Reeds and Seeds

Here is something that makes me extraordinarily happy:

I am within walking distance of a church containing a pipe organ.

Back in Washington I had to bicycle (up hill both ways, of course) to reach an instrument. And now, I can cross the road, dart through a side-yard, and find myself under the auspices of a huge stone church.

I'd emailed them out of the blue and asked if I might practice there. The administrative assistant forwarded my name to the organist and I was blessed by goodwill and trust and just tonight I met him and was introduced to the instruments. Yes, instruments, because there is a second organ from 1830! Oh history! A wee thing with keys smaller than customary and a surprisingly good sound. And all sorts of grand pianos around, too.

The main pipe organ has three manuals (eeeee!) and 32-foot pipes for the feet (meaning: deep and resonant). There is a reed stop (think celebratory marching army) that is particularly lovely as well.

The church is stone, looming and venerable, and inside endless colored glass windows glow the sanctuary with goldenrod light. Tall ceilings stretch expansively--I felt the reverence and appreciation like being inside a castle--and the sanctuary smelled mystically and deliciously of smoke. Incense? I asked of Mr. Organist. No, actually. He explained the church had burned in 1930, and had been rebuilt. And on humid days you can still smell the walls breathing out smokey residuals from 80 years ago. History's aroma.

I was ecstatic to play in a space like this, like playing in the very center of God.

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Since Monday, I have been residing in the Little Room in the Messy House, a big old student place just near down-town Geneva. The graduated seniors are in the process of moving out and I'm doing my best to settle in amongst boxes, sticky floors, and old kegs. I keep turning off lights they leave on, but they've been generous to share with me a heap of left-over Weggie's sandwiches from their graduation party. I've pretty much been eating them every day (and today for two meals) because the fridge is so burgeoning that the thought of amassing my own ingredients and cooking is rather wearisome. I do pick up strange eating habits when I live alone (when there is no beautiful Indian man any more, cooking beautiful curries). 

My mother's colorful quilt soothes this little room--my nest and sanctuary--into a place of being, and I went from the first night here of Lonely and Dismal to remembering how many other little rooms I have inhabited, with that very same quilt saving the space, and have since then perked up and feel comfort coming in here.

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Spending hours poking cabbage, kale, and endive embryos into trays is much less disagreeable when I bicycle to work (rather than sitting an hour in the car). Mr. Bossman, first thing in the morning yesterday, observed to the two Base-ball Cap Boys their lack of energy, but then regarded me and noted I was all high on endorphins. True. My bicycle route has only a single stop-light and the rest is nicely painted houses with intentional gardens, and views over apple orchards. I rode White Springs Lane, passed White Springs Drive, crossed White Springs Road, and also there were White Springs Manor and White Springs Farm. (I guess people like to fit in around those there white springs)

There is not much glamorous about agriculture. As a master's student, while studying soil and managing a project sounds cool, really, when you unravel it, all I was doing was Counting Stuff. Counting weeds, counting how much mass was in things, counting samples. Counting labels, counting bags.

And working in industry, at this seed company, what I am doing now is: Moving Stuff. Moving trays into the greenhouse, out of the greenhouse, moving plants into the soil, moving water onto the plants.

Lady Elise was very wise yesterday, during our giddy little skype conversation. "Agriculture just IS repetitive", she noted. But there are nuggets of good learning and experience amongst all the repeating. She also noted that sometimes we need a more simple era of time in our lives, giving us air to look up and around and consider. Especially after such a blur of activity, of bicycling southeast Asia, of blasting all over Seattle, of a cross-country road trip, of a beautiful tragedy and losing this heart, of defending a thesis.

There is a time for reaping and a time for sowing.

Asparagus and NPR

This is what I woke up this morning thinking of:

Because of spending hours each day now, listening to NPR, to at least become worldly and educated while filling the emptiness of sitting and dropping seeds in trays. And because the only thing that's growing out at the seed company is asparagus.

But: that asparagus! 'White Angel' is the variety and it is so delicious. There's a rather vast bed of it and I trot out there with an eager bag and snap away. I roasted some deluged in olive oil and lemon and my Mum and I stood over the pan, compulsively eating the tender bending dripping spears. Oh first vegetables of spring!

