baby, the bread is rising

the hottest july on record.    I know.  It’s august. woah woah woah.  It is wednesday afternoon.  hump day as they say, although for me, it sort of is and sort of isn’t.  It is sort of like the whole week build up to this wild wild wildness, friday.  the long long day.  high and lows and continuances.
I am on lunch break.  I sit here.  in a puddle of my fluids.  sweat from every one of my pores.  I look as though I have just stepped out of a sauna.  skin red.  shiny.  sweat beads on the tip on my nose and on my chin.  I have a sweat moustache and a sweat goatee.
Charlie and I ate a muskmelon as soon as we returned from work this morning.  93 degrees with a heat index up to 109 degrees.  It is the humidity this year.  We haven’t had a day hotter than the mid-90s but with the heat index it has frequently “felt like” 110.  woah woah woah woah. I say.  I survive it.  I thrive.  I love it.  I hate it.  I want to wipe my sweat out of my eyes with my shirt but my shirt is drenched in sweat and dirt.  ugh.  I try to wipe my chin on my shoulder sleeve, but my shoulder sleeve is drenched in sweat and dirt.  Maybe a cold shower will help before I return to work.  Maybe not.  and I itch.  plant oils irritate my skin, mosquitoes suck my blood, give me welts and rashes and I scratch, and sweat drips into them and they itch itch itch more more more.

I wrote this blog Sunday, July 11, and have been waiting for the opportunity to plug into the multimedia universe and post it.  huzzah!

tonight I spent almost two hours tearing my hair apart.  ripping it from itself from the knots into which it has tied itself.
the processes of my hair… are … to me … an incredible thing.  It has been as long as it has since I have taken a brush or a comb to it.  Maybe last fall I might have taken a comb to it.  and before that maybe the previous spring.  and before that maybe the previous fall…and back then I had short short short hair.    a different story.  A month ago, I bought myself a brush…and a comb…of the sorts that I could believe in…the sorts that I thought were “well-made” of “natural” materials.  a sort of self-pampering.  in preparation for the process on which I considered embarking.
My hair has become knots.  My hair has been extensive knots.  My friends have called them dreadlocks.  and beautiful.  I relate.  I just let my hair do what it does when it wants to.  No need for me to control it.  because it is … was… uncontrollable.  I could no longer separate the strands enough so that I could truly braid it.  all I could do was tie it back in a bun.
I considered just accepting the dreadlocks forever and loving them.  I considered shaving my head (although I did fear sunburn).  and I considered attempting to brush my hair out.

Last night at the encouragement of my friend Adriane, I rubbed my head with extra virgin olive oil and wrapped my head in a bandana.  We had not decided I would definitely brush it.  We were getting prepared, just in case.  Adriane said to me, “Your hair is pretty beautiful as it is”  and don’t I know it.

Today I had a day of friends and conversations, of air and ice cream, of computing and then.  I took my bandana off of my head. I took my brush and comb outside with me and I sat on a sycamore vegetable box and began the process.  Charlie reheated leftovers and brought me a shot of tequila and talked to me as I ripped and tore my hair apart and out.  as I winced.
I am lucky to live with this sensitive character.  this Charlie who keeps me company and talks to me and listens to me and doesn’t think it’s gross that I have this big pile of hair sitting next to me when I am finally done.
I tell Charlie that I think my mom always thought that me not brushing my hair was me not taking care of myself.  me not valuing myself.  but I always thought that it was more the other way around.  Me not brushing my hair was me recognizing that my hair is just a part of me, not me and I am more than my hair and my appearance.  recognizing that there are more important things in my life than the “quality” of my hair.

