Real Life

Done with farming, on to the next thing. Back to real life.

A WWOOFer (short-lived and almost entirely forgettable) took great exception to my characterization of the world outside the farm sphere as ‘real life.’ He took it to imply that I thought a farming lifestyle to be less valid or worthwhile.

To the contrary, I meant that farmlife, in its isolation from the tangled mess that characterizes the majority of urban lives, exhibits a superiority that feels unfair. Like cheating? But perfect.

I know I could extol the virtues of farms, farmers, farming at length, but I think for the most part I already have. It took me months to hand over this blog link to the farmers I work with for that very reason- poorly disguised beneath my pretentious prose were the glowing praises of everything around me. Embarrassed by my inner sentimentalist, I wanted to maintain my outwardly cynical persona (‘skeptical’ was the favored euphemism this season).

However, I hope I did not succeed. Farming this season was perfect not only for me, but in and of itself.

In part I am resigned to the real world, out of instinctive duty or otherwise. In a couple weeks, I will begin an internship with New Hampshire’s NPR member station. And while NPR represents in some ways the pinnacle of gritty reality, it also maintains a heightened level of idealism. Maybe then this is the best compromise: being where I can engage with a mediated reality, at least until the rusticity wears off.