Life can be a real mental struggle when you live with a body that’s constantly fighting against you and a society that refuses to see this war within yourself. Every day is a battle and every day is a battle that needs to be won. It’s tiresome and easy to get discouraged in the face of such hardship but it’s really important not to. This chapter of my life has seen me in the worst living situation I have ever been in – I’m now living back in the toxic polluted house that I am pretty sure made me sick in the first place, back with my mother at the age of thirty-two, single, shiftless, and if it weren’t for her – destitute. To make matters worse she hoarded this house up bad while I was away so when I came back… it was filthier than it’s ever been and impossible to keep up with. So why is it now that I find myself the happiest I have ever been?
It’s because I have learned how to work towards the future, how to keep myself motivated, how to keep going, but also to see the little joys in life and hold dearly onto them. Every day it’s something new.
Yesterday I took my sorry carcass out for a few hours after two weeks of living in a near coma. I was fighting against really intense stabbing pains and fatigue but I said I would man the tables at this tiny craft fair and I held true to my word. I am glad I did. I got lost on the way there. I couldn’t find the right address. Instead I wandered aimlessly up and down this road turning around in just about every drive-way as if I were some sort of adult trick-or-treater. My favorite driveway however was a small property – no more than two acres at the very most, with a house on one side and a small cow paddock on the other where three Angus steers jostled, jumped, and played. I was frustrated at being lost but suddenly delighted to lay my eyes on these beautiful cows. How delightful it must be to have cows right out your front door! They were almost big enough for slaughter but they seemed gleefully ignorant of this fact, just such happy animals. I sighed. Someday I shall be back on the farm. Oh how I miss watching animals just be themselves – free, joyful, and only one step away from being wild. This reaffirmed my faith that I am to keep working towards having a farm of my own.
When I finally found the fair it was small, badly advertised, and had no customers what-so-ever. I paid $25 for the table and sold one magnet for a dollar. This is usually how these things work – and why I gave up on coming to these things a long time ago. Craft fairs usually bring a lot of lookey-loos but even when you have your goods marked at Wal-Mart prices no one wants to buy. The magnet was hand-crafted, unique, and probably took me ten or fifteen minutes to make. I wouldn’t have been able to sell it for more than a dollar… but today wasn’t about money. I learned that pretty quickly when another vendor came over to chat me up about my mother’s soap. She sold essential oils but as luck would have it also had pigs. We discussed using their lard for soap. It’s little moments like these that I know homesteading is in my blood, intrinsic to my being. I fucking love the community and the people in it. Later on that day I had a small girl walk by with her mother. Her mother and her were cheerfully burbling about how fragrant my booth was with all the soap when she turned and said, “It smells better than dead chickens! A LOT BETTER!” Her mother gave a pained expression as if to say, “Why would you say that?!” and she shuffled the poor dear away. I am guessing someone wasn’t happy with the family flock becoming dinner recently. Another sweet moment I couldn’t help but put in my pocket for safe keeping. Finally I noticed a photographer across the isle selling prints. I watched as people rifled through them and couldn’t help but feel warm and fuzzy at the fact I seemed to know where the vast majority of these shots were taken – as I spent much of my summer on photographic tours of the area for my travel blog Catching Marbles. I felt so lucky to have had those experiences and to be able to draw upon them.
On other hard days there is always something to remind me to keep smiling. Not long ago I struggled for three days to gather the energy and where-with-all to go to the grocery store and as I was leaving I drove by the neighbor’s child coming home from school. I guess it was the first time he saw my heavily Sharpie doodled car, Daisy, and he stopped dead in his tracks, staring with his jaw practically hitting the ground, right there in the middle of the road – in total awe. I smiled, laughed, waved, and felt wonderful for the rest of the day.
Sometimes it’s not even the physical world that brings me such deep satisfaction but the strangers I will never meet online. I was thrilled to learn recently that a piece I wrote at fourteen is being used as mandatory curriculum somewhere in the world – something I became aware of when a teenager came forward to bitch about how unfair this was. If I could have reached through that screen, laughing, and pinched his little angsty cheeks I totally would have!
And of course sometimes life is beautiful because of the spirit of discovery. I notice even the tiniest of things – a slight breeze through the top of the trees that tickle the uppermost leaves, strange and fantastically colorful insects, caterpillars, and bugs that scurry unnoticed all around me, and the joy of learning something new and amazing. I find I am intellectually voracious. I need to keep learning, every day, by whatever means possible. In these colder months when my body is shit and I can’t physically explore, I find myself trying to fill this insatiable desire by consuming documentaries, articles, and sometimes on very good days when I have quiet and focus – even books. I thrive on tremendous sessions whenever I am allowed the privilege. I listen intently to intense strange individuals and I probe them to go even farther into the depths of their endless minds into the wee morning hours.
In being this hyper alert I find that everything is connected and everything has a reason. Life brings us where it needs us to be and if we’re open to the experience the journey can be fucking amazing. So my lesson for today is to keep your mind and hearts open at all times to receive these positive little messages from the universe. Allow yourself to notice the tiny details that can turn your whole day around. I know when we are grumpy, or tired, or frustrated, this can be hard but it is so worth it.