Slash I am feeling very happy and excited.  I no longer think that I will “have to” shave my head if I ever want to have hair again.  and I still have the old dreadlock.  the big long one.  that one’s not going anywhere.  and I think I will french braid my hair tomorrow…it is getting so long!  It was last cut two years ago!!
I feel a little freedom.  as if the fate of my hair is no longer set in stone.  there are possibilities for me and this scalp of mine.

here I sit.  Hiding in the office of the Unicorn, the cafe which is as home to me as anywhere else.  Needing my me time.  my aloned-ness.  so tired.  beat beat beat. beat. beat. beet (!).  tired in the way where my body feels like it shivering, and eyes see cloudy and throat is dry- a little sore- probably just a depleted immune system- nothing I can’t cure with some rest, garlic, chiles, peppermint ‘tea’ and chocolate.

mmm.

last night I went to bed around 9:30 p.m.  to wake at 1:15 a.m.  To ready myself for a week and a half away from the farm.  for city, and friends and commotion and the wedding of May and Dan (this is a whole nother blog entry).  I worked all morning until around 1 p.m. at the farmer’s market !!  I. love. food. especially food that I have nourished and tended and harvested and prepared sell and or eat.  mmm.  totes arugula in my belly.

what a journey it is.  what a as full as it is experience it is to go on this journey.  the excitement I feel as I walk down the lane to wait for the big truck to pull up and to hop in and talk to Henry in the quiet of the night.  There was a thick fog this morning.  I felt fearful as we mucked through it.  or trucked through it.  “what if?”

from harvest through market is a marathon.  or maybe harvest is a sort of race.  a long long race.  there’s lots of time to go through lots of stuff.  body stuff.  mental stuff.  and then to the market.  once the race is over, but I can’t go home till I clean up all the cups left on the ground and get my medal.  sometime a giddy game.  challenging.  enlivening.  exhilerating.  exhausting.

mmm…how powerful is this exhaustion.  how I sink into this chair I sit on.  as solid as it is, it absorbs my weight.  I smile too because there is a heady lightness that balances the heavy … heaviness.

and I’ve got these awesome friends.  I am so lucky.

This morning I sit in Normal, Illinois, at the Coffee House.

I have been reading lately.  books abundant.  I read this book ILLUSIONS by Richard Bach this past week.  A curious experience for me.  An important experience for me.  in my perception.  It is written in what I would call a simplistic, accessible style, and it discusses some “big ideas” about spirituality and the universe that resonate with me.  A little silly and cheesy perhaps although it illuminates the way perception may be the lens through which we navigate our worlds.  Right now, I buy into it.  Last week, I said to my roommate, “maybe there is another way to understand understanding”– and I wonder if the book stimulated these thoughts in me or if I am just reconnecting with these ideas again.  I also had a dream in which Matt, fellow farmhand and friend was breaking through huge rock walls with his mind power. all the same stuff….

In my perception, being “on my own” again, encourages states of reflection that it almost seemed as if there was not time for before.  anyway.  I’m not really sure where I want to go with this conversation.

Last week, as I worked in the field, after a couple hours of working side-by-side in silence with Matt, I felt intensely excited.  I felt a lightness, what I would consider a joy in me, so I wanted to laugh…because as I fell into the flow of the work I was doing, I found there was space in my mind to explore some ideas and think thoughts with what I would call clarity.  I wished I had a tiny notebook in my pocket so that I could write write write all of the thoughts I had, so that I could make sure to remember them.

hooray for the arrival of ideas.  hooray for space in my brain that is not filled up with responsibility or worry.  space to just hypothesize and analyze and enjoy the steady continuation of ideas–to watch my thoughts be my thoughts.

I am not lonely here.  I experience longings for my loved ones, and I appreciate this quiet time I have.

I move to Henry’s farm … tomorrow!  This time a little scarier though as I go alone.  no dogs.  no daniel.  our family temporarily broken up.  and I think  I am ready to work.  and learn.  and be on my own for a little while.  not totally on my own. independent.

Things I look forward to:

air.  greens.  strawberries.  harvest days.  experiencing my body gain physical strength. if I have the energy, running on the weekend.  dirt.  sunrises and sets. goat milk.  chickens and cows. life.

Things I do not look forward to (not to say I really mind or do not enjoy them…I have a fear of them rather):

long rainy days (although my fear is bigger than the actual experience…I don’t think I ever really minded it on the farm last time).  loneliness.  itchiness from plant oils.  tornado watches and warnings.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.  I will pack in the morning.  then hopefully walk doggies, and then Daniel will drive me.  And then he will drive home. alone.

And then next week he will move to Santa Fe.  I’ll let him write about that though.

LOVE!  LIFE!