A year since my last post, and again I find myself driving the tractor to Smith’s for diesel, though this time it’s not as warm, and I haven’t worn quite enough clothing but I also haven’t realized this until the calculation of whether to turn back and grab a jacket or just keep thrusting forward in a shiver tilts toward thrust and shiver. So that’s what I do, and at Smith’s I fill the tank fast as the pump will let me, and then turn back, no ice cream this time, none of that Ah, Spring, isn’t it glorious? bullshit, just a bone deep chill I know will take me at least 20 minutes to shake.
And then just before Johanna’s place a dog rushes into the road to greet me, and for a moment my heart races, I think he’s not going to turn in time, that I’m going to be knocking on someone’s door with sad and terrible news, but he does turn, and then I lose sight of him. I roll on, slower now, looking around for the dog but I can’t find him anywhere until I glance to my right and I see the shadows cast by the late day sun: Me, high on the tractor, and just behind, the dog, loping along, maybe five paces back. I watch our shadows for maybe the next 30 seconds, it’s like we’re painted on the land, and yet the land keeps moving beneath us, and for a few moments I lose all sense of my place in the world beyond the shadow puppets of tractor, self, dog. Then the dog turns back, having chased me off his territory, and that breaks the spell and now I’m just cold again. And eager for home.
The reason I haven’t written here in so long is that last June, my marriage came apart and I haven’t really wanted to talk about it. Or known how. And still don’t really want to. And still don’t really know how. It’s humbling to me, both the coming apart, and the lack of knowing, so I practice just sitting with it. Just being humbled.
Some days I’m good, somedays I’m not so good, but mostly, I’m ok. So much is different, and so much is the same. I live in the same town, on the same road, on a piece of land that was once part of the original whole. My sons are out west, lapping up big space and big skies and possibility like hungry cats. In the evenings, I work on clearing a little patch of forest to plant an orchard, and even though it still looks so rough – the raw, sap-oozing stumps, the newly revealed ground, the jumbled branches – in my mind’s eye I can already see it coming to life, taking a shape I can’t quite bring into focus, but which I allow myself to believe will be even more beautiful than I can possibly imagine.
I think I’m not really up for comments on this post, so I’ve turned them off for now. Thank you all for reading, it means so much.
Ben Hewitt 