Long morning full of thoughts

Before I started this season at this trial and demonstration farm I wondered how it would be, in my brain, to do labor from my body all day. I wondered which vegetables I would actually get to eat. I wondered if my bicycling and running would get tiredly set aside after 8 hours of moving around in the soil already.

Well. I learned that I still have a voracity for bicycling (and to a needing-motivation-extent: running) and could bomb off for a little jaunt even after a work day (this got easier as the season progressed: I learned activity can beget more activity, once one has accustomed to it). I also learned that Monday asserts itself as A Hungry Day, especially after a Sunday bicycling back from the city.

I found I got to eat all of it. And learned how it feels to have a bountiful endless supply of an astounding variety of vegetables--overwhelming and undeniably thrilling--and that I do not have nearly enough stomach or time for all the fennel, tomatoes, eggplant, garlic chives, thai basil, and sweetheart cabbage. And I learned what tronchuda and escarole are, and that white beets exist, and that there is a surprising variety in eggplant size and shape, and that red beets can be sliced in the field and applied as lipstick.

I am studying my brain while my body works. Some days I dribble off into a pool of blues or bluegrass from my headphones. Some days I figure yoga positions into my work (today I sat in legs-wide-open-pose to stretch some thighs while weeding some chard) or challenge myself to prune with my left hand.

When I first started I was in a walled-in grump place that I didn't have an output for creativity or analysis or writing in this temporary job.

Well: that's what being an organist is for, and writing, and discussing meristems with coworkers. Or simply working with one's hands and letting the brain paddle about on an ocean of thinking. Or not thinking.

Today I had thoughts: I didn't listen to more than an NPR podcast all day, and the good Lord knows I talked to nobody besides one four-leaf clover (and that was only in greeting), and I astounded myself that I got through the day in a pleasant and accepting mindset with no more stimulation than my dirt-working hands and my thought-stirring brain.

A long morning full of thoughts. And the cadence of that phrase brought me back to reciting a certain prayer during my short and shy tenure as a Catholic school girl.....

Long morning, full of thoughts
The sun is on thee
Ripped are thy arms among women, and
Blessed is the fruit of thy work, veggies
Long morning, full of thoughts
Bless you my future
Now and at the coming of the winter