Kathy

My name is Kathy and although you won’t see photos of me on the website, at least not yet, I live and work at the farm. This post is a story and a thank you more than an introduction . . .

It is 11 p.m. and I am alone. My legs are buried in a sleeping bag on the floor of a small room, its green carpet and dark wood paneling the residue of a renovation 30 years old now. The hot water that heats this strange old house gurgles and pops in the registers when the furnace kicks on. It’s comforting to hear the trickle of warm water make its way through the house.

I am alone–but not alone. I just went to the kitchen to get a drink and the detritus of Andy’s sourdough making is spread across the counters. I know there is a toy car hiding in the gap between the stove and the counter, a car Breece in his sing songy two year old voice was telling me about yesterday. I can see a light on through the cracks in the floor on my way back to my room — Doug must still be up working on the bathroom in the basement. Every once in a while I hear the sound of Katie’s cough drift down the stairwell.

I am most definitely not alone. I am sandwiched between two amazing families. There are ten of us in this house. We are incredibly different from one another as humans generally are. But we are here, trying to be present to one another and to this place. We desire to care for each other and for this land. And for the people who share the fruits of our labor.

I have not slept more than ten nights in the same bed or on the same couch since mid-September. I have been in motion since April when my husband asked for us to be separated and I left our home on Vine Street. I spent the first month with my parents, May with a precious friend in Washington, June at home in Papua New Guinea, July to September with another precious friend in South Africa and then I made my way back to Ohio, to the farm. In the midst of all that my husband told me he wanted to be released from his vows. And since you can’t hold someone in a relationship he doesn’t want to be in . . .

On my way to the farm, I stopped in Cincinnati to speak with my husband’s parents, clearing up loose ends, asking for forgiveness where I felt that was needed. I want to have clean hands and a clean heart when I make it through all this.

I made steady if circuitous emotional and spiritual progress until Thanksgiving. My husband’s birthday is November 22nd and I had been preparing myself to make it through that and Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, followed by my birthday in January. I opted to stay alone at the farm for Thanksgiving. I was feeling scattered, finally, by my months of travel and just wanted to stay put. And after all, someone needed to feed the animals.

Something broke inside me on Thanksgiving day. It’s funny how monstrous things can be happening inside of us and we walk around and brush our teeth and make pancakes and feed chickens and no one knows that what is happening in our heads is deathly serious. And funny how God interrupts. A Patterson great grand child came running over to me as I came back from feeding the hens and collecting eggs to say that Grandma Patterson wanted me to join the family for Thanksgiving dinner. I felt overwhelmed by kindness. The Patterson family gathers at this, their home place, at most several times a year and at the least for Thanksgiving. The family spends time together, plays cards, the men hunt. The family has strong ties to this place and to the matriarch of it. I felt honored that Grandma (if I may call her that) asked me to join them.

I’m an introvert and a year ago I would have characterized myself as needing more time alone than the average person to keep my head in a good place. But I haven’t been in normal circumstances for months now. I have, in fact, had very little time alone since April. And in the past had I been invited to spend time in a room full of strangers with nothing to do but talk I would have either refused the invitation or found the nearest door and tried to make an unobtrusive exit after an obligatory and brief time period. But I’ve changed thanks to a lot of hard work in the last nine months and the Patterson family somehow made me feel welcome without making me the center of attention.

And I needed to be made welcome that day. I needed to be pulled out of the dangerous place I was moving towards.

I am slowing learning to walk in the dark. For there are some things that can only be learned when the moon is hiding her face and the stars in their millions whisper to a person who happens to be standing in the stubble of a harvested soybean field. I am learning to walk through my fears instead of cowering or pretending they aren’t there. “Who would stick around to wrestle a dark angel all night long if there were any chance of escape? The only answer I can think of is this: someone in deep need of blessing; someone willing to limp forever for the blessing that follows the wound” (Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor). With these friends and this good work to do I will keep walking.

Next Post: Garden starts and more about what I spend my time on the farm doing.