A Story about Breeze, Birds, and Breath.

On hard conversations, confrontation, and the craving for quiet.

I have been thirsty for silence. Silence like seltzer from a just-cracked can, the fizz stinging the tongue on its way towards the long glug. Like a steaming shower on jittery limbs. Like when you’ve just gotten out of the ocean with tentacled hair clinging to pink shoulders, and you reach for a sun-squashed, sand-battered plastic water bottle, and the warm water tastes syrupy-sweet, and you realize that water has had flavor this whole time. Thirsty.

Farming is a great job for auditory learners and lovers of podcasts and audiobooks. You weed, or prune apple trees, or crouch and bend and reach in the multi-hour picking of blueberries, and your headphones or speaker keep your mind occupied alongside your moving hands. Usually, this is a thing I especially treasure about this work: it uniquely allows me to move my body and digest interesting information at the same time.

But this farming season, I’ve been so, so thirsty. Often, I try pressing play on a podcast episode, and within minutes, my body says “No.” Something clenches and closes in my chest. The talk is too much. Or is cluttering something sacred that’s happening between me and the present moment, or between me and me.