betsy and nat

When I was just eighteen and ready to go off to college, I thought I wanted to be a chemist.  I wanted to study something called nuclear chemistry at the engineering-slanted Michigan Tech University.  Some of you might remember this phase, and some of you might be laughing (or cringing) thinking about exactly how well the whole Michigan Tech thing worked out.

I went.  I stayed for a week, wherein I got so stressed out from (illogically but undeniably) knowing I was not where I was supposed to be that I stopped sleeping altogether and was physically ill.  My parents, who had driven eight hours each way in a giant van to bring me to school, had then driven down to Chicago for something, and were kind enough to drive all the way back up and pick up their sad sack of a daughter and bring me home where I enrolled at Normandale. I continued with my dream of being a chemist via community college and the U of M until I finally realized it just wasn’t me and eventually applied to go to North Central, which has no science department whatsoever.

The upside to this story is that Nat and I became much closer friends and eventually started dating.  I made good friends at school, whom I could trust and truly relax with.  I was able to continue working with the Christ Church youth group. I got a degree in English… I am still not sure how that one fits in.

So you are wondering what on earth this story has to do with anything.  And in response, I will tell you another story.

When I was twenty-seven and ready to quit my job, I thought I wanted to go work on a farm.  Nat was compliant, not relishing his employment either, and we signed up to be wwoof-ers.  We were unbelievably excited about our first farm — everything was going to be perfect.  Then they cancelled on us, and I took on the mantra ” God will provide”.  People agreed with me but still asked us if we had been looking for farms — as though we thought one would just fall into our laps without us contacting them first.  We e-mailed dozens of farms, but they were all either shut down or already staffed for the winter.  I got a little bitter about it.  Suddenly, while we were on vacation with Nat’s family, we got an e-mail — a boon from the Lord, telling us that we were welcome to come down to California to build raised garden beds at a Catholic Worker farm. It was obvious what we were supposed to do, but there was something in me that said no thank you — this is not the time.  People thought (and may think so even more, now) that that is just silly.  What could possibly be wrong?

I still do not have an answer.

We braved some crazy stuff to get to the farm — eerie pollution-fog covering most of Utah, an unbelievable blizzard as we crossed the highest year-round pass of the sierra-nevada mountains (where tire chains totally saved our butts) and Google Maps sending us on a route involving something called the Jesus-Maria road, which we have agreed was named because you are either praying or screaming Jesus Maria! the whole time you are on it.  It wound up and down through the mountains like a roller coaster, too narrow for a line down the middle, and completely without guardrails.

We made it to the farm — the people there were so wonderful.  There was another wwoof-ing couple (Flora and Jeremy, from Paris, no less) and the farm owner Chris and another Catholic worker named Joyce, who was from Fargo.  They were all people that I enjoyed being around.  We cooked and ate and cleaned up together and played games and everything was going to be great.  Except I still didn’t feel like we were supposed to be there.  What do you do with that?

I started to get really anxious, and when we went to bed, I just didn’t fall asleep (the bird that had burrowed into the wall next to where my head was probably didn’t help with all of his scuttling and flapping around, either)  We went downstairs to sleep on a futon, and I think Nat caught a few winks, but I just didn’t.  A weird panic set in and I just plain needed to get out a.s.a.p.

So, while the others were butchering chickens, we packed our stuff back into the car.  We drove until we got to a suburb where we could use the wi-fi at starbucks and started trying to figure out where to go from here.  We are obviously in no hurry, since we drove all the way out here and people are expecting us to be gone for several months.  I am trying to be less disappointing to Nat and all of you (kind of tough at this point) by having some adventures with my husband.

I guess the big question is:  What if you make it to paradise falls and realize it isn’t where you want to be?  I sometimes feel like that happens in people’s lives, but with things that aren’t quite as glaringly obvious as driving across the country to somewhere you do not even want to be.  Maybe they work really hard to get promoted, or go to school for a really long time, only to find that that thing they worked so hard for isn’t really worth the time they put into it.  Sometimes they will do it anyway, pretending to like it.  Sometimes that is the hardest part — and something I am simply no good at.

We all have strengths and weaknesses.  Sometimes they are the same thing.  My odd feelings of being in the wrong place gained me a life partner at one point.  I am hoping that this time the feeling will lead me to what I am supposed to do with my life.  And just for the record — I have not given up on farming or wwoof-ing.

wyoming mountains

california orchard in winter

cows and windmills