It was an early summer morning. The fog set in overnight as it often did on the island. We were a pastoral painting; buckets, rows of crops, and all five of us hunched over picking the morning harvest. Only visible as curves among the eden that swallowed our bodies.
The things that I remember from that summer are not what was painful then, but what is painful now.
I was crying. I cried because of her yelling, but my tears were more than self-pity and frustration.
There is no rest in this life that I've chosen, yet who I am inexorably needs to be rich in soil. And is it any way to live? In constant fear that the world around you can swallow your livelihood with their greed and destruction?
The farm is a living being. She will hold you tighter than any lover. She will take your hand and lead you to riches and paths of contentment
But just like falling in love, you never realize how deep you're in until you look up and your underwater.
In those rows, amongst the spinach and morning mosquitoes, I cried for everything I have chosen. I wept for that farm, myself, and the weight of my life as the solution to a problem.