Football Games and Funerals

We had the day off today, one of the luxuries we savor as a family. It was so nice to “sleep in” this morning waking up at about 7:30 instead of 4:30, and not to the sound of an alarm but to the sounds of our kids asking if they could cuddle with us. A little extra sleep was especially nice today since my son and I were out late watching “Where the Wild Things Are.” I hadn’t read any reviews and the movie surprised me with its dark tone and deep content. Not exactly a children’s movie, my son and I talked about the main themes of the movie on our way home, I asked him what he thought, and he said it was about imagination. I agreed and said I thought it was also about unconditional love. About five minutes later, after he had plenty of time to think about what that might mean he asked, “Mom, what does unconditional mean?” I said it means, “no mater what.”

My son and I had to leave the party a little early to make the movie, and since our daughter didn’t get to go, she’s only four, my husband took her for ice cream with my parents. Earlier in the day, my husband and I were discussing how everyone in the rural area where we live goes to the football games, not just home games but often they will travel to neighboring towns to watch the team. Our whole school k-12 had an early release yesterday because the football team was playing in a neighboring town where there are no lights at the field, so they have to play at 2:00 in the afternoon on Fridays. I said when I was a kid we never went to the high school football games. He brought that up in the discussion with my parents, and they confirmed that where I grew up, that wasn’t part of what people did unless they had a son or daughter involved. It just wasn’t a community event. It is a much more populated area, a school 4x the size of where my children will go to school and not as close knit of a community.

As we were talking more about that this morning he said “Yep, you can count on people around here to travel for football games and funerals.” We went on to talk about how true that is, when someone dies around here the line will be out the door every time. And even after I was divorced from my first husband, he and his parents traveled more than three hours to go to my grandfather’s funeral. It’s just a difference in the culture here. Reflecting on this made me very thankful that we have settled our family here in a community where people travel to football games and funerals, no matter what.

Foundations

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost: that is where they should be.

Now put the foundations under them.

Henry David Thoreau

I really love this quote and I found it to be fitting for the day. It was a usual day on the farm, nothing broke today (I hope I am not speaking to soon!) and finally some sunshine. After a week of wet, windy cold, a day like this is refreshing for body and soul.

My son's birthday is on Sunday, he will be nine. We are having his party tonight so I had to go find a gift for him today. I went to my favorite spot for reading inspiration, the Prairie Bookshop in Mt. Horeb. Looking through all those books made me think about what kind of foundation we are helping our son put under the castles he is building in the sky. How these books we choose for him and the ones he will soon choose for himself will shape who he will become. Since my husband already bought him the newest "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," I went for something a little more abstract and imaginary, "The Magician's Elephant." Hopefully he loves both!

I also had the chance to catch up with a good friend while I was in Mt. Horeb, Ed is an historian and every time I meet with him I find myself looking at the past in a new way. He had his wonderful new assistant Julia with him, it was nice to meet her. She has a degree in Anthropology and so working with Ed gives her a great chance to put her education to work. Ed and Julia are working on the Wisconsin Dairy History Project, an effort to capture the stories of how the people of Wisconsin have been shaped by the cows of Wisconsin. If it weren't for Ed I wouldn't know half of what I do about the hard working families who built Wisconsin into the dairy hub of the world.

In today's conversation my Ah-ha moment came from Julia who described her vision of what the study of Anthropology can give us in the present, "the ability to understand each other today". It doesn't all have to be about digging up old civilizations, it can be about understanding why we make the decisions we do and ultimately bringing people closer together. Thanks Julia-very interesting! This made me think about how our past and present must come together if we are to learn from either. It also shows how important it is that we build that foundation based on the knowledge and appreciation for the past if we want to have our castles of the future become real. A great uplifting day, and it will only get better since we are going to see "Where the Wild Things Are" tonight!

A Week of Refelections

I have spent the better part of the last week organizing my stuff and our lives in order to greet winter, the hardest part of the year for this Wisconsin farmer. This time the organizing has involved a great deal of purging as well. We have been on our farm for four full years now and we have finally come to the point where we know what we need and what is really just clutter. This has been true for the shelves of spare parts in our farm shop, I figure if we haven't needed this stuff by now, or if we still don't know what is goes to, after four years it can go in the scrap pile.

The same is true for piles of mail, articles and documents that I finally feel I can part with. These piles of information until now gave me a sense of security, if I came to a problem on the farm that I could not think of an answer to I could dig into these stacks, they served as a source of someone else's wisdom while I worked on building my own. There have been fleeting moments in the last four years when I felt I had "arrived" as a farmer, but they were quickly followed by times of uncertainty and self-doubt. I finally don't feel those feelings anymore, I trust myself and the decisions I make each day on the farm. I now know that I will make good smart decisions in times of stress and emergency. I still don't have the feeling I have "arrived" but I no longer need that feeling.

I am in the process of writing a speech about setting your values and goals, so ironically at the same time I am reviewing the contents of our farm shelves I have also been taking stock in my development as a human being. Reviewing old journals and personal thoughts has caused me to be overwhelmed with love and gratitude for who I am today. I have been thinking about the many people who helped me become this person, and I hope I can inspire others to be proud of who they are today and build a path to live their best possible life in the future.

Well that's all I have time for today, need to be to the house for supper at 6:30. This was not nearly as painful as I thought it might be, actually may be a cathartic way to end the day.