The Important Things

The air has had a nasty bitter bite and the wind has lashed all day long, making the sharp, hibernal air feel like a blade scratching the skin. It was actually physically painful to feel the air on your skin today. A truly New England day was on display at it’s best, minus the proper amount of snow. The lack of snow in a region that once had strong winters full of snow, is alarming. I think it was our first or second year here at Wildflower, we were snowed in couldn’t even go out the back door. We could see it piled up against the window of the said door where to measure it was up to the bottom of my rib cage. The world is changing… Sometimes I wonder if the changes I am seeing are for the best. Especially when I look not just at the climate but at the large scale direction things seem to be moving in culturally… I have started looking at the small stuff lately though. Much more so than I used to. Because in all honesty that is where we build our lives. On the shoulders of the giants that came before us. I find joy in the small and sentimental. I think that is a homesteader trait. I suspect most of us find joy in the small sentimentalities of life.

My dad stopped in with his dog and friend today. They were having trouble getting their miniature poodle to potty. Usually coming out here, walking around the farm gets him going. So they brought him to visit. They also brought something else. A treasure that I hadn’t seen in more years than I can count. An old afghan quilt, that was always in the living room when I was little. It was one of the blankets I curled up in when I got sick, I hid under it when movies got too scary, I covered myself on the sofa during harsh New England winter nights. I knew it was handmade. But I don’t think I ever knew who made it. Or if I had somehow by today, while I remembered the blanket well I did not remember who made it. I remember too when it began to fray and got set aside somewhere with all the other broken things, where it went into disuse, until today… When it arrived here at the farm, repaired like new. I was so happy to see it. Some of my most peaceful comfortable moments were with that blanket. Dad, brought it for me, it was handmade for him by his grandmother Ann, in the 1960s. Which makes this quilt…. Over 50 years old, and handmade by my grate grandmother, an immigrant from Slovakia, who married a man from Hungary, and produced among others my grandmother who married Grandpa, a somewhat stuffy guy who could count his own heritage back to I do believe the may flower. They had four children of their own. Three boys the youngest being my dad, and one girl even younger than my dad.

What I have gathered over the years, is that my grandmother was very busy dabbling in politics and different kinds of generous endeavors to try to help people. The stories I could tell about her. She was a very good person and a very difficult person… She was also very busy when my dad was young. I think it was his grandmother who was usually there when they came home from school. My dad was to my understanding close to her. I know she loved him. I can see it in every stitch of the afghan she made him. To put in that much time and effort and detailed labor… It is such a statement of devotion.

When I was very small I knew my great grandmother. We called her Bema, not sure I am spelling it right. Not sure where the name comes from. I assume it must come from some Slovakian or even Hungarian word for old ma, or greater ma, as is the common direct translation of many European words for Grandma, or even Great Grandma. The other possibility is that it is merely some abbreviated name or nickname that her grand kids created for her. If anyone knows anything about this term Bee-ma as it is pronounced, I would love to hear from you! When I was very little Bema, used to spend her days in a rocking chair. I don’t know how old she was. Possibly older than the Rockies. She didn’t speak by that point. I am not sure how much was still going on upstairs… But, I do remember her white rocking chair and being placed in her lap all the time when I would see her. I also remember her response to me was unlike her response to any of the other children in the family. I suspect probably because at that age, I looked very much like my grandmother when she was young. Bema, used to sit in her rocker and smile. It was one of the rare signs of meaningful life she still gave out at that point…. She passed long ago now.

It seems lately everyone is concerned with the ending point. Or maybe it just feels that way to me because most of the people I have always been closest to are so much older than I am. I am close to very few people my own age and even fewer who are younger…. I suspect that has to do with growing up in a commune full of adults. Some of whom, I maintain a relationship with even into the current day. But they too are more my parent’s age than mine. So it is beginning to feel like lately, everyone is planning for a world that won’t include them. Which quite honestly is hellish to think about. But because of this fact, many old and wonderful things seem to be getting passed on. Things like this beautiful quilt Bema/Ann, made my dad back in the 1960s. It now hangs proudly over the back of my sofa. Every time I look at it, I am reminded of what I come from and the care woven into my new old handmade blanket. The only down side is the reason things are being handed down…. And it isn’t just my dad.

