On Monday I volunteered at an event full of farmers, for an organization that is focused on protecting threatened farmland and sustainable farming practices. This is a thing I am interested in anyway, and since I am also interested in eating delicious food made by famous chefs and trying things I wouldn't normally do, these sorts of events are made for me. It's lucky for me that I know so many people who are committed to the realization of interesting ideas, and who are open to letting me help out sometimes. I like being helpful.
In any case, during dessert there was a panel that involved some farmers and a chef and their collaborators, and it struck me that the narrative behind how all of them got to this place was simply that one day they realized that strangers were making their essential decisions for them, and the only way to be sure of what they were putting in their bodies was to make it themselves, to create a network of people all working toward the same goal. And now that they have done all of this work, the question has become who will take it on next. How do we ensure that there will be new farmers ready when the old ones retire?
I spend a lot of time thinking about all of the things we are building, our webs and bridges and our vast empty spaces. What goes away, and how and where. It's good for me to be reminded sometimes that while I am thinking about these things like they were a TS Eliot poem there are people out there actually working on it, quietly burying their hands in the dirt and securing everything that is to come.
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