If it were easy
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: this lifestyle is not easy. However, it thrusts your hands down into the roots of food so that every experience is visceral. It will hurt your body – muscles that you never used before will strain and throb; the strongest sinews of the heart will ache.
I chose not to live the rest of my life protected by a desk, something that (for me) started to feel like a shield. It offered stability but was also a barrier from the life I wanted to jump into headfirst ever since my first memories. I’m in this for food fresh enough to taste a heartbeat, so the smell of dirt can’t be washed away entirely. This was never about cheese-mongering, a profession I don’t aspire to achieve. I’m here because of the animals and the dusty winds and purple sunsets. Last night as the moon rose, a solitary coyote howled it up from the east in welcome. There’s no going back.
Although I will never Photoshop the pretty into what is sometimes a harsh balance here, I will never discourage a dreamer. I take encouragement seriously; what is given and received. If you want any tiny part of a life less tamed, more uncertain, less tidy, more treacherous, I’ve got your back more than 100%. I hope to never let any hard knocks trickle down to discourage others with a twinkling eye, sighing out their city windows into the distance. If it were easy, would more people try? Maybe. But just because it’s not straightforward and comes with no instructions – that isn’t a reason not to.
2 Comments
Sheri Rowe Langford
October 22, 201310:48 am
Great post!!!! You are so right! This is hard but so much more rewarding. And every little nugget of encouragement is a drop of rainwater in a drought!
jennakl
November 1, 20139:22 pm
Every little bit counts, you’re so right!