"Farm" Teaches Me ~ Different Meaning Of A Word



The Barn In A Rare Rain

All of my life I have loved words.
They have given me knowledge, insight, skill(s), history, comfort, challenge, stability. I am one of the geeks who can't contain my joy when the new year of 'word for each day' calenders arrive each December! lol  I admit to being one of those who flips thru the dictionary and thesaurus as a recreational activity (yes, really).

I adore the dance of word & phrase, painting visuals with the colors of the alphabet, applied with the aid of pen, paper, typewriter, keyboard. Books written by others are old and trusted friends. Most found filled with notes I've added from each reading. Pages marked during each search for fact, truth or answers to the unanswerable.

Words.

Meanings.

Me.

The way it has ever and always been.

Then came the farm. Nature observed. Reality on steroids.
Not stock market and fashion, but rainfall and rain-fail.

In your face - it's up to you - kind-of-reality.

And initially, a new bevy of words. From tractor technical to crop cultivating. An immediate "need to know" new vocabulary. But with time, as I was receptive and ready the farm began to teach me the more subtle, intricate word meaning lessons...

Take the word brooding. 

PF (pre farm) I (and the world) assigned it a fairly singular undesirable meaning. Catagorized it as a negative word. Akin to moody, depressing, oppressive, even obsessive, dark, difficult.

 

But when the Farm began to speak of chickens - brooding chickens - the meaning altered remarkably.
Suddenly, magically, brooding/broody becomes about goals, dreams, future.  "Farm speak" brooding describing hens that are sitting on eggs in their nest. Things hoped for. Things yet to be.

I understand now that to 'brood' is also: to pay attention, to care for, to aspire to future outcome. Progress. Planning. Working, heart & soul (and feathers if you're a chicken, lol) towards creating your future. Day by week by month by aching back and cup of coffee thru storm and sun as you plan and sometimes as you do not plan.

The farm shows me the lessons of the broody hen. Dedication, tending and waiting with no guaranteed outcome. I may patiently brood my nest of egg-ideas-plans-dreams and have no chicks. Or I may have significant success. Or a mix of some success amid some loss. But there would be no success without the attempt without the brooding. I've learned (and continually re-learn) the efforts must be based on the goal, the dream, the hoped for future outcome. The effort can not be based on controlling the outcome, or any guarantee. The farm continues to help me grasp the truth that life is comprised of goals and gifts amid hard work (brooding). But not on guarantees. Never on guarantees. Life, like nature, is far too fluid for guarantees. Work hard and long with hope and anticipation ~ not with expectation, righteous demand ,entitlement or attempts at dictating outcome.
*Leave the attitude at the barn and farmhouse door*

The farm, teacher that she is continually expands her role in my life education.
Right down to the expanded meaning and life-application of
my beloved

words....

What cleverness and insight walks amid these fields and woods, barns and grain bins. One hundred and forty two years of the past, the present and the future pause while I observe and and learn these lessons from this farm.

Another excerpt from 'the book'  :-) copyright FIDF 2012If you'd like to know when the book becomes available contact me via the blog profile and I'll add your email to the notify list

So, where did we leave off....?!?

Ah yes, I had wandered off (in the literal and figurative sense) for much needed
muddling, mulling and mucking my way thru a great deal of non-life-threatening

but heart wrenching angst, longing for a sign of some sort or another....

The back story?
Short and sweet (or as sweetly as I'm able right now, lol)
is that for a very long time when my paint brush was still and my heart was open

and amid the moments the farm hasn't been a whirlwind of calamity, lol
I've poured my heart and thoughts, observations and reactions into a manuscript of our story.

The story she and I share. Of how this old farm and I saved each other.

She and I and a cast of many, many others. It's a simple, funny, somewhat (hopefully) insightful tale of how life will sometimes go miserably wrong thru no fault of your own.  Events beyond your control will leave you helpless - short of starting over & beginning a whole new life from the ground up. The series of kindnesses, heartaches, victories, and coincidences that occurred again and again. Each a piece of the story with so many surprises along the way.

A tiny little book that I never (ever) intended to be 'significant' although it mattered greatly to me. I think that for years it has been my therapy (as much as the farm itself), my journal, and my solace. I hoped that perhaps my little book would encourage or cheer or amuse a handful of other like minded souls. I thought some out there would be interested in what it was like to rehab a hopeless old farm. And barn. And tractor. Or maybe there were others that, like me, had their life-plan destroyed and left in need of a rebuild because of unbidden changes. On my more self-critical days I thought maybe someone would decide to read it just because they liked its odd title or the still-only-an-idea-in-my-mind book cover lol.  Best of all I was on track for sending it out into the world to share with others.

But a new footnote was added to the story when a couple of weeks back when I learned that a verbal commitment and a confirmation of intent do not a reliable commitment make....

As it was explained to me: the current dynamic shift in market & sales from print publications in favor of e-publishing (which we currently do not offer) has forced us to re-evaluate all pending & intended but non-contractual commitments (which was, of course, very much within their rights).  So within steps of the finish line, amid typing out the last chapter and edits, the door was closed. And how foolish of me not to have forseen this possibility. How naive. Sad, frustrated and I admit, angry, I found myself left with nothing but the closing words:
"As we continue to feel your work holds merit we encourage you to pursue e-publishing your manuscript thru a suggested e-publisher or personally "

Ah yes, indeed.
Do I seek to re-sub to the 'suggested e-publisher' and begin that dance once again?
Or self publish?
And if only I had the vaguest notion or any experience of how to e-publishand then e-market, and then, and then... 

(well you see where all the pondering came to be necessary).

Many walks, much research, more walks and ok I confess a tiny little bit of
feeling sorry for myself with a side of feeling stupid for not requiring a firm commitment ensued for a couple of weeks. All the while wondering what was best, right up to and including scrap heaping the little book all-together. No option was off the table.

And then....

Then the almost funny 'sign' appeared one day in the old farmhouse laundry room.
The wind was WILD that day, from an odd direction. The curtain flapped and sailed in the relentless wind as tho it were intent on battering me. It was in the 90's and far to hot to close the window. I have no curtain retainer hook or pull back on this huge curtain as it seldom moves so I had no way to restrain it as it pummelled me! lol.  As I employed an 'alternate solution' I saw my signal, my sign.
And I took a picture to show you, even as my mind was saying
When the unexpected happens, the best solution lies in what you can do for yourself

So, as of this writing I have to once and for all decide if this tiny book of mine about a little farm in a little valley that has taught me so much about life and myself and has made me laugh and cry and grow is worthy of pursuing. Worthy of learning how to e-publish on my own, so I can hold the reins.  

The farm and I have learned together to do many MANY things I never thought I'd be able to do in my entire life. The question is, should e-pub-pursuing the little book of 'our story' be one more????

*Thank you SO much for each and every comment/email of encouragement and concern shared yesterday and
before. Your input, thoughts and caring have been (and are)  of more comfort and value than I could ever tell each of you!*