I Want to Be a Farmer Because...
I want to place seeds in the soil and labor over their growth. I want to live with the flow of the seasons, each food in its time. I want to hold each ingredient in my hand as I wash it, prepare it, and place it with intention among other ingredients that together will create something delicious. Something my body can understand as it travels through my senses. I wish to have this for myself some day.
Hello, by the way. I know it has been a while since I wrote. So much has been going on in my life (what with graduating, planning a wedding and preparing to move to NYC) that I have taken very little time to enhance my body love lately. Except for the swimming class I was in this semester! That has been great. But aquatic exercise aside, I am just now feeling the shame (that I try so hard to avoid!) of ignoring my body's wants and needs for the past few months.
Well for some reason, tonight I was motivated to watch Hungry for Change, a documentary on the tricks the food industry is using to keep us addicted to highly processed food. While I already was aware of most of the points the documentary made (plus I had to stop halfway through because it stopped helping and started depressing), it was a good reminder of what I have to look forward to now that I'm back in the game.
I'll admit, though, this is always the hardest step. I am full of shame and frustration at myself for, once again, failing to discover the natural and healthy lifestyle that my body so desires and excited, but also dreading another go round. Nevertheless, I pick myself up, recite some love mantras, and take another step. Will this time be different? Will I find my body love for life? Maybe. It will certainly be part of the journey.
I Also Want to Be a Farmer Because...
I don't know enough about the economy to actually make any substantive arguments here. I simply cannot sit comfortably in my corner of this capitalist world. I don't want to make money just to turn right back around and spend it on housing, food, clothing that is all subject to the market's whims and not set up to help me through life at all! I would rather just make all of it myself. Self-sufficiency can be very gratifying. Granted, making housing and clothing might be a bit more complicated and socially risky, so I will let those go for now.
2. I want to rid my life of as much capitalism as I possibly can. I hate the feeling of having to go through prescribed steps in my growth as a human being just to get a money-making job, so I can give the money away for food and shelter, and so that I can save more of the money to give it away for food and shelter for my some-day progeny. I would much rather do none of that and just make my own food (and shelter?). I also wish I could live in a village that trades goods for other goods for a living. But that's a whole other issue.
This goes back to all of the life transitions going on in my life right now. Yes, I am engaged and obsessively thinking about my soon-to-be married life with excitement, nervousness, and everything in between. But I am also going through job interviews because, well, I need to grow up and support myself! And soon my hubby! And eventually some children (with his help, of course)! And while I am applying for positions I can see myself doing for at least the few months before the wedding...I just...don't believe in the system. At all.
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| This is me in my head right now. |
But as soon as I can I am buying a ranch and farming my land! That is my new life ambition and I ain't budging!
I acknowledge that this entire second reason to become a farmer seems to have absolutely nothing to do with body love. But it is all so inextricably connected. How can I settle into my own skin when I can't settle into the world around me? When the societal demands placed on my life course take away any reserve energy and mind space I might have for my connection to myself?
This may seem like a bleak outlook. But someday this frustration will motivate me to make a change (like becoming a farmer) that will set me on a course to fulfillment and satisfaction. Right? Right.
Thank you for humoring the rant that just happened as a result of not writing for too long. But don't laugh too hard because if it happens one day (the farming, I mean), I will come back and laugh, "I told you so!"
With nervousness, hope, and fertilizer,
Gabriella
p.s. There is a chance I might, might appreciate a job in which I were working to fix an injustice or giving voices to those who feel they can't speak. If this happens, I shall swallow my words happily and we shall all rejoice!