From counting to pulling: at the new job

"You'll be coming along to plant onions in the muck Thursday" I was told by Mr. Farm Manager. Muck Soils. I had an image then, all in lights, of slogging knee-deep through sticky black soil, of heaving under the strain of the thick muck, yet persisting doggedly. I was wearing old-fashioned hip-waders. And there was a water buffalo, too, in harness.

Wait wait wait. It's just a new soil type. Settle down. 

Yes: Histosols. "Muck Soils" are histosols. There are 12 soil orders, into which all the soils on this planet can be classified (and then further classified into sub and sub-sub divisions). Histosols are one of the soil orders I had not experienced yet; they are extremely fertile soils with lots of organic matter. The muck soils I was planting onions in were drained bogs...we were essentially stamping around on a bunch of dead decomposed trees.

The stuff was pitch black: like a field of tar. But it was not deep or sticky and there certainly weren't any water buffalo. But I was a few shades darker by the time I finished the day, coated in a soil's tan. I helped plant 447 different crosses of onions and 40 onion varieties. I spent the whole day walking up and down in this soil, behind a large tractor-driven onion planter. I became adept at opening packets and dumping wee seeds into hoppers: all the onion varieties were organized and partitioned out into little envelopes. I spent hours doing the same thing over and over. This is what growing food is about, especially at a large scale.

Today I pulled weeds, without counting them first, from a bed of bodacious asparagus. Imagine that! Removing weeds for the sake of production, rather than the sake of research.

I also wrote labels for countless little plastic stakes to keep melon babies organized and named. "Shiny Boy", "Shiny Boy", "Shiny Boy" I wrote, and then some sort of inadvertent flailing and there was a vertical line where the "S" should have been. So I made that special little plant, "Boy, shiny."

I found 7 four-leaf clovers on Friday, and 3 more today. Working as a graduate student in the Puyallup fields, I thought it was just something special about that organic land. Apparently not. And now I'm among fresh people for whom all these clovers are a novelty, rather than an annoyance ("oh here comes Sandra with another 4-leaf clover again"). I just love looking for 4-leafers as I walk around, and finding one is like a little gift from the grass. Or the universe.

I think I'm used to jobs with a little more mental stimulation. I found myself talking to the cabbage babies.

That which comes after Chicago: arrivals and endings

I apologize for leaving readers stranded in Chicago with my last entry. Traffic, like that in the city, has been bad: the traffic of my life (new job, arrival "back east", commuting) has carried me off and I can't even speed up to myself.

So....to finish the story of the journey. In Chicago we stayed with the third triad of that old famous Lohman-Tillman-Wayman Rodale girls: dear Lovely Molly. She had a well-done 2nd story apartment in a picturesque part of Chicago, and she and her boyfriend, Gourmet Andrew, woke before us the next morning and bicycled out for bread and coffee to make us breakfast. Such generous, interesting and interested people, it was a pleasure to even have a short time with them.

After visiting Cheerful Jen and Lovely Molly, I saw that my friends and their boyfriends (good, wonderful men they are too) are on good and interesting paths. Nice apartments, good musicians, gourmet cooks: hospitable and generous and “grown-up.” This makes me proud to know them. And underlines how I am this rootless tumbleweed, and now without my own wonderful boy. My itinerant lifestyle I relish but seeing their lives makes me realize this comes at a price.

(anyway)

Mr. India and I have indeed arrived safely in upstate NY. We finished Chicago with expensive gourmet donuts (have to do something neighborhood yuppie in a trendy city like that--and they were worth it!) and padded around the free (brilliant notion) Chicago zoo. We spend the next night in Cleveland OH, gawking at the graveyard feel of the place. Wide roads lined with brick factories, all empty and boarded up, clear streets. The sun was setting golden through this skeletal city, and it highlighted the sad abandonment there but also gloried the greatness outside of humans: light, trees, sky, Time. Only a quarter of the population remains, compared with Cleveland's booming time.

A facebook connection had seen my call for hosts, and put me in touch with two recently-graduated Allegheny college students who had a house in Cleveland. I didn't remember them by name (they were freshman when I was senior-ing) but in their email they said they remembered me, "you were a god to us in those days."

