One Moment at a Time

Typically the period of time after one has just graduated from college is a time of self-exploration, living on your parents’ futon, and eating lots of corn chips.  With my dire need for structure I had the sense to thrust myself immediately into a working environment (I had one week off between graduation and the first day of work).  Awesome.  Nearing on three months later (that’s a quarter of a year, mind you) I could not be happier with my decision.  I feel like I have landed in the exact right place at the perfect moment in time.  And while I may still ponder the questions of “Who am I?” and “What does my future hold?” it is not with an ounce of fear.

The universe, that noble goddess which is just a network of living things and chaos, seems to keep giving me answers—hand over fist.  This summer the answers have come in the form of people for the most part.  Cool people who are into good stuff seem to be everywhere these days.  It comes as no surprise that the people with whom I share a love of farming also enjoy the same music I do, or that a friend of a friend who loves to swim is also fascinated by honeybees.  Cool people, good stuff.

And oh the magical place I live!  I do love it here.  Living on a big piece of land and walking around after sunset, surveying the vast array of stars, sounds and smells while the ground beneath my feet teems, is a pleasure and a wonder that will not get old.  Milking the goats in the cool summer evening after the sun has mercifully dipped behind those hills and mountains to the west, feeling the warmth of their mammalian bodies next to me in the cold barn and thanking them for the precious gift of their milk, which I gladly drink for dinner and breakfast, allows for a kind of unmatched fulfillment.

Drinking a cold ale after a long workout on the back porch of the farm house, alone on a Friday night with just the critters to keep me company and the utter silence that lingers between passing cars, gives me a feeling of happy solitude and assurance that I am part of a system of living beings that has been around forever.  It is in this knowledge (the elements that make up my body are as ancient as the dirt in which my beets grow) that I am able to glean boundless confidence, for fleeting moments at least.

Some days are hard and the sun is hot and my arms are tired from the hoe.  Sometimes all I want to do is lie down, but all I have to do is keep going.  And in these moments of vague desperation, the most important thing is to take every moment, every task, every word and glance and whisper one second or minute or day at a time.  Because when you slow down for even just a few minutes in this world of barn swallows, oak trees and fresh, ripe figs, you realize how lucky we all are to be alive.  Present-ness is highly under-valued, so let us value it, shall we?