Out in California

A wonderful CSA member just wrote a distressed email that she had missed the messages of my sabbatical from the farm this summer and thought it might be too late to sign up for another CSA! It is a bittersweet note to receive, since I'm overjoyed that being a member of the Hermit Thrush CSA is a priority and the experience will be missed during this year away, but of course I'm disappointed that I wasn't able to 100% effectively spread the message. I am hopeful, knowing that there are usually many CSAs still accepting members this time of year in our area, but still, that guilty feeling of having somehow failed someone is quick to flood my chest with a vague sinking feeling. 

That is truly the feeling that I wanted to avoid when I wrote my "To Do" list before we left. And yet I knew there would be many things left unattended. The stakes still lying piled in the field. The drip tape and the row cover will semi-frozen to the ground. The long dead sunflower skeletons still standing tall. Ho hum. What is it about not being able to tidy everything, to put everything in its place, that leaves a subtle yet nagging anxiety in the mind? We know that in the end the forces of motion, of change, of decay, will naturally and inevitably take over, whether it is still while we inhabit our bodies or after we are gone. I think in the deepest sense it is a grasping for control in a world that we know ultimately is uncontrollable. 

Dinner is calling-- so here is a brief synopsis of what's to come. Patrick and I head down to San Diego tomorrow. And we'll be on the trail on Friday if all goes according to plan! So many thanks to our amazing hosts John and Liz in Berkeley, and Uncle Kent and Aunt Alice in Santa Monica!