Passage
by John Brehm
In all the woods that day I was
the only living thing
fretful, exhausted, or unsure.
Giant fir and spruce and cedar trees
that had stood their ground
three hundred years
stretched in sunlight calmly
unimpressed by whatever
it was that held me
hunched and tense above the stream,
biting my nails, calculating all
my impossibilities.
Nor did the water pause
to reflect or enter into
my considerations.
It found its way
over and around a crowd
of rocks in easy flourishes,
in laughing evasions and
shifts in direction.
Nothing could slow it down for long.
It even made a little song
out of all the things
that got in its way,
a music against the hard edges
of whatever might interrupt its going.
A few months ago i was sent an article from the NYT called “Mindful Eating As A Way To Stop Bingeing.” The term “mindful” is batted around more than ever lately by yoga teachers, folk singers, news anchors and vegans, and honestly it chafes me like a pair of wet jeans. But i read the article anyway and i was glad because it talked about a place right near me here in NY where buddhist monks are essentially tackling disordered eating by helping people really focus on their food, enjoying it slowly and passionately.
I havent talked about it in a while but i started keeping this blog almost two years ago in part to track my own difficult past with food. I was heading off to Italy to do a food studies master that translated to a master in eating everything that wasnt tied down, and i knew that as delicious as it would be, i was also going to face some demons. i thought keeping a blog would help. Of course as soon as i realized people were actually reading it i stopped talking about the most important, ugly, frightening moments and posted recipes for ravioli and reviews of stinky cheese. That is my fault, and a shame, but it happens. all the while i was writing about alpine edible weeds and sicilian mandarins, I was dealing with it, and also making progress, just as i had hoped. Celebrating food, studying it, examining it from all sides, loving it, savoring it, actually helped me stop abusing it.
Traditional rehab for people with eating disorders seems flawed, and based on my time in Italy and my time here at Glynwood i’m more convinced than ever that there might be a new model: working outside, working up an appetite, harvesting what you have worked to grow, cooking it in delicious and satisfying ways, and eating it alongside other people in a warm environment, not a sterile rehab clinic. I can imagine a place that has different sessions, not just for people with severe disorders but working professionals and highschoolers and moms and atheletes and any person who spends more energy than they want to hating their body or obsessing about what they are going to eat or simply feeling out of control around food. This place is my secret dream, even though i have no idea how to start it or who id need to partner with or what experience i need to have before i tackle it.
At any rate, the article talked about this monastery, Blue Cliff, founded by Thich Nhat Hanh in the Catskills and after almost three months of hysterically busy weekends i’m finally going to one of their open days on sunday. It’s called a Mindfulness Day and the cynical new yorker in me is already rearing her head, sure that everyone will smell like hemp and tofu and have bare feet and breathe heavily and smile vacantly but still i am determined to go and see what it feels like to consciously focus- on my food as well as my thoughts. Besides caring about this from a food perspective, i am distracted as hell these days, disconnected from myself and maybe most unnerving, from many of my friends. I feel less sure than ever about where i want to go next and what i want to be doing. i dont expect a sunday to fix everything, but much as it pains me, i could use a little mindfulness.
Dark blue rain clouds rolling in over the fields
After five days of wringing out my socks at lunch I had to admit that my beloved ancient Barbour boots had cracked under farm pressure. I found a pair of froggie boots in the basement and besides ruining my hardcore farmer image, they attract a huge following of chickens.
…difficult weather for hay making.
This was my Monday:
Seven spotted piglets and fifty percent chance rain and plastic overalls and tangled electric fencing and draining sheep abscesses and caked chicken shit and broken eggs and bluegrass and love.
This was Saturday.
Rollers and monogrammed oxfords and touch ups and spray tans and white trains and first dances and mint juleps and sparklers and speeches and lemon cake and love.
Blue shoes and a great attitude.
Only a beautiful person would make such a beautiful bride.
Congratulations, honey.
That is a ticket to Pensacola, Florida where I will be watching one of my best friends walk down the aisle. She is the first of my inner circle to get married, this is the first time I’ll actually be in the wedding party, and even though im still not totally clear on Big Southern Wedding protocol I am thrilled for her and her man. Im in the airport and there are an oddly high number of people here given its not even five thirty yet and i found myself assuming that they all must be going to honeys wedding. What else as important could be going on in the world? Nothing. Someone is getting married. MARRIED! For LIFE! I have never een sk in awe of the concept. Wasn’t it just yesterday we were eating a pint of ice cream out of the carton with our fingers in a Walmart parking lot by our boarding school?
That is also a manure-free manicured thumb nail, courtesy of brit who grabbed my farmer hands in horror last night and proceeded to wrestle my cuticles into submission, remove half a goat from under my nail bed and do her best to shape and polish what was left. they make me feel very sassy but also like I’m wearing brass knuckles. I have what feels like ten pounds of polish on my fingers, a lot of nervous energy and I’m pretty sure bouncer is part of my maid of honor job description. Nothing will get in the way of this celebration.
It’s going to be a beautiful weekend.
I spent my entire day yesterday with chickens. and their poop.
From 8 am when i started the thankless task of hand mucking the hen house to 8 pm when i strapped on my headlamp and walked up the hill to tuck the meat chicks into their new coops, i was ankle deep. I walked out of the coops at noon looking like father christmas because there was so much pulverized chicken shit in my hair and eyebrows. But i will say, watching those chicks under the moon as they hunkered down in their rodent-tight, steam-punked, tricked out mobile poop-dispersing coops designed by allie and made with my help. i was proud. almost as proud as i was the first time tinklepack jumped up onto a bale of hay and didn’t bounce off the side.
Some shots of the coops in the making in the wood shop and in action.
Filed under chicken coop chicken poop livestock
I do not forget how lucky I am.