But when we showed up on their porch with our bags, I did recognize their faces. They had prepared dinner for us; I was touched by their generosity. We sat on the floor on a mat (simple living does not require a dining room table) and munched salad and fresh bread with zatar, and reminisced about Allegheny. What made me completely gleeful and proud was to hear that the Food Rescue Project I had started (originally me biking downtown balancing brownies to the women's shelter, because I hated that they'd throw them out after that meeting) was something of quite an official thing now, and regularly collected leftovers from the dining halls and had groups of volunteers.

Our last day we drove through Ohio, Pennsylvania, and finally into upstate NY.  Final destination. The arrival was absolutely strange. All my other arrivals "home", "back east", have been the abrupt phase change of stepping off a plane. Flipping a switch between the New Life Elsewhere and the Old Familiar of my home place. But driving is so much more of a connection, I was actually surprised to find myself in upstate NY, that it was connected to Idaho and Seattle.

We'd had a magnificent trip, blessed by the generosity of friends and strangers, and knowing this was the last of our time with each other, bittersweet in its most concentrated sense. What a beautiful and dramatic way to end ourselves, though, by seeing a giant and diverse land together. We drove probably 44 hours, but never once did I feel bored or dread the driving, because he was with me. Mr. India is that good of company this way...a relaxing presence, and curious and observant. We often amused ourselves by discussing soil and water processes, now able to notice things in the land thanks to our recent studies. ("Have Soil Science degree. Will travel.")

If only we always could live like we're about to lose the one we love: there is so much presence and appreciation and respect and celebration. Living to the fullest when you know soon grieving and deprivation are coming.

Dropping him at the airport, to leave me, to go to his own life now, was the hardest goodbye I've ever had; seeing him there with his bags under the Departures awning I felt ill in my stomach and sick to my soul. But having known him, and stealing him for a little time, was absolutely precious and one of my greatest blessings.

Iowa to Chicago

Iowa was John Deeres and wide fields. But in other ways, Iowa felt much like upstate NY (minus the wineries); we were driving on county routes, slowing down to 35 mph for 2 minutes to pass through a small towns.

If anyone was reading my blog back in 2010, you might remember Cheerful Jen. We worked at Rodale together, biked together, laughed much, and both had “–man” last names. Cheerful Jen and her boyfriend, Guitar Paul, hosted us in their Ames Iowa apartment for our Iowa Contingent. These two have bicycled across the united states! Absolutely inspiring, generous, GOOD people. Ames Iowa holds the nation’s first land-grant university (**see footnote), and we explored the charming mid-western/college town on bicycles. Then that evening we relaxed in the apartment: four young people, records on the stereo, a little good beer, food of kale chips and chickpea curry. Talking about the chemistry of coffee, about Jen’s and my sustainable agriculture graduate research, about bicycling stories.

(**Footnote: Ames also had a food co-op, which was a distinct treat to buy some dried apricots and hummus. In Wall, South Dakota—home of the profusely advertised Wall Drug store—unwilling to pay the pumped-up tourist prices for Wall Drug tourist food, we drove the few blocks to the truly authentic grocery store, a dimly lit Sure Save affair. Mr. India asked Mrs. Cashier if they had hummus. She looked at us like we were from Mars or Seattle or something, and said she didn’t know what that was. It probably didn’t help that dear Mr. India calls hummus “Who-Moose,” though.)

I was so taken by Guitar Paul’s music—he played just for us there, living room setting—that I wanted to buy a CD from him (check him out: “Paul Doffing”). I handed him money but he said I must take it as a gift; I insisted I must pay. Cheerful Jen suddenly appeared over us: “A mid-west Nice Off!” she exclaimed, “I shall moderate!”  (we finally bartered ourselves that I would take 2 for the price of 1)

Then we drove to Chicago.

What a distinct difference to be amongst so many tally-tall buildings, after paddling across all that ocean of Montana and expansive South Dakota. And the only cities we’d been through were, erm, rather squat in the building department. Coming into Chicago was like diving into a corral reef ocean all stimulating and full of structures. Or someone’s darkened study den, lined on the walls with hundreds of books. Overwhelming all the potentials. So many cafes! So many little corner bars! And pizza places!

