If we will be quiet and ready enough,

we shall find compensation in every disappointment.

Henry David Thoreau

 

I wake inside a sleeping bag. I’m on the floor in the front room of the farmhouse. Band equipment fills the small space; guitars, amplifiers, drums, tambourines, keyboard, mike stands. Large pieces of recording equipment pushed up against the wall under the window. I can see my apple tree-hammock bathed in the sunshine beyond the curtains. A mellow echo of my recent experience reminds me that ‘all is well’.

I am truly hungry. I follow the sound of voices out to the kitchen floating on the aroma of coffee and toast. L leans against her boyfriend who leans against the sink. Members of the band sit around the small square table, sipping coffee and dragging on morning cigarettes. They tell me their names in a warm welcome. I have no idea where I am or how I got here. Seven people surround me as my altered consciousness begins to come back from someplace extremely far away. This place. They call it The Farm. The band has a hit being played on the radio. The group lives here while preparing for the next leg of their current tour of small clubs and bars throughout the mid-west. 

I make a cup of peppermint tea and step onto the front porch. I see the ‘land-cloud’ over on the hillside meadow where Jesus lives.

All is well.

I look out over the rise and curves of open space soft and rolling ringed by forested ravines. I go exploring among the large old trees waving their crowns in a semi-circle behind the farmhouse and barns. Birds, cicadas, the occasional bah, bah of the members of the land cloud are the only sounds along with the friendly banter drifting out from the kitchen.

I slowly walk and wander the meadows and woods. My back against a tree I stare at the moving cloud of sheep. Closing my eyes I see Jesus rising above the forest, arms outspread, letting me know that all is well. L, her boyfriend, and bandmates are absorbed all day in long practice sessions. Coffee toast. Music tokes. Wine song. Laughter. So much joy.

I wander to the closed door of one of the long low red barns. Commotion prompts me to slowly push the heavy sliding overhead hinge to the left. The smell hits me first, a pungent ammonia odor escapes from the thick mounds of sawdust that cover the dirt floor. Massive fans on either end of the building circulate the damp acrid air. A red sea of milling hens scratches and scatters the mulch. I move very slowly and make my way through the bustling feathered crowd. Down the center of the barn hang a series of metal mesh swings attached to an overhead track. Each swing is stacked with grey cardboard egg cartons.

I carefully move to the closest swing near the door. I observe the red sea of chickens in movement. I settle in to watch sitting with my legs dangling over the edge of the steel swing. The motion of the swing is slow and very gentle yet the movement offers a change that the chickens closest to me immediately notice. Something new. My flip-flops rest in the soft mounds of wood shavings. Several curious birds move tentatively toward my toes. Their necks stretch, they look sideways, they pull back then stretch forward again. First, one brave bird reaches her beak out slowly, and very carefully. She pings, pings on the nail of my big toe. I hardly feel it. Her success prompts others to move in. They approach and peck gently chortling to themselves. I look down and smile. More curious birds arrive. Before long dozens of determined, dagger-sharp beaks wait their turn to make lunges after my naked toes. I can see how they mistake toes for worms. I laugh pulling my feet up out of reach. An X pattern from the heavy metal swing imprints the backs of my bare legs. It doesn’t matter, I’m mesmerized by the company of a what looks like a thousand, red hens. They talk to one another in soft croons and friendly chatter. They are friends. I watch the hunt and peck activity going on all through this long building. I also notice short ladders high up on a shelf that borders the walls of the barn leading to nest boxes. There I see the curved necks of sleeping hens, the head of each tucked gently under her wing. For me, this is a very different kind of bird watching.

After a long while, I leave the barn and wander into the woods for shade, coolness, and to clear my head of the hot ammonia odor. I follow a path leading down a steep trail to the fern banked stream below. This glen reminds me of when mom moved us to the suburbs and my new school, John Muir Elementary’s large tract of woods bordering the creek became my haven. Tippy and I spent many hours crouched under shrubs watching. Watching.

I see spiders crawling under leaves, dragonflies balancing on bare stems, bees, and butterflies bouncing from one open flower to the next, small birds darting between bushes, raccoon tracks appear, and disappear along the soft sandy banks of the creek and in the gravel islands in the water. A crow perched high; calling, his beak open then closed. I see the rabbit on the opposite bank and remind Tippy to stay. Watch. The floating clouds prompt me to tilt my head back and back. I lean on my elbows looking up through the speckled light of the shrubbery. At twelve-years-old, I imagine life as a nature artist. I visit the library bringing home large brown envelopes with string loop ties filled with pictures of birds, deer, horses, dogs, and landscapes. I carefully tape them to my bedroom wall and practice drawing. In the backyard, the dirt-floored garage where dad keeps his tools and long planks of lumber is my hiding place. I watch the starling nest over the door. The birds come and go and come and go and the babies’ big gaping mouths are stuffed with insects and worms.

