Inside

Posted on 26 June 2011

I spent my morning with a group of people who had met at a farmhouse to make pickles. The bumper crop was proving too much for the farmers, and rather than lose the lot, they invited folks to help them. We peeled fresh garlic, fingers sticking to each other, gathering dirt, feeling much like we ought to have something delicious at the end of all this (good) smelly work.

They’d bought out two Walmarts of canning jars, stacked them inside the kitchen door. Our assembly line team set them up, added the crushed garlic cloves and a sprig of thyme, sliced cucumbers, filled jars, while a brine heated on the stovetop.

I went, thinking I was passing up time I could have been home, alone, with no children, which lately seems to help my mood as much as any medication ever has, and I broke down and cried much of the way there. I wondered if I should call in my regrets, even after driving forty minutes and being almost there, already nestled in green, farms, dogs wandering country roads.

We walked the farm for an hour before the work started. The land there is inexplicably sandy, isolated in the land of red clay, and my feet grew dusty, pricked by nettles, kicked up damsel flies. The sun burned me. Then we were inside, and the job kept me from thinking, kept me from imagining I was needing anything, from the emptiness inside.

The work quieted the voices.

Something inside me lately is sprung free, clawing its way out, and its needs are devouring me. I feed it books, art, music, even wine, but it won’t stop pacing, demanding more. It’s eaten me alive before, and I intend to stop it again, but I’m getting tired of this old battle.