Some fragmented thoughts on visiting a city where I once lived, change, a garden's durability, and a remarkable story about the aftermath of September 11th
My home soil doesn't grow much. Tumbleweeds and mesquite and long, tough grass. It's a land of resilience and hard, dry, lifeless dirt. The kind that blows around and gets in your ears and eyes and lungs. The soil turned deadly in the Dust Bowl, my family among them, and it was a place of emptiness for me too. Grateful for what it taught me, but I've also dug up those roots to carry them with me across the country, never stopping for too long because I haven't found a safe place to plant them.
The story of my soil is the story of Plainsong Farm. If I hadn't been raised with a lush green lawn in the middle of a Las Vegas desert, I wouldn't have had so many questions about how humans can more wisely live on earth. If I hadn't had so many questions about how humans can more wisely live on earth, I wouldn't have become a Christian. If I hadn't become a Christian, I wouldn't have moved to Michigan, wouldn't have started Plainsong, and wouldn't be the person I am. It's amazing how much power that one out of place lawn had in my life.
I love this Jeff - and the question regarding the makeup of our soil.
When I first typed that word, my finger hit “u” instead of the “I” and I thought to myself, “yes, that too- what is the makeup up my soil and my soul ?”
One of the things I’ve noticed as I’ve aged is the need to find out where I came from…yes, I know that my ancestry is northern, really Northern European, but what’s captured my insides the most has been reading the many stories about the ancestors I have found. So many of them were people of strong faith and stronger principle.
It makes me wonder what part of them I might carry? What tiny particles do I carry forward? Did I get any of those noble genes? Or the loving ones?
My ancestral roots come from Ireland, a place that has suffered defeat and famine throughout its history. Irish people are very tied to the soil for their identity as well as livelihood. Perhaps that's why my American ancestors were all farmers until my father was called into ministry. I grew up in the Baptist "soil" also but have gone through my own transplanting. Also, grateful. He never lost his farmer's heart though. We lived in rural Wisconsin where we had a big garden that fed us year round (It helped supplement the meager salary of a country church) I now live in the Northwest where I've found progressive, embracing soil that nurtures me. Grateful for all the soils of my life!
This line took my breath away: "And then there’s the posture I’m hoping for and hoping in—a candid openheartedness that is rooted in an enduring and discerning softness that can yield to what’s worthy and resist what’s not and fulfilled in a resilient and true flexibility that means we can bend without breaking."
I'm leaving my home soil here on Long Island, which has nurished one branch of my family since the 1790s (and Queens, which was my home for a decade, until the pandemic upended all my careful plans) and moving next month to Canada to join my wife, finally, so I've been thinking a lot lately about a Colson Whitehead essay I read in the NY Times a few weeks after 9/11, which I printed out from the website and toted around in hard copy until that fell apart. Now it lives in my browser bookmarks. The line that I lean on the most? "You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now." So, I guess, I am carrying the soil of that time and place away with me. I already miss it and I haven't even gone yet. Don't get me wrong - I can't wait to get north and see my wife for the first time in 20 (yes, 20) months. But finding room to pack up the New York in my heart and my head turns out to be harder than packing my clothes and books and yarn. I guess I should have seen that coming.
I am from libraries
From blueberries and sugar
I am from the fifteen homes in the same number of years
Changing views and warm-breath furnaces
I am from spruce tree needles
Scattered on a soft forest floor where I play
I am from silence and new schools
Often the smallest and always the newest
I’m from innuendo and assumption
And “take care of your brother” or “that’s private”
From my friend’s mother Margaret who shared warm hugs
And from Peg who listened and taught me to bake bread and sew
I’m from lapsed Catholics, suspicious of faith
From Narnia and church services alone at thirteen
I’m from Montreal and hopeful Winnipeg immigrants
Pyrogies and halvah treats
From a family that didn’t tell it’s stories to the children
Did they think we didn’t want to know?
History lost in a generation
Mementos donated to thrift stores
My family story feels like it starts with me
My home soil doesn't grow much. Tumbleweeds and mesquite and long, tough grass. It's a land of resilience and hard, dry, lifeless dirt. The kind that blows around and gets in your ears and eyes and lungs. The soil turned deadly in the Dust Bowl, my family among them, and it was a place of emptiness for me too. Grateful for what it taught me, but I've also dug up those roots to carry them with me across the country, never stopping for too long because I haven't found a safe place to plant them.
The story of my soil is the story of Plainsong Farm. If I hadn't been raised with a lush green lawn in the middle of a Las Vegas desert, I wouldn't have had so many questions about how humans can more wisely live on earth. If I hadn't had so many questions about how humans can more wisely live on earth, I wouldn't have become a Christian. If I hadn't become a Christian, I wouldn't have moved to Michigan, wouldn't have started Plainsong, and wouldn't be the person I am. It's amazing how much power that one out of place lawn had in my life.
I read this while waiting for a train in Penn Station, which felt just right. Thank you.
I love this Jeff - and the question regarding the makeup of our soil.
When I first typed that word, my finger hit “u” instead of the “I” and I thought to myself, “yes, that too- what is the makeup up my soil and my soul ?”
One of the things I’ve noticed as I’ve aged is the need to find out where I came from…yes, I know that my ancestry is northern, really Northern European, but what’s captured my insides the most has been reading the many stories about the ancestors I have found. So many of them were people of strong faith and stronger principle.
It makes me wonder what part of them I might carry? What tiny particles do I carry forward? Did I get any of those noble genes? Or the loving ones?
My ancestral roots come from Ireland, a place that has suffered defeat and famine throughout its history. Irish people are very tied to the soil for their identity as well as livelihood. Perhaps that's why my American ancestors were all farmers until my father was called into ministry. I grew up in the Baptist "soil" also but have gone through my own transplanting. Also, grateful. He never lost his farmer's heart though. We lived in rural Wisconsin where we had a big garden that fed us year round (It helped supplement the meager salary of a country church) I now live in the Northwest where I've found progressive, embracing soil that nurtures me. Grateful for all the soils of my life!
This line took my breath away: "And then there’s the posture I’m hoping for and hoping in—a candid openheartedness that is rooted in an enduring and discerning softness that can yield to what’s worthy and resist what’s not and fulfilled in a resilient and true flexibility that means we can bend without breaking."
Great writing and appreciate the thoughts and questions. Thanks for sharing your insights to help us make our own.
I'm leaving my home soil here on Long Island, which has nurished one branch of my family since the 1790s (and Queens, which was my home for a decade, until the pandemic upended all my careful plans) and moving next month to Canada to join my wife, finally, so I've been thinking a lot lately about a Colson Whitehead essay I read in the NY Times a few weeks after 9/11, which I printed out from the website and toted around in hard copy until that fell apart. Now it lives in my browser bookmarks. The line that I lean on the most? "You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now." So, I guess, I am carrying the soil of that time and place away with me. I already miss it and I haven't even gone yet. Don't get me wrong - I can't wait to get north and see my wife for the first time in 20 (yes, 20) months. But finding room to pack up the New York in my heart and my head turns out to be harder than packing my clothes and books and yarn. I guess I should have seen that coming.
Anyway. It's a glorious essay, and you can find it here: https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/11/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-11-11-01-lost-and-found.html