the bridge I built to cross

I am a city girl. I grew up in a city. Not a large city but I grew up IN the city. My parents had a house on a city lot within the city limits. I was a townie. We had a city garden, which seemed large and intimidating when it was weeding day. Tomatoes, peppers, carrots, squash rhubarb, radishes and whatever else my parents decided to plant, we children weeded. We hated it. We had an apple tree in the back yard and a small raspberry patch. Our yard, for being a city lot had jam packed with two giant boulders: one in front and one in back. It was littered with more bushes, trees, swing sets and jungle gyms than any city lot ought to be allowed. None of us enjoyed mowing it. As a teenaged athlete, it took me two and a half hours to push and a tank and a half of gas to complete. Running. If you count the time it took to pick up all the sticks, dog poop from any one of my mother’s dog of the season, and fallen apples before you could mow, it would take the better part of a day. A weekend day. And, being the parents that they were, there was no fun until chores were done.

I escaped leaving home to attend college and university in larger cities where there were no gardens for me to weed and lawns for me to mow. I graduated, fell in love with big city diversity on and off campus, was charmed by the character of older homes: wood floors, built in buffets and bookshelves, the trim. The craftsmanship took my breath away. My first home, purchased with my partner, in the capital city. We loved it. The neighborhood was gritty but safe, neighborly, diverse and small town nosy. There were neighbor feuds, gossip and drama, impromptu backyard barbecues and weekend brunches, block parties on summer Friday nights, rain or shine and neighborhood Saturday coffee and potluck breakfasts year around. Our block was humming with salutations morning, noon and night, laughter, warmth and community. I melted right in.

Now, this isn’t to say I abhor the countryside. On the contrary, my partner and I spent every free weekend at his family farmstead, even if for just a couple of hours, on the outskirts of the city. A suburb but barely just. His grandmother moved into the farmhouse when she married his grandfather. His parents built a home on the opposite end of the property where my partner would spend his youth running and biking his summers away. We loved the farm. We loved it for its picturesque pastoral snapshot of what was and its uncanny manner of freezing time. The pasture and woods blended with just the right amount of agricultural management was the same as it had always been albeit the natural rhythms of birth and death. The old barn, proud and weathered from years of activity, the small spring fed pond that once cooled dairy cattle and gave them drink, present and waiting for its next inhabitants. Land at rest: beautiful, peaceful and profoundly grounding. A stark contrast from the life we lived in the city walking to shops, the market, coffee, of voices passing under windows, cars honking and children giggling.

How and when did we choose to leave our beloved city to isolating on a farm? Year 2003 Bee Sage was in its smallest, tiniest form. So indistinct that we did not even know. A single atom of energy put into motion as a thought or idea to fester and grow as we mowed down the long weeds in the former dairy cattle pen, raked, mowed, raked, tilled, tilled again, until churning rich black revealed its nutrient dense possibilities. Our single atom of thought was sowed into that rich, dark earth and more followed. We planted seeds. We planted seeds in case the seeds we planted didn’t come up. We planted more seeds to ensure that if the back up seeds didn’t come up we would be assured of some bounty come autumn. It all came up. Welp. My partner’s grandmother, I can still hear her laughing and laughing at our naiveté. After months of disbelieving anything would grow in the overgrown, weed infested, cattle vacant sanctuary, she was just as surprised as we were. And, delighted. She had spent her entire life farming and here one of her grandson’s showed promise of following in the agrarian family footsteps even if by accident.

Needless to say, that year was a learning opportunity for us as were the years that followed. We had more vegetables than we knew what to do with. We brought bushel upon bushel back to the city for our friends and neighbors. We shared with family, extended family and family friends. Grandma Lu happily brought out her old canner and processed vegetable the likes of which the farm hadn’t seen in decades. Her canner bubbled and steamed and jar tops popped for days on end. My partner’s mother begrudgingly dusted off her canner and began processing the endless bounty of garden goodies complaining the entire time that never again. Despite the complaining, the early mornings, the late evenings, the dirt and grime and stained fingers and faces there was laughter and reminiscing, family dinners, card playing. Lots of card playing. The simple act of planting a garden produced so much more than food for our bodies. It fed our soul. The energy and vibration that autumn were as high as I had ever felt. Still, I did not know nor could I name what I was feeling. Something was shifting and I was just along for the ride. Or, so I thought.

Grandma Lu, the matriarch of the family, the wisest, most gracious, humble, loving and thoughtful person supported our endeavor to grow our own food. In her backyard. She would often joke that it was the most expensive locally grown, organic produce around noting the price of gas, the mileage and time. We didn’t care. We loved it. So did she. For years, this is how we operated. Every spring we would awaken the earth, sow our seeds, water, weed, harvest, process and create memories. Grandma Lu started sharing her agricultural knowledge. It came in bits and pieces but always timely. “Warm crops aren’t safe until after the full moon in May,” she would warn if she thought we were planting too soon. “That little devil called frost can creep up and destroy a good looking plant right up until then,” she’d say. She swore by it. Grandma Lu didn’t swear.

And, so, city and country co-existed peacefully for many years. We loved our charming home in the city on a postage stamp size lot with minimal maintenance and the country escape where grounding our energy and vibrations into the good, solid earth kept us rooted to family, heritage, and fresh air. All this time I was unwittingly building the bridge that I would cross from city to country. And, I did.

I miss the city, the markets, the diversity, the humming of cars, the neighborly greetings, the impromptu anything. Country living is challenging. Quiet is not peace when the mind is restless and diversions scarce. Real gardening and agriculture is hard work, physically, mentally and spiritually. Chickens and ducks and goats are easy enough but they are not unlike children: constant care, feeding, watering, exercise, free ranging, attention. Land management is not for the weak. Clearing trees after a storm, removing trees dead and dying from age or disease, identifying and exterminating invasive plant species, it is a labor of love in every way imaginable. After spending months in mourning, I am learning to embrace country living. The simplicity and challenges. In the silence, what I know to be true is, I am shifting. My energy, my vibration, my vision, my purpose. As I shift, I see possibility where I saw hardship, I feel excitement where I felt despair, I feel connected rather than disconnected despite physical isolation. I have purpose. I feel my vibration lifting. I sense land is shifting: its energy lifting, its vibration rising. What seemed impossible is possible. Down to the smallest particle.