June Sparks

Time is moving fast these days, and the work is heavy. June is all field work, the kind that pays off on the far side of summer, and even with the daylight stretching longer, there’s never enough of it to get everything done.

It has been hard to slow down.

I keep catching myself wishing for all the free time I don’t have, time to do anything but tend the farm. And then I remember the version of me who had that time, before any of this, and she couldn’t be further from who I am now. That’s when the gratitude for all this work settles in.

Before farming, I had a hard time figuring myself out. I was restless, and not in a good way.

I’d studied graphic design at UC, then changed my major more than once when I realized design meant sitting at a screen all day, which was never going to work for me. I came out the other side adrift, with too much time on my hands and no idea what to do with it. I didn’t trust myself to take my own road, to pay rent, make art, be a good friend, dream a way out of the cycle I was in. What I was good at was running from my problems.

Then the world locked down in 2020. No more running. I was stuck in Cincinnati, working at Trader Joe’s. Not the plan.

I was in a bad way back then, destructive, unwilling to hear the people who loved me. I didn’t want to help myself. But somewhere underneath, I was begging for something to change. And that’s when the little hints started to show up.

They were hard to trust, as dark as I felt. The first one was a second job: I took up freelancing for local florists for extra money. My co-worker Margy suggested the freelance gig, and after seeing how I enjoyed the work, she encouraged me to try flower farming. No way. I’d never given farming a thought in my life.

Then another nudge. A family friend, Alayzia, was working at a local farm and told me to apply for an apprenticeship there. She insisted it could be a good fit.

The spark was getting brighter.

I took the interview because something had to give. I was shaky from how low I’d been, and AJ thought I should try something different. Halfway through the interview, I felt a stir of something that might have been excitement. And then: nope. Too risky. I turned the offer down.

They were patient enough to offer it again, part-time this time. A small step I could take while still holding onto my old life with the other hand.

That job changed everything. The farmers I learned from are now some of my truest friends. It was my start, and I haven’t looked back.

There’s purpose in all the work I have to do now. I’m closer to myself, closer to the person I always wanted to be and was too afraid to chase. I used to be terrified to look at myself. Now I just wish I had more time to take it all in.

The sparks that pulled me into this are the same ones telling me I’m okay.

So when I find myself fighting to slow down in June, wishing the days were longer, struggling to sit still long enough to see what’s right in front of me, I try to remember what that struggle means. The person who ran from everything is now someone who has to fight not to rush past her own life. That fight is the proof. The busyness, the weight of the field, the time that slips away out there, every bit of it is a spark. A hint that all is well.