Harvest and Heartbreak (aka. Tears and Wings)
By Tracey Forest
As I gather and gather from my gardens, I experience the tension of opposites.
Hurry up and collect all the berries and tomatoes, seeds and potatoes so they don’t rot or get too ripe to can or save. At the same time, let the healing herbs infuse in window sills for weeks, slowly releasing their medicines into the carrier oil, which I will make into salves and rubs for wounds and sore muscles.
The opposites: fast and slow, rush and wait, be both efficient and careless -- letting a few coriander seeds fall to the patio floor -- AND be deliberate and careful with temperatures and amounts of beeswax to oil ratio.
The Earth has been so generous this summer—so many berries of all kinds, more garlic than I’ll use in a year, gardens overflowing with produce and herbs.
As I look in grateful wonder around at the counters and buckets, swelling with abundance, I break into tears. The most significant item that has come to fullness, to fruition is not a full wheelbarrow of produce, but is one of the two most precious fruits I’ve ever planted, grown, watered and nourished: my beautiful son, Noah.
After taking a gap year upon high school graduation, Noah is setting off for college tomorrow. During this last year, he explored different interests without the pressure of school: learning banjo, interning at an organic bakery, working for a carpenter and apprenticing with a leading permaculture designer here in Vermont. These experiences have helped him cultivate independence, hone important skills, and a expand into a truly palatable maturity and confidence he didn’t have a year ago.
Noah is ripe. Like a gorgeous, red tomato, he is swelling with readiness, ready to fall off the vine. Likewise, my heart swells with pride and acknowledgement that it is his time to set off to find even more of what he is made for at Hampshire College, where he will, of all things, study food systems. Noah is dedicated to making this world more livable, more compassionate, more life-enhancing, and I know he will follow his passions completely.
Yet, my tears overwhelm me when I am alone, preparing myself emotionally for the emptiness that will take residence in my home. As a largely single mother, I raised both my kids here at Spirit Hollow since they were 6 and 9 years old. The three of us were a pod, a unit. Not always a put-together unit—sometimes we were a wrangling, emotional mess. But we had one another and depended on and deeply trusted and loved one another. My eldest just graduated from college, and when they first went away, it took Noah and me at least a month to begin to adjust to the space Nix left behind.
I am so proud that I was able to keep my kids in their home for their whole lives despite many emotional and financial challenges. That stability and security has helped them both feel grounded and safe in a tumultuous world. And my tap root deep into the land here has been my sustenance and succor for 24 years, giving me home, hearth, sanity and companionship.
But the wrenching and gorgeous part of that is that memories are ALIVE, like animate beings. All the memories of their childhoods and teen years are in these rooms, and they surprise and crack me open regularly.
I can still see Noah as a three-year-old coming around the corner with his sippy cup wanting to sit on my lap while I drink coffee. I see Nix making sculptural displays on the stair landing and dressing Noah up as “Flower.” The shared splashing in the tub with bath crayons and pirate ships, the watching “Fly Away Home” on the big bed while cuddling ducklings. Nix at five playing Snow White in the school play wearing a black wig and stealing the show. The making of Valentine’s at the dining room table for school every year. Blanket and pillow forts with friends in the living room. Secrets stashes of crafts I would pull out to their delight on rainy or cranky days. Guacamole night on Tuesdays while having a living room floor picnic, blanket spread out, dogs trying to steal our food. Singing “The Lilac Bush and the Apple Tree” by Kate Wolf to put them to sleep every night. The chaos of mornings rushing to get ready to make it to the bus on time.
The milestones of awards, graduations, rites of passage and birthdays and the struggles with head butting and heartbreak--all flood in.
All of it happened in this house, so the memories show me every day what was and will never be again. My active mothering years are officially over, and while I embrace the time and freedom to use my energy in this phase of my life to create and serve the Earth Community, and to be in soulful partnership with the most loving man, I still feel in my body the visceral grief of time’s relentless unfolding.
Two days ago on a walk, one of my dogs had something in his mouth. I thought he’d picked up a dead mouse. When he dropped it, I heard frantic peeping. It was a fully alive fledging robin. I scooped her up; he had not injured her. I held and calmed her and sang to her and began looking for her parents. I tuned in and saw a robin calling alarms and flying back and forth over the trees. I said to the little bird, stroking her head, “Call to your mama, so she knows you’re here.” And she did!
Part of me was afraid to put her down in a little place on the ground, so her mom could come to her. But I knew it was the right thing to do, to let her go. After feeling the baby’s heart rate come down, I gently nestled her among the leaves. She looked up at me, saying something like, “Don’t go.” As I turned to walk away in tears, I saw the mother robin flying over to that spot.
The metaphor is so obvious, but nonetheless potent. Fledglings, on their own, are vulnerable at first, and mothers hover, feeding and trying to protect, but the full flight of the baby is inevitable.
Sobbing for the bird, for Noah, for the life that is no more, I found my way to my husband’s comforting arms.
The union of opposites: life and death, hold and release, plant and harvest, excitement for Noah’s flight and tears for my own loss. I am here for all of it, and my youngest little bird now has his wings.