Vortex

Nathan is away this week in San Diego, so it’s Racey here in the driver’s seat. He is participating in a three-day retreat with his cohort of somatic mind-body coaches as they wrap up their training. His graceful transition from pain to coach over the last 18 months is leading to life transitions for our farm and our family.

This week marks a transition for me, back into farming. I traveled to DC last week to launch a project I’ve been working on for the last three years for Catholic Relief Services and to decide if I want more farming in my life in 2023. Less off-farm work leaves an income gap for our family, one we plan for the farm to fill as it expands.

I tend to make decisions with my gut, and am an external processor. In DC, I met with colleagues, thanked them for the offer of more humanitarian work on the global food crisis and said, “I think I’m going to work more on the farm instead”. Sharing my desire to return to farming with an old college buddy, my aunt, new and old friends left me off-balance, but smiling. Like when, as a kid, I learned I was going to sleepover camp for the first time, or that I had a solo in our Jazz Band concert. Excited, but swirling with nerves.

Through my own somatic coaching I’ve realized that transitions are challenging for me. My brain goes off-line. I can’t remember what I just did an hour ago and can’t remember what I need to do next. When my brain comes back online, it rages with frustration and impatience. I forget and fumble and swear. My breath is shallow, heartbeat rapid.

An in-breath of snot-freezing air reminds me to notice what is also here in the swirling transitional, single-parent, polar vortex. Lakeside School is a joy for our kids. Adam Reed from Tangleroot checked in yesterday when the power was out to see how we were. My Dad helped me see all the things we had under control as the cold neared. Chad and Gwen helped me troubleshoot an over-hot woodstove, and a frozen water hydrant. Our friend Cara and her son Rye, who live in our basement apartment, are here, holding this space of life with me. The pigs are fat, happy and out of the wind.