Some wonderful old friends have noticed my accidental Christmas decor Santa collection. They have been bringing me some of their old Santas. I am the closest thing to a child that they have. So once again it seems these gifts that hold so much happiness an joy and love get passed on to me. I look forward to displaying them every Christmas until it is my turn to pass them on as well.

When my parents obtained their dream home in their dream town after many years sharing a house with twenty five other people, raising two children in such a communal environment, my mom bought this bowl. It was a symbol of achievement, of a new beginning of the life she planned to have in this dazzling space she could finally call home. The one she and I began planning for and swearing we would have back when I was four driving home from nursery school, in the old blue grey car. It was our five year plan she said. I am pretty sure, four plus five is not thirteen. I do believe it is nine. But, my math skills are rot, so until I can ask Dr. Farmer Moomin, the physicist to check my math we call thirteen the result of four plus five. So her five year plan came to fruition in exactly five years! The joke was kind of on me though. My only reference for the country was Drumlin Farm. A place we used to go regularly on the weekends to see the animals. It is where the farm bug bit me. I thought, by country, she meant a place like Drumlin. Nope. We had very different views of country. Mine was a farm and hers was an elitist suburb with a big house and an acre of land. She poured all her hopes and dreams she had been carrying for those so called five years into her special bowl. Her symbol of a better life. Since I was a teenager I have been watching her eat salad from this bowl. It has always been in the kitchen. Like the Afghan quilt, it was part of the static of my teens. Sometimes, I think she poured so much into that bowl that the future didn’t have anything left to build itself with. The big dreams were all in the bowl and reality struck our real lives. Some dreams sadly can’t last because too much of them have been poured into a symbol. So, imagine my surprise unwrapping that symbol and the beautiful card and explanation that came with it Christmas morning… What a gift to give to someone else. Every hope and dream for the future that you ever had. It is humbling, heartbreaking, and joy inducing to receive gifts like this bowl. I know I am getting them because they can not be taken into the after life. But out of all the people on the planet as a possible recipient, to have these things come to me, is so unbelievably moving and meaningful.

I don’t have a fancy dining room here at Wildflower, I have kind of an eat in kitchen that is open to most of the other areas of the downstairs floor. It really is literally the heart of the home, sitting right in front of the massive hearth. Some years ago, Dr. Farmer Moomin, and I saw a tv show called Homestead Rescue. We saw this guy in a cowboy hat cutting down trees. We had some trees that were annoying us. So after watching the demonstration, we decided to give it a go. He wielded the chainsaw and I cheered from the sideline. It was our first meaningful and major act together on shaping our farm structurally to meet our needs as homesteaders. It was a hugely significant moment for us as a homestead partnership. Later, unbeknownst to me he spirited a chunk of the wood from our first tree away, down to the cellar. He turned it into a little candelabra. He gave it to me as a gift and I display it proudly. I love it. We are not very big on gift giving and big displays most of the time. So when he gives me something like this from such a critical moment in our development together and that of our farm, it is incredibly special and it is dearly loved.

These are some of my most important treasures here at Wildflower. I hear so often about the wealth gap… Which is a very real and unfortunate thing. Something needs to be done to prevent people from sinking too far. But there is another kind of wealth. One built on a foundation of every day needs being met for salad, for warmth, and for light. There is so much more value in objects of deep meaning, and in our connections to each other. A dollar bill has never loved anyone. But I can feel the love emanating from every one of these objects. We must never lose sight while we fight for equity and fairness of the little things. The things that brighten our world and hold the most value as they re-enforce our connections and ties to one another. So call me sentimental. I will call me… Gifted and so very lucky to be the recipient of so much care and love. That is where true wealth lies. That is where true beauty lies. That is where all that matters lives. I am grateful. In a world that isn’t perfect in which people struggle at times myself included. I am the recipient of so much care. I wish everyone could know how much more value this is than the value we attach to money. The world may be broken. It may be unfair. But, so are we, when we discount the little things that contain so much more value than meets the eye.

Tonight, I feel so lucky.
In a messed up world, I am cared for.
What a wonderful thing.
May we all be so lucky.
Thank you for reading
Amanda Of Wildflower Farm