If this post was a walk on the beach

I'd have some stories

I might start by admitting that I’m in a weird space with writing. I have so many ideas forming, so much that’s connecting in my head, but also so much chatter telling me to shut up and sit down. I try to tune it out, but sometimes the “don’t write” voice sounds very much like wisdom, and other days it’s a big bully. Some days I sit down and tap into my Notes app, or scribble into a notebook in the small moments before someone wakes up. More often I’m weeding, or washing dishes, or making dinner when a thought crystallizes and floats through my head. Trying to catch a hold of these flashes of insight while my hands are dirty makes me feel a bit like a child chasing after bubbles. Most of the time the bubble bursts mid-air, but sometimes — sometimes you catch it perfectly on the tip of your finger and marvel at the shining beauty of a perfect orb, before it pops and leaves the smallest trace of soap on your fingertip. If nothing else, I enjoy trying to catch the ideas, because they make my world make more sense, but I wish I could hold on to them. Perhaps they’re not meant to be held onto, but to change me as I watch them. I’m not sure yet.

The other day I had this audacious thought, that if I ever wrote a book I have an inkling of what it would be about. It was one of those moments where all of the things I’ve been working through and suffering from started to talk to each other in a very exciting way. It’s not to say I know anything, but I think I’m beginning to be more trusting of God’s ability to orchestrate the big picture. I told a friend that I have never wanted to endure suffering while I’m in it, and that is still true. Suffering is not a good end in itself. But in my moments of clarity, I have more faith that the suffering will produce something good.

In the moments where clarity is strikingly absent, I feel a little like breaking glass in a bucket. So there’s that.

A while back I put out an “ask me anything” and then only answered half the questions. I’m sorry about that. It’s been one of those years. A few readers were curious about the farm life, living outdoors more, what it was like to be on land… It’s understandable. Instagram, back when I was on it, makes homesteading, or having animals or whatever you even want to call this, look glamorous. I didn’t expect moving out here to be like Instagram because I’ve spent enough time around animals and approximating farm life to know that animals mean dirt, long hours, and unpredictability. We had a short stint as caretakers on a ranch in very rural Wyoming¹, and while the cows weren’t my husband’s primary responsibility, he worked with them enough that I knew cows like to get out, or try to die at inopportune times. The prior knowledge doesn’t make it easier to get a text saying “I’ve got a couple cows down and had to move some stuff around”, then arrive home from a morning with a friend to see most the kids standing in a veritable mud pit, while your husband and older children try to get a cow up. Once I rescued the small children, whom I had to scrub — I’m talking vigorous effort and a good soaking to remove layers of mud — my active efforts shifted into support work². But the saga continued as tractors and pallets were involved to move two struggling young steers up to better shelter. The whole weekend was spent in intervals of checking on them, adjusting feed, repositioning, tubing the cow’s stomach, checking again, trying to get a vet out… We made it to church, barely. We still went to the beach, but an hour late, because some other cows got out, and my contribution to our Father’s Day celebration was to try to cheerfully get our things together for the beach when I kind of wanted to say bad words and hide in my room, because oh my gosh the stupid animals³. I told a friend that maybe regenerative grazing is like attachment parenting for cows. You can see why people don’t do it, even if it’s “better for the land” or Wendell Berry says it’s good.⁴ Finally, after nursing these two steers through what seemed like some improvements, we got the vet out, only for him to determine that they’d most likely eaten some noxious weeds, and may or may not recover. It turned out that we had a may — who is now up on his feet and grazing, and a may not — whom I had the misfortune of checking on right after he died. I don’t mean to sound cavalier about it, because we worried our way through the weekend and early part of the week. It’s awful to watch an animal suffer⁵, and so far as we know we did everything we could have done. It’s also just how things go. Animals die. We’re mostly insulated from the fact that for most farmers and ranchers or anyone who produces food, death is an inevitable part of the process. I had this narrative running in the background — the curse of being a writer is trying to write a story before it’s over — that so desperately wanted the ending to be, “and they lived happily ever after.” Because maybe if this hopeless thing could live, then I could be hopeful about other things. The darn cow started to feel symbolic, and goodness knows we all need some hope. But the truth about animals, and about life, is that sometimes something gets sick. And sometimes it is so sick, that despite your very best efforts, and all the time and disruption of caring for it, it still dies. Sometimes you did all there was to do.

As they have so many other times — a needed reminder for someone all too prone to clinging— these words ran through my head⁶:

To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.

The kids were sad, but then they asked to cut the cow open and see its guts, and last I heard there were sections of cow hide soaking in a bucket somewhere because they want to tan the hide or something⁷. Wild and Free, y’all.

The other inevitable part of this process is dirt. We’ve had nonstop rain, and while as of the last couple days it’s transitioned into sweltering heat and humidity, we’ve had something resembling a swamp in our front yard for the last week or so. In addition to the extra laundry created by all the able bodied people around here hanging out with the cows that were covered in various levels of mud and worse than mud, we’ve also had all the laundry created by people tromping through puddles all day long. Yesterday the four year old blew through the front door, peeled off his filthy, wet shirt, plopped it in the laundry basket⁸ and informed me, “Mommy! Your laundry basket is up to here!” *gestures wildly above his head*

Trust me, child. I know.

