Something Bigger

Penny took the boys and some friends ice fishing yesterday, whilst I stayed home to bang out some words, play some geetar, spilt firewood, listen to music too loud (anyone else hip to Isbell? No? Do yerself a favor and listen to the linked album in its entirety. It’s fairly mind blowing) and make a fine pot of soup. I don’t get many days with the place to myself, and I have to admit it’s something of a treat. No noise (well, there’s the music, and the chainsaw, and the tractor, and… ok, so LOTS of noise), no distractions, no one’s interests to serve but my own and those of our animals.

I’ve had a few requests over the past year or so to write more about Penny, which I’ve generally declined to do, since it’s really not her desire to be written about, and I respect that (that said, she does play a pretty major role in my forthcoming book, so there’s your opportunity). (Wow. I’m not even two paragraphs into this and already on my fourth parenthetical. Hope there ain’t any potential editors reading this) (If there are, please note that I don’t generally employ nearly so many parentheticals. I do, however, use the word “ain’t” a fair bit, along with “yer,” “tarnation,” and “by gum”)

Truth is, critical as my wife is to this little operation, what’s even more critical is that Penny and I make a pretty darn good team, if I do say so myself. And I suppose I just did. It’s not that we agree on everything, or even that our vision is always in perfect alignment. But in broad strokes and in many narrow ones, our views converge. There is no conflict over how to educate the boys, for instance. There is rarely, if ever, disagreement about what to spend money on, or what not to spend money on. We both awake in the morning looking forward to chores, and we both go to sleep at night comfortable in our mutual decision to prioritize the wealth of soil, skills, and spirit over that of money.

To be sure, we each have our strengths, and these strengths tend to slot fairly neatly into gender stereotypes. Generally speaking, I’m the machinery operator in the family, though Penny’s more than capable with chainsaw and tractor. Generally speaking again, she’s the queen of all things green, though I’ve been known to pull a stint or two in the gardens. Penny’s far craftier than I am; she’s always working on something or another. A pair of buckskin shoes, for instance, or a beaver tail knife sheath, or a wooden bowl, or a water felted vest for one of the boys. I, on the other hand, am more adept at larger, cruder projects: A pole shed for the cows, or banging away at the truck or tractor with a hammer until it’s well and truly broken and I have to call in someone who actually knows what the hell they’re doing in order to get it fixed. And that’s just the hammer I’m talking about.

But honestly, I don’t think it’s the specific skills and proclivities that make us a good team. I mean, sure, those help, but they are really just the outgrowth of a shared sense of what we want our life to be. Of how we want our life to be, how we wish to pass our days, and furthermore, how this informs the world we inhabit. We both believe – naively, some might argue – that we have the ability to fashion our world as we imagine it. We are stubborn in this regard. Very stubborn. And because of this stubbornness, we are willing to make the sort of sacrifices that are not commonplace in modern America.

Except to us, they’re not really sacrifices, because when you can see how one thing leads to another, when you feel as if it is your choice to make these sacrifices, rather than having them thrust upon you, the strangest thing happens. They become part of something bigger, something that looks an awful lot like a reflection of that imagined world. Except it’s not imagined, anymore. Or at least not entirely.

No one’s life or relationship is perfect. Do not read that lie into anything I write here or anywhere else. But the truth is, none of what we do works without both of us. The writing, the farming, the dreaming, the imagining, the unschooling, and so on. If you took one of us away, you wouldn’t have half these things. You wouldn’t have even a fraction of them. They are a sum that is far, far greater than the two imperfect people whose work makes them happen.

Monday dinner: Squash soup with bacon bits