We skipped a week because the school year ended and I died. And by that I mean I disappeared. And by that I mean sat like a zucchini in a chair under the lone tree in my yard and stared, possibly under the influence of a sour patch…medallion.

We started a long unit on soil science, but rather than get into that right now, or dig into some of the interviews I’ve been doing, I’ll share something short about a meaningful ritual taking shape alongside my experience in the small farm program. I have class on Monday and Wednesday nights, and it’s now become a thing for me to have an early dinner at my parents’ house around 5:30 pm before heading out to Norco.

As many of you know, I have a very day-to-day relationship with my folks, who are aging and changing just like everyone else’s folks. It’s hard to contend with no matter what kind of relationship you have.

For my friends (and my own sister) who don’t see their parents as often as they would like, each time they do, they look noticeably different. Slightly smaller, slower, perhaps weaker. There’s more distance and space there, which is something I used to resent, but the more time that passes, I’m exceedingly grateful that there is so little distance and space between me and my parents.

Having a daily relationship where I drop in, where we cook together, and now grow things together like we used to is far less jarring. It comes with its own responsibilities. I manage a lot for my parents now. I check in on their finances, make their appointments, drive them around when my dad doesn’t feel like it or we’re rushing. These last couple of years I’ve been doing a lot more of that, and it took some adjusting on my part.

At first, it was a war in my brain. I wanted to be free and independent, and felt that all of this pressure and responsibility would inhibit me from doing things I wanted to do, like this farm program. All of these negative feelings kept me suspended in fear and a whole lot of nothingness where I just sat around and thought a lot about what ifs, but took no real action. It was paralyzing and horrible.

Of course this has to do with my fear of my parents eventually dying. Until very recently, I hesitated to start new big things because I feared that some tragedy would strike midway, and then what would I do? Would I be able to continue, or would I be destroyed? Would it wreck me that this thing I began working on while my parents were both still around is suddenly without their touch and blessing? I’m not kidding when I say I’ve spent years in the grip of this terror, not working on certain writing projects because it felt like I was tempting fate with a eulogy.

But inevitably life breaks up patterns and energies for you through its own voice, and sometimes it sounds like a crisis. And that’s what happened with us. My parents had to move out of their house for a couple of months so we could rearrange their living situation. Then they moved back in and the kitchen had a massive leak, which swallowed up my entire summer last year. We shuttled around town together picking up food and supplies, and creating a makeshift cooking space for them in the patio. And this firmly placed me in a day-to-day routine with them once again like when I was a kid.

And you know something, I missed it all when it was over. I thought I’d be so happy when things calmed down and I could be alone for part of the time in the world in my head again, but my world had fundamentally changed. The thoughtful voices and presence of my parents that kept the day moving were missing and I hated it. I had come back home to those voices and I didn’t want to be without them anymore, even if I knew one day I wouldn’t have a choice.

I started last summer off angry that “all of this was happening to me.” Yet in the back of my mind I knew it was what I needed — something drastic to break the spell, this illusion in my mind that the right format for my life was one where everyone and everything stayed in its respective corner and that’s the only way it could work. I don’t know why I ever sought that because it doesn’t work. What works is when all of the parts of my life bleed into each other and blend together in one big beautiful mess.

All of this has had a remarkable impact on how I think about my life and my relationships. How the most valuable friendships are the ones that honor this blending of my life with my parents’. Now when I think about the ideal sort of man to have in my life, that picture is of someone who wants to be in this storm of love with me where we care for one another’s families, where it’s not an over-extension or favor, it just is the way in which we live and build together.

My dinners with my parents every week have come to symbolize this transformation, this arrival to what feels truest and best. This whole farm thing is going well because my parents are a part of it, their hands and blessings are touching it, and we’re moving in a direction of renewal together. When I talk to my parents on the phone now, our conversations include what we want to eat before my class, what my dad’s tomato plants are doing versus mine, and what else we have going on. Including them has been life-giving, to our shared creativity and our time together on this earth.

I don’t have a ton of out-of-town plans this summer other than a few short road trips within California and to the desert. Whereas in years prior that felt limiting, it now feels like the most expansive way to spend a summer exhaling with the people most important to me, in the spaces we love, over food we grew together.

Thank you to people who wrote in and left comments about the vox pops I shared last time in Voices From the Field.

Matthieu wrote:

I read that 41% of the US labor force was working in the agricultural sector, and now it’s less than 2%. No surprise that people want to reconnect; it became so remote from our daily life. 

I like how Art described the joy when he became back from work and enjoyed his garden. I can almost see him smile. And also, I can see that this class is a way to reconnect between family members (mother and son, Art and his niece/nephew, Alejandra and her ancestors). 

Powerful stuff.

Chrissie wrote:

Great vox pops! I agree that a common thread amongst these folks is a desire to return to their roots. I’m about to re-read The Good Earth, which is definitely all about the land and how everything comes back to it. In the foreword to the book, I learned that Pearl Buck grew up in China as the daughter of a Presbyterian preacher man. She later returned with her husband, who was an agricultural economist studying Chinese farming practices. Her observations of the farmers heavily informed her work. The pull of the land can take you so many places, metaphorically and literally.

Dorothy of Good Food Jobs wrote:

Wow, I loved listening to these voices. The fact that this program is free and so it lowers at least one barrier. The farm to city and back to farm family thread of Alejandra. Art’s recognition that he wanted to find his people. All these things feel so universal in their specificity.

(Don’t forget to snag a copy of Imagine a Woman, Dor’s new book of poems out this week!)

Finally, thanks to Ashlie Stevens for plugging Field & Story in Salon’s weekly newsletter The Bite.

My friend Swati Singh is in the midst of writing "Field & Story," a pop-up newsletter about farming, but also about wonder, patience and the quiet art of paying attention. Here, her essays begin in the soil and somehow end up somewhere larger — family, purpose, community, belonging. I adore her hands-in-the-dirt approach to writing and life; she reminds me that some of the most meaningful stories grow slowly.

My favorite installment so far is "Nature Bats Last," a piece that starts with bats and hedgerows and somehow arrives at the question of what we owe the places that sustain us. Swati has a gift for making the natural world feel both intensely local and impossibly vast. Reading her always sends me outside a little more curious than I was before.

Thanks for all of the love, guys. I promise I’ll talk about farm policy and soil soon.