The kids are killing me with their wisdom. Last night I needed to take a shower before I left the house for book club, so I asked the 11 year old to watch the baby, at which point he asked,

“Why didn’t you take a shower earlier?” and I quipped,

“Oh, because I thought maybe I was going to get in the garden, or exercise, or do something useful…”

and he responded,

“What’s not useful about raising kids?!”

That’s right. What’s not useful about raising kids?? Cue the Chesterton quote about not pitying the housewife for the smallness of her task, but rather the greatness etc… etc… etc…⁹

Meanwhile I’m writing snarky things in my Notes app like, “If Eve was the mother of all living things, no wonder she went off the deep end!” When even the sourdough needs fed, it just kind of gets to you sometimes.

But then I go out to our garden and work out my angsty angst in the rows that conveniently double as a sauna¹⁰and I stare at this one stupid bed that’s supposed to be growing carrots, but instead is plagued by feathery weeds that look almost exactly like carrots. And I think about how many metaphors involve weeding, and what that actually entails, and how weeds sometimes look a lot like something good. I think about how I have to pay attention, so I don’t pull the carrots instead of the intruders, and how maybe damage sneaks in like this, all camouflaged. When the weeds are all the way mixed in to the carrots, it’s tempting to give up on the whole thing. The work of pulling apart leaves and checking for the bit of fuzz that indicates weed is so painstaking. It might not be worth it, but I really do love carrots. I get lost in thoughts about sneaky weeds like pride, entitlement, and envy, the ones that slide in sideways, masquerading as your favorite vegetable but offering nothing but a fuzzy look alike in the end. I come in from the garden, sweating and happy, and am greeted at the door by sibling squabbles and immediate needs. The small window of quiet contemplation evaporates and I’m smack in the middle of a different sort of weeds.

The highs are as high as the lows are low. I often look out and see all these kids running around with their cousins and they are so, so, happy. I spend two hours weeding and bring in vegetables and flowers that I grew and I am so, so, happy. I get to cook beets I grew, and I’m experimenting with kefir because it’s fun, and I finally got my sourdough starter up and running again. And then all the sudden the sink is full of dishes and the dog pooped in our room, and someone’s running through the house half naked or hitting a sibling on the head and I think I’m about to lose my mind.

One of the boys asked, “When you were my age, what did you want to be when you grew up?” and I had to think for a while about my answer.

“Well, I think I wanted to live on a farm, and raise puppies, and teach violin lessons”

I’m living on a farm, and raising children and teaching all the lessons. Honestly, our life is pretty close to a lot of my childhood dreams, and there’s something that feels very right about that. They were tucked in there all along, it’s just taken some time to find them.

Don’t misunderstand me as saying everyone should do this¹¹. Everyone did not have dreams of being a veterinarian at one point in their life, or marry a husband who’s had this in mind from day one. I think you should pray, and think a lot, and ask yourself whether you want to do things because other people make them look nice on the Internet, or because you actually want to do them. Sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference. I recommend doing it with people you really love, who can handle occasional conflict. If you’re living a particularly crazy life, it’s very comforting to send a “What on earth is this life?!” text to someone who is living a similar life when a squealing, just castrated pig is hauled into your yard before 8 AM. It is a real blessing to not have to explain the context and just laugh at the absurdity¹². I look around some days and feel very insecure about my life. We are probably doing this all wrong because we’re kind of weird. But, if I didn’t know what anyone else in the world was doing, and if society didn’t have such odd expectations¹³, and if I compared my living situation to the vast majority of the world population instead of suburban America, would I feel pretty blessed? I think so. Am I pretty blessed? I think so. Blessings come with work, and mess, and untidiness, because life is not sterile, and never will be.

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Lately:

Cooking: Fresh vegetables are making me excited about food again. I’ve realized that with my diet as restricted as it is, gardening becomes inordinately important because it’s my chance for novelty and fun with food. This cabbage slaw was amazing, and we’ve been roasting beets and sautéing beet greens. Fresh green beans don’t need much more than steaming with butter. The cucumbers and zucchini are on their way (🙏) and we’ve got some fresh herbs. I’ve also made a lot of these cookie bars, some blueberry crisp, and finally baked bread again.

Reading: Perhaps the biggest success from being off Notes and much less online, is that my reading slump seems to be resolving. Within the last two weeks, I finished Searching for and Maintaining Peace by Fr. Jacques Philippe, The Deep Rooted Marriage by Allender & Call, Take it From the Top and What Happened to Rachel Riley by

Claire Swinarski

. I can give glowing endorsements to all of them. I am not usually one to pick up middle grade fiction, but needed an easy entry point, and found myself revisiting some tender parts through eighth grade eyes. Some things don’t change that much over 20 years, do they? We still tell ourselves stories that aren’t true and get myopic when we’re suffering. Sometimes it’s still hard to believe that change might happen and speaking up isn’t going to cost too much. Also, as a former mega nerd who once spent six weeks at “pre-professional” music camp and spent many hours in the pit if I weren’t actually in the choir, you know I loved all of that.

