Casa en el campo
I am fully at home in the field.
Dirty, crawling on my knees, practicing the ancient simplicity of harvesting food from plants. I am most alive when I am near the soil, hands working diligently to make the perfect bunch, chatting in Spanish with the migrant farmworkers who have become my close friends.
My face stays shaded by the brim of my hat. A flannel shirt protects my arms from the beating sun on a 98 degree day in Oregon summer (at least 105 inside the greenhouse tunnels). Sweat and dust glisten on my skin. Calloused hands blackened by many hours of picking tomatoes from their trellised vines. A big ole’ goofy smile on my face. Nos reimos mucho.
Thoughts still float in the back of my head: Perhaps I romanticize and glorify a life that mis compañeras likely did not choose. Is it my privilege that leads me to desire an occupation which most of society looks down upon with pity? Why do I feel so intensely drawn to a lifestyle which my friends and coworkers cannot escape (yet I can move freely in and out of)?
Why does the land call me so loudly & clearly? It is telling me that I need to change these deeply engrained agricultural systems and labor practices of food production in this modern world. Harvesting alongside some of the hardest working people in America (who are among the most oppressed) has taught me so much about farming, society, language, culture, and life.
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Taking the long way home from the farm, nostalgia approaches quietly along the curved country roads. In the core of my stomach, I can already feel the way I’ll miss this season. I get the feeling that I’ve finally found my little pocket of the world with the sweetest, most wonderful friends & community I could have asked for. This season has been absolutely life changing. I am growing unendingly, flowering profusely with new insights and passions.
Mi cabeza is lleno de la granja. I remember the smokey grey hanging low and thick in wildfire July; we all duck into a greenhouse to make bouquet-like manojos de albahaca. We start a game to practice our respective new languages. I ask Margo: “¿Cómo se dice cebolla en inglés?” She giggles and thinks for a moment before proclaiming “Onion!” We all smile and continue the unique cultural exchange of women of so many backgrounds.
These conversations dance in my mind. Basil lingers on my hands.
