Love, dirt, being of use, and why I wish “intuitive working” were possible

My friend Bethany recently wrote a beautiful meditation on transitions, rituals, and love. She argues that, contrary to our mainstream cultural narratives, graduation is not the only time when we can embark on new journeys and adventures, nor is marriage the only valid expression of love.

To illustrate of the many ways that people can express their love for each other and the world, she describes her current job on a farm:

Farming is teaching me more about patience and cycles and transitions than anything I may have ever done before. I see, almost daily, how the labor of my body—led by the love in my heart for the world and my place therein—interacts with the plants in the ground. On Friday, I pounded tomato stakes, hoed potatoes, weeded chard, broccoli and kale, helped uncover beds and beds of cabbage, ate the fruits of last year’s harvest for lunch with the farm team, hoed squash and cucumbers and basil, hand weeded dill, listened to the plans made for the coming weeks, and cleaned the tools at the end of the day.

When I read this, I could barely keep from crying.

This is the work I want, achingly, to be doing.

I know my body feels best when I’m moving around. I know my mind feels best when I’m engaged in meaningful work, work with tangible results. I want, as Marge Piercy puts it (in the title of a poem that I saw on the subway on my way to my office job), to be of use:

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

#FatshionFebruary, day 14: love and tutus

Valentine’s Day was really, really hard. Not for the typical reasons that people struggle with the holiday (and that I’ve dealt with in the past), but because it was my surprise! last day of work. Yes, it was shitty timing to have my last day on a holiday that’s supposed to be all about love, flowers, chocolate, and wearing pink.

But it was also a day full of love: both the traditional romantic kind, and the kind I got from my coworkers. I can’t even write this post without crying, because they’re wonderful and I miss them.

Top: Old Navy, tutu and socks (and possibly headband?): Target, leggings: American Apparel, shoes: Naot (I wore sneakers to work, but changed for my outfit pics), necklace: So Good, earrings: Betsey Johnson via eBay

“Our activism is a series of acts of love”: more thoughts on #EnergyExodus

With my carpool buddies Eli, Dorian, Nikki, and Dan

A theme that came up over and over again at Monday’s rally was love.

It came from Turner Bledsoe, a 79-year old who had walked the entire 70 miles of the march. He said, “It’s a march of love–love and concern. I want your lives to be as good as mine was.”

It came from Ben Thompson, a student activist who is taking time off from grad school to pursue climate justice full-time. He said, “Our activism is a series of acts of love.”

It came from the dancing, the music, the blisters on the feet of everyone who walked for six days straight.

It came from the fervent, shared hope for a better world.

A world in which, as Ben said, no one would have to die so that others can have meaningful work. A world in which no one would have to die so that a mother can turn on a light to read to her child.

Building the bridge from our world to that world is doing to take strength we can barely imagine.

We can only do it with love.

We will rise up.