, I don't know. All this time I've been focusing on where I don't want to live. What I don't want to do. What would be acceptable.
All at the same time I'm telling my friends to go after their dreams. To not settle. To do what's big and scary. To be terrified of failing but do it anyway.
Maybe I'm not ultimately meant to be a small-scale farmer. Much like I'm obviously not meant to work in an office or foreclose homes or operate a cash register or repair bikes for the rest of my life. But it's a whole lot more in line with where I want to be and my ideals than anything else I've aimed at.
I don't know. It's big. It's scary. Lady has a plan and I am flinging my arms wide to any help we can get, to anyone who has had a similar dream but no direction to bring them there. I've always told Lady that if something happened to her, I'd go and join a commune in Montana. So why can't we do that together?
- This counts as writing.
- I thought going away to England and walking a lot would be relaxing. I thought it'd be a nice sort of renewal and revival type thing in the middle of a whole lot of job-related blah and workout-related stress. I didn't think it would be so damn transformative.
- I don't know what, exactly, happened. But somehow the idea of farming got floated and drifted around and then began to probe its long, sinuous tendrils into our thoughts and ideas and hopes and became a Thing, then a Distinct Possibility, and finally a Plan. We both fell in love with being outside and constantly moving and free from the drudgery of offices and cubicles and eight-to-five schedules. We've both been prioritizing Good Food more and more and wanting a garden and chickens for years and years now. And seeing all those small farms, all those healthy, happy, grazing livestock, being preached at by a lady farmer who couldn't understand the American man who came all this way to the English countryside to then go and look for a big-chain grocery store where he could get the same damn thing he could get at home instead of savoring the uniqueness available to him right there -
When we left that particular farm to continue our walk, Lady said something about how the farmer lady had been so delightfully crotchety - but polite - and I said something about that's probably why I liked the farmer, because she could be Lady + 30 years. And it was windy and it was beautiful out and there were cows within ten feet of us and sheep on the other side and the shadows of clouds scuttling across the rolling hills and I thought that could be me in +30 years. And right then I didn't want to go back to a cubicle, not ever.
Doug has a magnet on her fridge: What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? It's cheesy, but it's true. Lady asked me, about a month ago: where do you want to live when we finish here? And I thought: damn, I don't know. All this time I've been focusing on where I don't want to live. What I don't want to do. What would be acceptable.
All at the same time I'm telling my friends to go after their dreams. To not settle. To do what's big and scary. To be terrified of failing but do it anyway.
Maybe I'm not ultimately meant to be a small-scale farmer. Much like I'm obviously not meant to work in an office or foreclose homes or operate a cash register or repair bikes for the rest of my life. But it's a whole lot more in line with where I want to be and my ideals than anything else I've aimed at.
I don't know. It's big. It's scary. Lady has a plan and I am flinging my arms wide to any help we can get, to anyone who has had a similar dream but no direction to bring them there. I've always told Lady that if something happened to her, I'd go and join a commune in Montana. So why can't we do that together?
