Saturday is Jon’s birthday and tonight I’m taking him to an Inn in Vermont. We’ll have dinner, stay over and be back tomorrow afternoon.
A few days ago I wrote about my connection to the marsh on our farm. Then Jon wrote about the marsh and us.
Jon wrote…
“At the farm, we are both drawn into a love and understanding of nature. It is a part of who we are now and who we are together.”
When I read it I cried, but not just a few tears. I sobbed. Because Jon’s words allowed me to understand and even embody this truth for the first time.
It felt to me like up to that point I was going through the motions of life on the farm, but after reading his words I had landed.
Jon doesn’t spend as much time outdoors as I do. And we don’t spend as much time outdoors together as we used to. It’s harder for Jon to be outside because of his age and medical conditions, especially in the extreme heat and cold.
But that doesn’t change how the farm and the call we both feel to the natural world, is so much a part of who we are together.
I think for a long time because he owned the first Bedlam Farm and I came to live there, I felt a division between us. The farm and animals were his and I just lived there. That grew less when we moved to the farm where we live now.
But this feeling, this truth, of our togetherness is only about place in that it allows us to be in nature the way both of us have a calling to. We don’t need to hike into the wilds, or up the highest mountain. We both find it nourishing to live within the rhythms of the farm, the animals, and the natural world that surrounds us.
I had the feeling when I read Jon’s words that without them I would not have understood this until after he was gone. I don’t know why I felt that. But it seemed like in missing him this would have become clear to me.
I am grateful that I was able to feel the depth of our connection to each other through nature while we are both still here living it.
Through his writing, I feel like I’m the one who got a gift from Jon for his birthday this year. But my love for him has deepened because of it and that’s something I will be continuing to give back.
Maria, so glad you and Jon found each other at Bedlam Farm I. The bitter cold, the people who came to the farm just to look, all of it and look where you two are now – at Rocky’s farm !
You remember it all Eileen!
Sometimes I think the word epiphany is overused but it sounds like that is exactly what you experienced. Thank you for your honesty in sharing something so personal … a beautiful sentiment beautifully expressed!
I’d say it was close to if not that Barbara.
What a wonderful posting, Maria; very personal, very touching. Speaks so well to your happiness.
Since finding the blogs, I have saved all of them on the computer. I’m reminded often of something that that I want to re-read just because it touches me in one way or another. I wonder if you do some of that with Jon’s thoughts?
I appreciate both journal entries tremendously for ideas to ponder in my own world…all for the better.
Thanks Keith. I don’t save any of Jon’s blog posts, but I know that they’re there.
Beautifully written. I have always liked the idea of giving gifts on one’s birthday and opposed to receiving them. Something along the lines of I made it another year and you’re here with me so let me acknowledge that with a gift to you…or something like that! Anyway, that really resonated with me. Have fun celebrating!
Such a huge gift to see something at the time instead of in hindsight.
Your imprint is deeply on the farm, which Jon certainly has always recognized and been nurtured by. Although we never know what life has in store, it is certainly likely you will be managing the farm and talking to Jon in spirit at some point. The farm is an abiding gift that Jon has brought to you to share, and can leave when the time comes knowing it is in the best hands.
Beautifully said Elizabeth.