between living vicariously through real farmers, and holding my future farming intentions very much at the forefront of my attention right now, hoping to attract all kinds of power from the universe, i am sticking with the title “around the farm” for my sporadic thursday garden tours (i began doing this, inspired by farmama, and have kept on going even though there is not always a weekly post there to link to, but wanted to give credit where it’s due!)
one of the fun surprises built into my permaculture-organic-compost-lovin’ style of gardening is volunteers. i know that squashes who volunteer do not always bear good fruit, but this time i seem to have gotten lucky! our giant volunteer is far more vigorous than the one squash plant we cultivated on purpose, and has many mini yellow squashes starting to form. i can’t wait to find out what kind they are!
our avocado tree started out life as a volunteer as well… it can be seen in the window over yonder, behind the boy who fell asleep, pantsless, on the footrest. this picture kind of says it all about where he and i are at with our mama-son relationship right now: exhausted. i sure do love this guy, and celebrate his unique self-assuredness and self-knowledge and self-direction and boy is it hard not to label it defiance sometimes…. the thing is, i decided a long time ago, i do celebrate his vibrant agenda (that doesn’t always coincide with mine, oddly enough when you put two human beings with free will together) and i do celebrate that his will is super duper intact. and saying hello to that 24/7 right now is wearing me out!
but i digress… well, not really. so much of this gardeny farmy thing with me has to do with him. look at his cherub face, checking on his first ripe yellow pear cherry tomato.
instead of taking a nap on the foot stool, what i want to do with the energy i encounter pouring out from him every day, is instead of feeling it like an onslaught, and acting like i have to head butt with him, i want to absorb that energy and transform it into my own power source, into me having the same self-awareness and self-assuredness and ability to put forward my agenda to the universe that he has… and maybe actually make some forward movement with all these ideas i have. turn ideas into plans…
community garden; chioggia beet
growing food is so empowering, and yet so often i encumber myself (not the same as cucumbering myself, which i haven’t been successful at yet- next year maybe?) and put off taking steps towards accomplishing my goals. i bog down in the everyday stuff, and dissociate whenever it comes time to roll up my sleeves and… dial a phone number. yeah, that’s my big hangup, making phone calls. i know, for someone who can drive a tractor, operate a jack hammer, run a chainsaw, wire an electrical outlet, fix a sewing machine, adjust the tension on a serger, and grow food, you’d think that itty bitty little box with a screen and numbers written on little buttons wouldn’t be so intimidating. but there it is.
scarlet emperor beans are big!
so that’s why i’m here today, sharing my garden but also dwelling in my own power, making myself look at what i can do, and mustering up the guts to take one more little baby step involving speaking my truth to another human being and letting the unknown of what they might have to say in return not paralyze me with fear.
i grew black cherry, chadwick red, and pink pearly cherry tomatoes, i wonder which kind this is? (i've ruled out yellow pear and gold currant)
acting like i actually believe about myself what i believe about my son, that my acceptability does not rest in someone else’s hands, it shines outward from within me. i am okay.
Being a Mama is no joke.
Sometimes I have to remind myself that it is very, very hard work.
You are doing a very, very good job.
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xoxoxo. thank you for that, rachel.
It is so weird but I will go ahead and say it, that sometimes (for me) the dissociating & the forward-moving proactivity/productivity is the same thing! I mean, the activity & effort can serve both purposes. Which I guess makes sense if you consider that it's not the activity itself that is the "good" or "positive" thing, it's the relationship to my purpose or maybe just my relationship to it (the thing, the activity.)
I also note that not all is "lost" when a productive, positive, energy-filled task (canning, getting a sourdough starter going, stock-making, cleaning the counter, picking up things in the front hall, staying present & available & engaged & busy with something around or with my kids, brushing my teeth, etc.) also happens to have served an escapist purpose, or to have helped me to avoid something. (As in, perhaps my phone call still waits.)
Anyway, I think I am hearing you and wanted to connect on that.
Jeez, I have been missing you, and I'm like "Oh, here you are!" Duh, but still it seems like a revelation to me.
you have a way of picking out my most heartfelt/vulnerable posts to comment on and saying just the right thing. 🙂