I watch.

Here on The Farm, I watch and remember. 

Back at the farmhouse, I learn that tomorrow we’ll climb aboard the yellow bus parked beside the barn and drive to Michigan for the band’s Saturday night performance. The band manager, a tanned, dark-haired slender man wearing Hawaiian patterns on his shirt and shorts, is older than the others. He follows me out onto the porch where I’m sitting on the top step looking at my apple tree. He asks; where are you from?  What brought you here? How long will you be staying at The Farm? He hands me half of his peanut butter sandwich. The only food I’ve seen is a gigantic jar of peanut butter, another of grape jelly, a loaf of bread. Coffee and toast. Peanut butter and jelly. As we eat and visit, he learns that I have no clothes besides the shorts, halter top, sky blue shirt that I’m wearing; the shirt borrowed like the flip flops.

He steps inside and moments later he comes back with a small pile of materials. He invites me to follow him to one of the other barns where mixed in among the farm tools and tractors there is a wooden crate jammed with different lengths as well as scraps of cowhide. He begins to pull out jagged cut pieces and finds several that are about the right size for what he has in mind. I pick from those the ones that I think will look good. Back at the porch he invites me to stand on thin pieces of cardboard, traces around my feet with his pencil, takes up the scissors, and cuts out the shapes. Through the rest of the afternoon, he works with the black and white-furred leather. He stitches the thick slabs by hand. He forms a back piece to hold my heel, double straps over the top of my arches, piercing the leather he makes and then adds long laces. He slips my new footwear on, tying the leather cords around my ankles. He suggests we walk to be sure that they’re comfortable.

We pass the low red barn heading across the meadow, clipped low by the sheep. It’s wonderfully exotic to hear that he was born and raised in Hawaii. I’ve never met anyone from the islands. He describes an idyllic childhood hanging out on pristine beaches surfing the blue waters in shades that match the colors in his shirt. He once got sprayed by the rain falling from a Humpback whale’s spout! Pictures form easily in my mind. He describes diving into underwater coves filled with fish “that looks like an artist painted them with a brush.” I tell him that I dream to be an artist. He smiles and assures me that if I dream of it every day I will make it happen.

When we return to the porch he reaches into his backpack. He takes out a small paperback book and asks me if I have read The Way of Life, also called the Tao Te Ching written by a mystic name of Lao Tzu. He hands me his copy saying,  “This is a gift. I think it’s the best translation. Witter Bynner gets it right. Read it and tell me what you think. It’s a book of poems. Eighty-one verses about working with the invisible forces of nature that Lao Tzu claimed are the source of poise, serenity, and calm. I think you’ll like it. He describes simple ways to create a more successful life. We can talk about it on the way back from Michigan.”

I settle into my window seat on the yellow school bus surrounded by the band members, the manager, and L. After a while, I wake from a nap and open my new book. I look over the top of the seat in front of mine and see the manager stretched out on one of the benches with his head resting on his backpack. He’s reading. The others are chatting, smoking, and laughing.

The bus is carrying us.

All is well.

I read the first two of the eighty-one verses.

1

Existence is beyond the power of words
to define:
Terms may be used
But are none of them absolute.
In the beginning of heaven and earth there were no
         words,
Words came out of the womb of matter:
And whether a man dispassionately
Sees to the core of life
Or passionately
Sees the surface,
The core and the surface
Are essentially the same,
Words making them seem different
Only to express appearance.
If name be needed, wonder names them both:
From wonder to wonder
Existence opens.

2

People through finding one thing beautiful
Think something else unbeautiful,
Through finding one man fit
Judge another unfit.
Life and death, though stemming from each other,
        seem to conflict as stages change,
Difficult and easy as phases of achievement,
Long and short as measures of contrast,
High and low as degrees of relation;
But, since the varying of tones gives music to a voice
And what is is the was of what will be,
The sanest man
Sets up no deed,
Lays down no law,
Takes everything that happens as it comes,
As something to animate, not to appropriate,
To earn, not to own,
To accept naturally without self-importance:
If you never assume importance
You never lose it.