In Chicago, Mr. India noticed the differences in driving. More rushing and diving cars. A slurry of tail-lights and crawling traffic, the extra impatient ones dipping and weaving in and out. It is hard sometimes for me, as a native, to see freshly, but traveling with Mr. India brings perspective. “There is a tram!” he says enthusiastically! And: “Look at all those graves!” And also, in the traffic, “That truck is not letting him in. Cruel. Drivers are cruel here.” And also simply: “Look at this….crazy!”

I was very excited to be in a city again. I felt in me that old Seattle zing, being on a bicycle, exploring new streets. The few hours we spent in Chicago that evening were precious to me: bicycling with Mr. India, having rich coffee under a tram station, riding along the lake bike path and gawking at the buildings, feeling poor in the shmancy Michigan Ave shopping street, admiring the refined brick townhouses, and finally finding a wee, delicious, affordable Thai restaurant.

South Dakota: caves, wind, generosity.

The parking lot at Jewel Caves was nearly barren, but we parked our rig, bought tickets for a tour, and elevatored down into the chambers. Jewel Caves is a huge complex of caves underneath miles of the Black Hills in South Dakota. Our tour guide explained that exploration is still on-going: cavers are still pushing through openings barely wide enough for shoulders, to find huge caverns. We padded through the cool stillness, admiring the crystal formations, the walls all like huge broccoli florets, stalagmites and stalactites too. Some rooms with walls like the under-frills of a mushroom. Mr. India pointed out a yellowy-brown formation in smooth clumps: “this is like seals sitting on top of one another.” At one point the tour guide turned off all lights and we were in absolutely pure darkness. You could not tell if your eyelids were open or closed. We do not find darkness like this in the everyday, and it was stunning.

Jewel Cave, Devil’s Tower, the Black Hills, Custer State Park, the Badlands….in the west the earth has so much going on. We took our time there, hiking through the pines and clambering over Badland’s formations, deciding to put the pedal to the medal in the flatness and population of Indiana and Ohio et al.

After a day of caving and mountaining, we stop in Rapid City for dinner. The place is so windy, exhaustingly windy; even locals are complaining. Get this: I was so wearied by the wind, knocking the breath from my chest, grabbing my scarf, that rather than walk the 5 blocks from the coffee shop to the co-op I gave in and drove us there. Those of you who know me and my car opinions, that should be obsoletely telling.

The exciting spontaneity of the logistics of this trip. Where you don’t know, and you wonder, and then suddenly emails come in and you have offers of places to stay. A request to three people in South Dakota late at night through the warmshowers bicycle host network returned two resounding responses, “yes come stay!” so rapidly within just a few hours. Makes you wonder if they get many guests in South Dakota…..

We stayed in Mitchell South Dakota, small prairie town, but home to the Corn Palace. A stadium building decorated on the outside with murals made entirely of corn. Blue corn, red corn, all variations of yellow corn…and the husks and tassels too. I’d been here at the age of 14 with my parents, and remembered how intrigued my Dad was by the western-ness of a building decorated in corn. The rest of the town was western-style shop fronts, a diner, a saloon, souvenir shops, and was almost entirely sleeping.

Mr. Mitchell, one of the bicycle-network members who’d been so enthusiastic to host us, came to meet us outside and warmly welcomed us into his apartment. Mr. Mitchell had worked for many years as a stock-broker and now was working part-time for United Way, in addition to campaigning for the South Dakota state senate house as a Republican. Oh the people we meet on journeys!

Then there was a confluence of Oh My Gosh Small World, because, conversing along in that getting-to-know-you-way, we learned he had sold stock for Xerox years ago (my parents work there!). And get this: in his travels he had visited the very same town in India in which Mr. Anurag had grown up. That was just stunning.

I was blown away by his generosity: he gave us his bedroom and stayed himself in the living room (even after we protested his kindness) and whisked us off to dinner at Ruby Tuesday in his white Lincoln SUV. Much cleaner and emptier than my Subaru, I can say that much. He even invited his friend to join us for dinner, both of them retired stock people, and we had a refined and engaging conversation over South Dakota sized plates of food.

((We’ve been driving down south over Iowa as I write this. It has been a long drive. Says Anurag just now: “I feel like when I reach there, I will lose my butt.”  I agree. ))