She is four, and
she hides behind a calculator. Her flaxen curls bounce as she ducks her eyes
away from view, a game of peek-a-boo. She smiles, she hides, she smiles, she
hides.
The woman speaks with a heavy Hispanic accent; the man has a buzz cut and asks if I meditate. They buy enough meat to last them the winter.
Puck drives his little lawnmower around everywhere and always waves as soon as he sees me. His blue baseball cap shades his eyes and fades in the sun. His vest lining flashes dirty white as he shows me how he wants his siding painted. He is a potter and his truck hasn’t been inspected in years.
She always comes to our stand with her dog and sometimes with flowers. Her flaxen curls wave instead of curling. She invites us to her housewarming but we miss it. She stays and talks.
He asks if the tomatoes were grown in the field or in the greenhouse. He only wants ones grown in the field. He wants to make sure. His vest lining stays hidden, zipped up.
Mike would have an afro if he didn’t have a ponytail, I suspect. He moves 400 lb beams but he has the build of a runner. Because he does, every day, down the dirt.
I stand on the knob of the pasture and watch the shadows strike the grassblades as the wind ruffles through the trees like a father mussing his kid’s hair. I am solitary today, like most days. I walk on green and brown patches of earth and lay fence posts and run electric wire and busy my hands moving pieces of things around, and I say my work has meaning. And I mean that.
Because she is four, and she loves raw milk, and she feels loved here. The couple drives an hour to come visit. Puck is every bit the neighbor neighbors want. The dog is almost as sweet as the flowers she brings. He can taste the difference in a tomato that touches sun. Mike fixes our doors when they break.
We live together. We commune. The lives of neighbors and friends are intertwined, and our community is more than just people living in proximity.
So, I try not to measure value in the accomplishments of a day, because time slips away. I try not to worry if I don’t finish my to do lists (because I never will, we never do, we just like to check things off). I try not to think of any time as wasted. We spend our days as we are supposed to. Patience is a perspective of appreciation, not longsuffering.
I’m beginning to understand why Dom always takes time to talk to anyone and everyone. The work that we do here is not about pieces of things we move around. When we cultivate food, we cultivate community. And community is what we hunger for when we think of good food. Sharing a table is as important a thing to share as any other.
I smile when she emerges from behind the calculator. Her palm brushes the patina on the barn door as we walk off to visit the calf. She lifts her head up to watch the turkeys fly from the tree.
The woman speaks with a heavy Hispanic accent; the man has a buzz cut and asks if I meditate. They buy enough meat to last them the winter.
Puck drives his little lawnmower around everywhere and always waves as soon as he sees me. His blue baseball cap shades his eyes and fades in the sun. His vest lining flashes dirty white as he shows me how he wants his siding painted. He is a potter and his truck hasn’t been inspected in years.
She always comes to our stand with her dog and sometimes with flowers. Her flaxen curls wave instead of curling. She invites us to her housewarming but we miss it. She stays and talks.
He asks if the tomatoes were grown in the field or in the greenhouse. He only wants ones grown in the field. He wants to make sure. His vest lining stays hidden, zipped up.
Mike would have an afro if he didn’t have a ponytail, I suspect. He moves 400 lb beams but he has the build of a runner. Because he does, every day, down the dirt.
I stand on the knob of the pasture and watch the shadows strike the grassblades as the wind ruffles through the trees like a father mussing his kid’s hair. I am solitary today, like most days. I walk on green and brown patches of earth and lay fence posts and run electric wire and busy my hands moving pieces of things around, and I say my work has meaning. And I mean that.
Because she is four, and she loves raw milk, and she feels loved here. The couple drives an hour to come visit. Puck is every bit the neighbor neighbors want. The dog is almost as sweet as the flowers she brings. He can taste the difference in a tomato that touches sun. Mike fixes our doors when they break.
We live together. We commune. The lives of neighbors and friends are intertwined, and our community is more than just people living in proximity.
So, I try not to measure value in the accomplishments of a day, because time slips away. I try not to worry if I don’t finish my to do lists (because I never will, we never do, we just like to check things off). I try not to think of any time as wasted. We spend our days as we are supposed to. Patience is a perspective of appreciation, not longsuffering.
I’m beginning to understand why Dom always takes time to talk to anyone and everyone. The work that we do here is not about pieces of things we move around. When we cultivate food, we cultivate community. And community is what we hunger for when we think of good food. Sharing a table is as important a thing to share as any other.
I smile when she emerges from behind the calculator. Her palm brushes the patina on the barn door as we walk off to visit the calf. She lifts her head up to watch the turkeys fly from the tree.
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