What to do with the next 40 years?

My internal clock is all messed up. I’m writing this at 7:08 pm. In days gone by 7:08 pm was considered early. A few months ago 7:08 pm was considered early. In my drug, addled, days as a homeless youth 7:08 pm was the crack of dawn. Now that I’m up at 5:45 am to go pick apples, 7:08 feels more like 11:30 pm. It’s time to go to bed. My eyelids are starting to become heavy with sleep. I’d rather be curled up with a pamphlet on how to “Feed the Soil” and drift off to dream but instead I’m going to stare into this blue screen for a bit, share a few thoughts on the “post-season,” then pass out fully clothed

I’ve transitioned from organic farmer to seasonal laborer. That’s right. Now I pick apples for a living. And it’s about time I earned a living.

But it sucks that picking fungicide-drenched apples pays way better than growing/selling organic vegetables did. This is not to say that apple picking pays all that great, but shit it pays.

To be fair, the orchard I work at has been in business for a very long time (there are trees that have been in this orchard for more than 250 years) and I’ve got one season as an organic farmer behind me.

Which reminds me… didn’t people used to grow fruits and vegetables WITHOUT applying poison – insecticide, fungicide?

Why? Why? Why? Must the petrochemical-paradigm persist?

I’ve been reading “One Straw Revolution” by Manobu Fukuoka. And what I’ve concluded (actually I’d already concluded this….I’ve confirmed what I’d concluded) is that people are willing to live in a state of willful ignorance. For real.

I wonder if modern life in America just makes it easy for people to live in a more unconscious way. If our ancestors had been as unconscious as we are, would we even be here? My ancestors boarded boats in Europe, sailed to the United States and once they got here, most of them worked. Hard. They persisted.

Where has persistence gone? Is it sitting in a Laz-Boy chair, with a cup of conventionally produced 1% milk and a few low-fat cookies, channel surfing after a day of: 8 hours at the office, an hour at the gym, an hour commute home, then an overly processed dinner, followed with a Zantac. Will persistence pop an anti-anxiety (or anti-depressant) pill and before going to bed pop a Tylenol PM?

Look, I am not in favor of suffering. I don’t advocate hard work for the sake of hard work. I don’t advocate that we go back in time. (Lord knows I like having the right to vote. I like living in a “free” society where I can be openly gay.) I’m perplexed at how out of balance things are. Can’t we keep our civil rights and eat correctly?

I don’t understand what will inspire people to head back to the kitchen? Is there a correlation between obesity and the number of food shows on the food network? Weren’t people thinner before there was food-television? Do people cook more after watching Emeril Live?

I wish Gordon Ramsay would go to people’s houses and berate the hell out of them until they could cook a great soufflé or the perfect steak. That would be productive. I’ve always kind of wanted him to yell at me for a while. I figure if I got good enough, he’d stop shouting then I’d be a great cook and I could enjoy my cooking/eating in relative quiet.

What would be really cool is if Gordon Ramsay did a cooking show where he got kids to cook. Imagine Gordon Ramsay as a Home Ec teacher? He’d have his patience tested, the kids would act like a bunch of twits and in the end, he’d create the next generation of people who could actually cook, one class at a time.

The fact that he creates thriving businesses is great – he makes consumers. But what about showing that he really cares about the way people eat by turning regular people into really great cooks? That would be cool.

Lately I keep having cartoon-like images pop into my head.

Scenario1. Patient complains of chest pains. The heart surgeon cuts open patient’s chest and where there should be a heart, there’s a change purse.

Scenario 2. Patient complains of blinding headaches. The brain surgeon opens patient’s the skull and where there should be a brain, there’s wallet.

I’m so over people doing things just to make money.

How phenomenally boring.


But I want to talk about apple picking for a moment. For the time being I like picking apples because it’s just about the most honest work I’ve ever done. I’m paid by the bushel. This means that if I don’t pick, I don’t get paid. That means that if I’m getting up at 5:45 in the morning so I can make it to the orchard by 7:30, then you’re going to find me picking apples.

I’ve noticed that not a lot of women pick apples. And thus far I haven’t encountered any other trans-folks picking either.

I don’t think I’d be able to pick at the rate I do if I hadn’t farmed for seven months. And there’s something about desire in all of this. I want to stay in an agricultural or food-related business. As corny as it might sound, I like knowing where the apples are headed. Cider apples pay the least per bushel but someone’s going to be drinking cider from the apples I picked. Peeling apples pay a little better and then I know someone might make an apple pie using these apples I picked. On days when the weather’s nice, the stand at the orchard is alive with activity and I’ve picked plenty of bushels of fresh-eating apples that go directly to the stand.

At first glance picking apples would appear to be hard work. It is and it isn’t. I tune out the fact that I’ve got a bag of apples that weighs about 20 pounds hanging from my neck. Once I get past that I’m free to ruminate and meditate. There are things to think about. Like: what the fuck am I gonna do for the next forty years?

As the season for apple-picking winds down I’ll be spending my mornings in picking/walking meditation.

I’m open to insight. Please pray for me that she shows up. Soon.