A Choice

Sunday evening dusk has descended. I’m watching from the window in my loft, looking out over the hop and strawberry field. I see movement of farmers tidying up the barnyard. For the farmers weekends are not days off, they are the days set aside each week to catch up on the other aspects of farm life that didn’t fit into the ‘work week.’ Farming is not a job for them, it is their lifestyle. Like being an activist. Except they are the most extreme of activists because they are in the ‘street’ everyday, with pitch forks in hand. And like the activists worldwide they remain unheard and taken for granted.

I am not a fighter. My place is not in the streets of the cities. At twenty-four I am not ready to give into pessimism as my fuel for positive social change. In fact, since I believe that a more peaceful society cannot come from a violent revolution, than I must also believe that an optimistic society will not be born from cynicism. So here I am. On a farm. In what I, and many others, believe to be one of the most beautiful places in this country. Each day I rise with my life partner and we meet two of our most beautiful friends in the field to begin the day’s work. I have never laughed so much during a day of work at any previous job.

But I am not here as a form of activism. I’m not here to be a more extreme ‘locavore.’ I’m here because I really love growing things. The happiness that comes from eating food I grew is of another realm from the satisfaction I got from eating an entirely local diet. To me it is the difference between living from optimism and living from pessimism. Activists must have optimism that things will change, or surly they would give up. But the lifestyle also relies on the existence of imbalance and seeing the world in terms of its negative aspects. Being a (small, organic) farmer requires believing that there is balance and having optimism that you can work within it successfully. As an activist locavore, each food action I made was one of protest. While I came to love rutabagas, my choice to consume them stemmed more from the fact that they were not bell peppers from Mexico than the fact that they were grown in the next county over. Here each food action I make is one of optimism. Optimism that it will grow healthy, and excitement that before long I will sit around a table with people I love and enjoy the deliciousness of our labor.

I don’t know anyone who would describe me as an optimist. And I didn’t pair this concept with farming until I was already here. So in this time that I will be learning to farm, I hope to learn how to let this form of optimism permeate my future.