Nothing is All on Sundays

June is over. Many thoughts, no writings whatsoever. End of Fall, but thankfully we haven't had cold and dark days. It's been a year since my father passed away. Like the days that precede Easter, I can't express my feelings into words, remaining in a contemplation mode. Today is a beautiful Sunday. Perfect sunny day, the most pleasant temperature, no wind, no dust, no flies. And also silence on the farm. I had built a "nethouse" for my vegetable garden, but the veggies seem not wanting to grow. We had a long drought, a few days of very heavy rain, and no cooler days. The great advantage of placing a net all over is the absence of white butterflies and other flying critters. I was just not prepared for what came under the earth - ants. The hardest one to kill using natural methods. I remember the year I arrived at the farm how bountiful we had. Vegetation was lush, wild cucumbers and other goodies grew abundantly, trees were carried with juicy fruits, and best of all, I had a great vegetable garden cultivated with a minimum of knowledge. This year, the poncan orange tree shriveled, the lychee tree got some kind of new bacteria, no cashews, no mangoes, and almost no avocado. The new fruit trees that I planted yielded sour or tasteless oranges. Except for the lime tree, everything else seems to have gone wrong. Can you believe that my smooth skin chayotes grew some tough spikes? I only collect the young ones, as the older ones can really hurt. I watched a TV rural program this morning. It said that the swine raising is having many losses and some towns have gone to emergency state. It is really hard to bear with all the heartbreaking that farming brings. It doesn't depend solely on hard work, but on the weather, the international market, the world economy, and everything else. I still don't know what I should do in case my chicken coop tenant decides to leave, or if my mother's pension stops. I greatly depend on these two for a steady income and family survival. As I have told you before, my farm is almost all rented out, and I have kept a part of it for my orchard and garden. I don't even have animals such as pigs, cows, goats, sheep, or chickens. In truth, I can't have some of them because of my dogs, some other because of a lack of know-how, range-free chickens for the prohibition for having commercial egg farm on here. The only thing that I could have were pigs, but my daughter said that she loves spare ribs, bacon, sausage, loin so much that can't have them. So we continue having dogs only. The two cats that I had adopted got killed by our Border Collie mix. Sometimes I feel that I am not living a real farm life - of course not. I can't have the basic things such as farm animals. But I still love living on the farm. I wake up early and can breathe fresh air while sipping a cup of coffee, which was roasted and grounded by me. While the farm is not producing as much as I expected, the town is fun. On Sundays, there is a nice farmer's market on the main street, close to butcher shops, which we have many alongside with pharmacies. While the restaurants are poor in town, the butcher shops roast beef, pork, and chickens for our Sunday lunch. The cheapest and most popular item is the roasted chicken with potatoes. The meat falls apart, while the bones come out clean. Some chickens get seasoned mandioc flour or cornflour stuffing. That's a plus too. But to me, the real advantage of living on a farm has to do with Sundays which used to be very boring - the "nothing to do" day. Now I expect Sunday especially for being a "nothing to be done"day. I want all the silence it can offer. Like orthodox jews observe their Sabbath, I want my Sunday even motionless. No driving, no going out, no visitors, no phones, no decision to make. I just want to rest my head on a cushion and stare at nothing. Nothing is all on Sundays.

April 10th, 2011 - Resurrection

April 10th, 2011 - Resurrection The hot and humid days are slowing subsiding, making it more bearable to live here. I am thankful that even with days like those, the weather is still manageable. I can go outside every day. I started to run a few miles a day on an unpaved road near my farm. I never thought of this possibility – “to cross the border” of my farm. We always lived very secludedly within our property, never wandering around, or visiting neighbors. My mother wanted to keep us away from strange men’s eyes, and I am grateful for it. That´s my turn now to teach my daughter to protect herself. The road goes around the farm, for a few miles, up and down gentle hills, making it pleasant to ride a bicycle. At a certain point, I reach the rural paved road and have a view of a lake. The worst part is when I have to pass by a house with a mean dog. I try hard to look at the everyday blessings I have in my life. Running in the morning, already getting some sunshine, along with my five (of six) dogs, I go under pinus trees, some honeysuckle vine climbing off the cliff, extending my vision to green pasture taken by cows to the left, and coffee plantation to the right. I rarely see people, but when it does happen, I surely know them. Nothing else has changed much, except that I am no longer working on my vegetable garden. I have time now for running while my housecleaner works in the house. I have more time to spare, thinking, writing, reading, sleeping, and attending church several times a week. I am preparing myself to spend here another year, trying to accept the facts the way that they are; not with the intention to change it, but to surrender. But my biggest challenge so far is to change my way of thinking. I don’t let my thoughts run aimlessly anymore. I am vigilant, and gently, I redirect my mind to Jesus. All the other plans will come in second. I feel the need to overcome the cheap desires of my flesh, toughening my soul, but feeding my spirit. While everything looks frozen in my outward life, my inward life is bubbling with the restoration of my soul. I am very excited about my new spiritual journey after two years of drought. I am having my faith restored. When I can’t do anything else, when all the odds seem to be against me, that’s when God comes in. In very little ways, He has shown me that there is a way. A 68-year old widow told me she bought a tiny piece of land wanting to plant mandioc, yam, and corn. If she has a dream of seeing plants growing, knowing that she can’t eat it all, I do too take pleasure from the land. I start to think about selling a portion of the farm in order to raise some money, and then, fix up the house, and continue living here. This would cut out all the possibility of going back to America sometime soon. The longer I take to go back, the more difficult it will become. I have lots to think, but next week is the Resurrection day, all the meaning of why I still have hope. Remembering that I too can be resurrected, perhaps not in the way I imagine, but somehow, in a yet better way that only the perfect God can do.