Not Exactly Terrible

I passed all of Friday and most of the weekend in the throes of exertion, which is really just a fancy way of saying I spent most of those three days outside, working. I dropped a bunch of balsams, limbed them, and skidded them to the log landing by the sawmill. I dropped a couple of black cherry that were rotting from the inside out, limbed them, and skidded them to the log landing by the sawmill, where I proceeded to buck them up before we all laid into them with splitting mauls. I did some other stuff, too, but honestly, the details are sort of hazy. It was a busy few days.

I make my living as a writer, which means I’m either one of the luckiest fools ever to walk this good green Earth, or a scam artist of enormous skill and cunning. Probably it’s a little of each. I’ve got no complaints; I love my work and am wickedly grateful for it. Which is a good thing, because I’m entirely unqualified to do much of anything else.

Still, there’s something a bit unsettling to me in getting paid to write. I don’t want to say that writing is easy, because it’s not, really. But the truth is, it’s a pretty damn privileged way to make a buck: Here I sit, toasty warm and clad in my long johns, hot cup of coffee close at hand, listening to good music, and watching the snow fall through the window above my desk. True, I’m not getting paid to write in this space, but then, this is only a fraction of the day’s work, and the remainder will be the paying kind.

Here’s the deal: I am close enough to enough people who make their living from the land to know what truly hard work looks like. And this here ain’t it. Last week, I sat up with Jimmy and Sara in their sugarhouse until midnight, at which point I bailed because, you know, I was a little tired and had to work the next day. Jimmy boiled until 2:30 a.m., slept two-and-a-half hours, and then went to the barn for morning chores. There will be many more nights like that for him over the next few weeks, and that’s just the way it is. He’s grateful for it, too, because if he’s not boiling all night, it’s because the sap’s not running, and if the sap’s not running, he’s not making money. If he’s not milking, he’s not making money. If he’s not splitting firewood, he’s not making money. So yeah, writing’s not exactly easy, and it’s not exactly making us rich, but compared to what some of my friends and neighbors do to make their way in this world, it’s a big ol’ piece of cake. With ice cream.

In some regards, I think this is what I find so compelling about working our little piece of land: It feels to me like an antidote to my chosen profession. On Sunday evening, having put in three full days in the woods and around the home place, I dropped into that sweet sense of bone-deep fatigue, like sinking into a hot bath. I had a pile of sawlogs and a nice collection of split firewood to show for my efforts, and all felt right and just in my world, as if I’d taken no more than I’d given, and perhaps even a bit less.

Writing offers a certain type of satisfaction, no question about it, and I suspect if I were to give it up entirely, I’d come to miss it right quick. From a strictly pragmatic perspective, I am fortunate that my income is not entirely dependent on my body, with its myriad vulnerabilities. And I’d be lying if I said there’s not a certain satisfaction inherent to this work. There is. There very much is.

But the truth is, the moments I feel most at home in my body, mind, and possibly spirit almost never happen at my desk. They almost never happen at the end of a sentence, or a paragraph, or even a book. Instead, they happen in the woods, or out on the pasture, or even just walking across the barnyard on my way to feed the cows. They happen at the end of a long day spent with my hands in the dirt, or stacking bales on the wagon behind Martha’s tractor.

I’m not sure what this says about my writing; perhaps it suggests I’m not putting enough into it. That seems like a very real possibility. Or maybe it means nothing more than that I’m lucky to have paying work I enjoy, and nonpaying work I love. 

Which, come to think of it, is not exactly a terrible way to go through life.