Day Forty-Six: Lord Byron

"There is pleasure in the pathless wood," Lord Byron told me today, via my peppermint tea bag tag.

I was drinking this cup of tea after planting a garden up on the farm this afternoon. We have run out of planting space down in the holler, and Granddaddy had an area he wasn't going to be planting this year, so we got sweet potato slips, sunflowers, cantaloupe, cucumbers, watermelon, pinto beans, and a random smattering of collards and beets planted. The kids were helping and Jeremy and I were filming the process. 

William watering in the beans.

However, Jeremy's dad chose this windy afternoon to spray some horrible chemical along the fence lines of the farm. I wish to Thor (as Taiya said recently... thanks, How To Train Your Dragon) that they would not spray anything on the farm, but there are two generations above me that still believe in that poison, so my say does not go. The herbicide, whatever it was, smelled terrible and made me feel nauseous. We wrapped up as quickly as we could and retreated home. No one else felt bad from this spray, and kept playing in the sunshine. It may have been psychosomatic, but I felt nauseous, dirty, and really sad. I was close to tears. It was awful knowing poisons were being sprayed on my beloved farm for no good reason (is there ever a good enough reason? Short answer: no, there are better ways). 

Since I couldn't stop the spraying, I did what I could to wash this feeling away and move on. I didn't want to let myself spiral downward into ecological despair. I've been there before, and it ain't pretty, or productive. I took a shower, drank peppermint tea, wandered my creative, chaotic, herbicide-free garden, nibbled on lemon balm, smelled our roses. I also found myself thinking about the tea bag quote. This whole pandemic feels like a pathless wood. We are in the middle of the wilds of the unknown with no clear path forward. No way to anticipate what will happen. What direction will the curve go? Will people abandon social distancing too soon? How long will my job be there for me? Will schools open this fall? Will people just go back to "normal" life after this is all over, or will we embrace change and become more willing to commit to a systemic overhaul to address the climate crisis? Will our food system become more localized? Will those local farmers ever smarten up and stop spraying their land with poison? 

And how, Lord Byron, do we find pleasure in this pathless wood? 

Today was hard for some reason, even disregarding the chemical situation. I just felt run down again. But, I know by now that it won't last, and that tomorrow or the next day I will find pleasure wandering among the trees without knowing where I'm going, late-spring wildflowers blooming at my feet.