July
Now he remembered coming down through the timber in the dark holding the horse's tail when you could not see and all the stories that he meant to write.
-Hemingway
Home from market today and I smoothed out the road. All the way up to J* and M*'s, graded down to a glass tabletop and ready for anything that comes its way.
These are unpredictable times, and I will not be caught unprepared. There's a hurricane out there, somewhere, and another behind it and another, inevitably, behind it. I won't allow the road to be washed away, at least not through neglect.
They're fleeing the coast even as we speak. I sit comfortably in my home, about to climb under the blankets for slumber, while a mere five hundred miles to the south people frantically throw belongings into a car and head north, hoping they haven't forgotten a child.
It hasn't been long since a hurricane made it all the way up here - downgraded to some other bit of jargon, perhaps, but no less destructive. I'm ready, or, at least, the road is.
Another intern showed up today. #5. Fresh from bumming a ride into A'ville, standing before my table and looking for a farm to stay on. Five minutes later and she's in the truck, heading for the holler as the old Chevy wheezes and spurts and backfires through the mountains. What karma gets me into these situations? What karma brought her to me? Such issues are too complex for me to fathom; I just let it all happen and waste no time with inquiry.
How shall history judge me? The mass migration of America's youth to organic farms may one day confound scholars, or may one day become this generation's cliche. Like those who hitched up the wagons and went across the continent to Oregon, or the exodus of blacks to the industrial cities to the North. Like painters going to Paris or flower children going to Haight-Ashbury. One generation goes to speakeasies and another lives in the suburbs. Will the cliche for this generation be that they'd travel across the country looking for a place to pull weeds away from organic carrots? If so, how did I get into the thick of it and what does it say of me that I do not flee immediately?
The fan gets turned on every afternoon, now. The sun comes in through the western window and heats the house like you wouldn't believe. Something's happening, though, inside the copper windings of the fan motor. It's generating (or, alternating, I'll have to check) some radio station somewhere. When it's real quiet, and I'm real still, and the fan's on, I can hear a song. Not clear enough to make it out, not clear enough to discern any of the lyrics, but I can hear it and it gets stuck in my head.
I informed the new intern of this. She was not as alarmed as she should be to learn that I hear voices.
The dryer's broken and the laundry's sour.
The air conditioner in the walk-in cooler may be on the fritz.
I'll take the tractor across the creek tomorrow to bush-hog S**'s field. It's the one where the greenhouse may be, some day. A bridge may go in, soon, but I'm not betting on it. A greenhouse may be built, but I'm not betting on it. D* may move into the old house across from the gondola, but I'm not betting on it. But I'll cut the field tomorrow, and I'll be on the clock.
People move. People split up. People get pregnant.
People from your past re-appear and parts of your past disappear.
Children get bigger.
I try not to obsess on unfinished projects, but they nag at me. I can't avoid it. I'll not deny it. There's a lot to do and there's nothing to do but do it. New people on the farm are nice. As I explain the lay of the land to them, I realize just how much I have gotten done. That's something. It at times seems ever so small, and at times seems like something quite significant. But it's something.
It's somewhere over the Gulf, still, way past Cuba and bearing down on the panhandle. They're saying it'll end up somewhere in central Tennessee, but I know better than to listen. There will be no sleep tonight. I've too much to do to prepare. I may grade the road one more time. I may cut all the trees around the house. I may cut a drainage ditch around the north side of the field, and clear the brush from the branch. I may dig up all the tomatoes and bring them inside. I've been going since 4:30 this morning, and the fan is singing to me and the storm is approaching and I feel nothing but confused and the kid has a fever and the bullfrogs are croaking and the last little bit of nicotine is being squeezed out of my mitochondria and there's a dozen massages on the machine that haven't been answered and someone ordered twenty pounds of mahi but I forget who.
Send whatever you got my way. I'm ready. The road is smooth, and whatever comes out of the sky will fade away like water off the back of a duck.
-Hemingway
Home from market today and I smoothed out the road. All the way up to J* and M*'s, graded down to a glass tabletop and ready for anything that comes its way.
These are unpredictable times, and I will not be caught unprepared. There's a hurricane out there, somewhere, and another behind it and another, inevitably, behind it. I won't allow the road to be washed away, at least not through neglect.
They're fleeing the coast even as we speak. I sit comfortably in my home, about to climb under the blankets for slumber, while a mere five hundred miles to the south people frantically throw belongings into a car and head north, hoping they haven't forgotten a child.
It hasn't been long since a hurricane made it all the way up here - downgraded to some other bit of jargon, perhaps, but no less destructive. I'm ready, or, at least, the road is.
Another intern showed up today. #5. Fresh from bumming a ride into A'ville, standing before my table and looking for a farm to stay on. Five minutes later and she's in the truck, heading for the holler as the old Chevy wheezes and spurts and backfires through the mountains. What karma gets me into these situations? What karma brought her to me? Such issues are too complex for me to fathom; I just let it all happen and waste no time with inquiry.
How shall history judge me? The mass migration of America's youth to organic farms may one day confound scholars, or may one day become this generation's cliche. Like those who hitched up the wagons and went across the continent to Oregon, or the exodus of blacks to the industrial cities to the North. Like painters going to Paris or flower children going to Haight-Ashbury. One generation goes to speakeasies and another lives in the suburbs. Will the cliche for this generation be that they'd travel across the country looking for a place to pull weeds away from organic carrots? If so, how did I get into the thick of it and what does it say of me that I do not flee immediately?
The fan gets turned on every afternoon, now. The sun comes in through the western window and heats the house like you wouldn't believe. Something's happening, though, inside the copper windings of the fan motor. It's generating (or, alternating, I'll have to check) some radio station somewhere. When it's real quiet, and I'm real still, and the fan's on, I can hear a song. Not clear enough to make it out, not clear enough to discern any of the lyrics, but I can hear it and it gets stuck in my head.
I informed the new intern of this. She was not as alarmed as she should be to learn that I hear voices.
The dryer's broken and the laundry's sour.
The air conditioner in the walk-in cooler may be on the fritz.
I'll take the tractor across the creek tomorrow to bush-hog S**'s field. It's the one where the greenhouse may be, some day. A bridge may go in, soon, but I'm not betting on it. A greenhouse may be built, but I'm not betting on it. D* may move into the old house across from the gondola, but I'm not betting on it. But I'll cut the field tomorrow, and I'll be on the clock.
People move. People split up. People get pregnant.
People from your past re-appear and parts of your past disappear.
Children get bigger.
I try not to obsess on unfinished projects, but they nag at me. I can't avoid it. I'll not deny it. There's a lot to do and there's nothing to do but do it. New people on the farm are nice. As I explain the lay of the land to them, I realize just how much I have gotten done. That's something. It at times seems ever so small, and at times seems like something quite significant. But it's something.
It's somewhere over the Gulf, still, way past Cuba and bearing down on the panhandle. They're saying it'll end up somewhere in central Tennessee, but I know better than to listen. There will be no sleep tonight. I've too much to do to prepare. I may grade the road one more time. I may cut all the trees around the house. I may cut a drainage ditch around the north side of the field, and clear the brush from the branch. I may dig up all the tomatoes and bring them inside. I've been going since 4:30 this morning, and the fan is singing to me and the storm is approaching and I feel nothing but confused and the kid has a fever and the bullfrogs are croaking and the last little bit of nicotine is being squeezed out of my mitochondria and there's a dozen massages on the machine that haven't been answered and someone ordered twenty pounds of mahi but I forget who.
Send whatever you got my way. I'm ready. The road is smooth, and whatever comes out of the sky will fade away like water off the back of a duck.
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