One more month

I think after the first year in NYC, maybe after the second, we sort of knew we wouldn't be here forever. It's just never felt like home. You get that feeling about places, if you've moved alot. However, even then we loved the city, we new we were called to be here and so we stayed. We would stay for as long as we were supposed to, be it ten years or fifteen years... We would endure during the frustration and difficult times because we knew, we know, that this is the place for us during this season.

But now, this city girl's life is drawing to a close. And it is bittersweet, really. I mean, the grass is always greener and all that, but faced with the reality of going, I'm gonna miss the life I've come to enjoy in such a place as this. But, the pace that once energized now seems to drain. The never-sleep part of this city is no longer fun, but leaves me faint. Crowds and people and feeling apart of something larger than myself honestly scares me on days. It freaks me out to think that over 66,000 people live in each square mile of Manhattan- speaking over 800 languages. It's sort of like when I was eight years old or so, and tried to comprehend the concept of eternity. A breaker trips in my mind somewhere and my breathing becomes shallow. Things like this are not meant to be thought too much about.

I never thought when we did leave Manhattan that we'd be moving North, but that is exactly what we are doing. At least for eight months. Chris and I have accepted a farming apprenticeship thirty miles northeast of Albany at a farm in Valley Falls which is in Rensselaer County. There are farms everywhere in the surrounding counties. Old farms. Old farmers: some with new ways, some hanging on to methods of the past.

I will box up my 3" heels and pencil skirts sometime between March 15th and April 1st and put on my Hunter boots and overalls. (Ok, I have no overalls, and I just ordered my Hunter boots--- but I'll get some farm clothes or some of these city clothes will quickly become farm clothes.) At the farm Chris and I hope to learn all we can about an entire season of farming. From seedlings, to weeding, to harvesting and organic methods of getting rid of aphids. All this in the hopes of starting our own farm in the near future, perhaps somewhere in The South. This farm has a 200 member CSA and also sells produce weekly at a Farmers Market. Chris and I will be involved in all aspects of the day-to-day tasks around the farm. And we'll be living in the barn apartment.

The barn apartment is not as bad as it sounds, having seen pretty ridiculous living conditions in NYC. It's spacious. It's clean. It's fully furnished and FREE. We'll be working for our rent and a fair monthly stipend. All we need now is a pick-up truck or some reliable mode of transportation for putting around on our days off. And yes, we do get one day off a week! Plus all the beets, Swiss chard, kale, currants and potatoes we can eat. Farmer Thomas grows over 70 types of foods: sustainable, organic farming.

At the farm there are also donkeys, chickens, two big dogs (I'm preferential to Molly the mutt.), indoor and outdoor cats - who are all named after poets, (Oscar Wilde spent about an hour in my lap, so we're already friends), sometimes ducks, sometimes pigs, sometimes honey bees. We do realize that the lifestyle we will be living is in direct opposition to the life we now lead.

I will be doing manual labor in the sun for nine hours a day, not sitting on my rear end underneath florescent lighting. There will be no need for makeup or jewelry or hairspray or plucking my eyebrows. Life will be very, very different. But I know the air will be fresh and the sky will be vast and my skin will be clear. I'm looking at this as an eight month detox from city life- because that is what it is going to take me. Anxiety, fear, being pushed on all sides and rushed and crushed and feeling deflated. Yeah, I'm ready to leave!! But I realize it won't be a stress free vacation--- it's going to be hard demanding work.

Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.