Bringing What it May

Bringing What it May

On the morning of Election Day I towed my tractor a dozen miles to the north, to help move material for a foundation job my friend Michael was working on. I drove slowly, as I always do when I’m towing, and as I mostly do even when I’m not towing, and on a narrow gravel road I passed a herd of Black Angus walking single file along a well-worn path through a stubbled field. Sun already high and hot on their dark flanks.

Of the election, I have little to say. Like most people, I crave a degree of security and certainty in my life, even as I recognize the folly in it, even as I understand that the only certainty is the chaos of uncertainty. And how little I know, really, about the workings of the world, of the humans who inhabit it, and of the vastness of all that is non-human. How little I know, even, about the workings of my own heart and mind, terrain I find endlessly fascinating, to be sure, but which never ceases to surprise me at twists and turns I could never have anticipated.

I guess that’s why my writing tends to be so personal and, in some ways, I suppose, so small. It’s just what I know. I know the sun on the shit-flecked flanks of those Angus, what it looks and feels like. I know the pleasure of working with my friend. I know how to love an animal and how to reconcile that love with the coppery smell of its blood on my hands. I know the exact spot on the wood cook stove that gets hottest every time, so that my coffee might be ready the sooner. I know the small thrill of dropping a backwards-leaning spruce precisely where I needed it to fall. I know that right now my young sons are deep in the woods on a weeklong solo camping trip, foraging for their food and cooking over a fire. It’s their first camping trip without adult supervision, and when I think of this, I feel a certain loneliness. They need less and less from me every day.

But of the election result – the reasons for it, the motivations behind it, the meaning of it – I know very little. To me, it feels big beyond comprehension, an antidote to everything that seems manageable in my life – the sun-warmed flanks of those cows, the sweet spot on the cook stove, even the bittersweet vulnerability I feel as I watch my sons mature. It gnaws at me, but I understand it. I can manage it. Now, like so many of my friends and family, I know a new uneasiness, one that persists even as I remind myself that what seems certain and solid is never truly so.

The work I did on election day went smoothly; Michael and I were finished by four, and I loaded up the tractor for the drive home, and when I passed the farm where I’d seen the Angus that morning, I saw them again in almost exactly the same spot, but now walking the other way. Headed for the barn. Hay, grain, water. I slowed the truck even further, and though I could not articulate it then, I now understand what I wanted from those animals: To be among them. To be of them. To have it be just that simple.

And I as I left them behind, I imagined them in the field yet again, bedded down for the night, maybe in part because I know what bedded-down cows look like, and it’s a sight that brings me comfort. There’s something in the solidity of it, the communion of flesh and earth, the unspoken acceptance that tomorrow will come. Bringing what it may.

Making the Best in Brattleboro

Making the Best in Brattleboro

Vermont Gift Guide

Vermont Gift Guide

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