Watching: I got my husband to agree to watching The Office with me. I also spent some time watching this video — as far as online farm content goes I commend you to Venison for Dinner for being 1) hilarious and 2) very transparent

Listening: I re-listened to a series on Psalm 131, because it kept coming to mind, though I wasn’t sure why. When I listened, the “why” was obvious, so thanks Holy Spirit. I couldn’t find the first part — it’s from 2019, but the rest are here, here, and here.

We often think of ourselves in the middle of pressure as in one sense noble for taking on these difficult tasks on behalf of ourselves and others. And yet in our weighted exhaustion, fundamentally what we're saying is I'm enough, I've got to be enough, I'm not enough. And that bind of pride, and in many ways an implied haughtiness of looking at others and fundamentally saying, look, I cannot fail or disappoint.

To do so, whether you call it codependency, false loyalty, or as I'm asking at least my own heart to consider, it's pride. It is the failure of not being able to fail. The failure of being more afraid of disappointment than bearing burdens that I'm in fact not meant to carry.¹⁴

I hope the next weeks allow you moments for your soul to be calmed and quieted and that you see the fingerprints of a God who loves you, even in the midst of suffering.

I’ll be back in your inbox when I can manage it!

If you enjoyed this post, would you take a moment to hit that little “heart” button at the bottom? The way the Internet works is that “likes” tell the algorithm to show this to more people. I’m loving being out of the algorithm, but I also don’t write *just* because it’s good for me (that’s the main reason, but c’mon, all writers are gluttons for punishment and want people to read our deep thoughts while we’re equal parts thrilled and horrified)

1. During which, I will not lie, I developed a sort of intense love/hate relationship with Ballerina Farm — didn’t we all — because we were literally “the help” on a large ranch, and I saw how much work went into the whole operation. I don’t begrudge her being a smart and savvy businesswoman. I do begrudge how misleading the whole shtick is. But this has been said to pieces. And now I’m off IG and I don’t have to care and it is MARVELOUS

2. The reality is that, in this stage of life, it doesn’t really matter how much I want to be involved with certain things, it’s just not practical when there’s a baby and toddler involved, because there’s also large animals and hot weather. This is one of the hardest things about the whole ordeal — often, when there's such an emergency I don’t really do the exciting part. What it means is that I will be inside, with small kids and less breaks, but more laundry. That’s how this works — I also don’t want the small kids right in the middle of that, and when I leave and come home and they are in the middle of it, it’s like agghhh (they’re usually happy, just so dirty and as soon as mom shows up they suddenly realize they’re hot, tired, dying of thirst and definitely can’t walk home by themselves). Either you’re schlepping a baby around on your back and they’re sometimes happy sometimes not, or you’re dealing with a whiny toddler planting beans (today)… it’s not bad. It’s just life with little kids, but more dirt and they’re sometimes happier and sometimes sadder.

3. My husband would like to interject here to let you know that the cows have been out maybe 3 times. We don’t have problems with this on a regular basis, but when you’ve lost two weekends of your life to animal shenanigans you start to lose perspective, so yes, I’m going to tell this story. The electric fence does have its drawbacks, but for our purposes it makes sense. Also, he is just so much less phased by the unpredictable nature of these animals than I am. I’m sure he’s frustrated, but he also might have been born to do this.

4. Again, need to interject and say that while my husband doesn’t have anything against Wendell Berry, he’s much more likely to be found watching a YouTube video about something very practical. Theoretical ideas are great, but you also need people who look at a problem and just know how to make things happen — which is a skill I’m still so impressed by 12 years in to being married to him. How do people just do things without thinking them to death?

5. At one point we thought we’d need to put him out of his misery, but then he was improving, and then of course he got worse right before the vet showed up and died right after, because that’s how this works.

6. “In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver

7. Can attest to this — almost tripped over that bucket when I let the dog out

8. Okay, honestly major points for him putting it in the laundry basket. Good job, little man.

9. “How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.”

10. I’m sort of paranoid about mold, for a variety of reasons…. but isn’t it so cool that in a climate that’s hot and humid and prone to mold growth, you also sweat profusely all the time? I’m not being facetious. I mean, yes, it’s a total pain and so much laundry, again. But saunas are so big because you’ve got to kill, bind, sweat those toxins out. Orrrr… Hear me out. You could just weed your garden in the South.

11. I don’t talk a ton about the logistics for privacy reasons, but we have two large families with a lot of able bodied young men doing this work, in addition to some extra help at times. The farm is not our livelihood and that is by design. We also couldn’t do any of this without the cousins we’re doing it with, and I think that statement goes both ways. When the vet came this week he made a comment that this operation would be pretty much a full time job for one family. So, when we are alternating being out of town it does feel like everything’s a little stretched, because it is.

12. The context: one morning the pigs got out before breakfast, and one of them needed castrated anyway… so, since they already had him hog tied it went to the top of the to-do list and my morning felt a little lot more surreal.

13. Let’s just take home size for one — the average home size has tripled since 1950, while the population has decreased…

14. From The Allender Center Podcast: Entitlement and Pride in Psalm 131, Jun 7, 2019