I have been trying to write to you for weeks but every time I reread the words I wrote they seem unhelpful, foreign even. Written by a sad person. But here you are – a bunch of unrelated beginnings:
I don’t know which days I wrote them:
Do you feel like you have been living in a tunnel. I do. I watched a little frog hop into the bushes last night ahead of my booted feet – it is wet and warming up so the little frogs are out – it was like the tiniest of shadows, insubstantial, a tiny ghost caught in my eye then gone. I feel like this frog, scuttling to and fro along my designated pathways of mill to farm to mill to farm, forced to move on only two tired legs, not quite sure why things are thus.
Then: I have not written lately because this is how I think now. Maudlin and cast down.
Another day I wrote this: Breath has become our enemy. Mouths are covered. Ears strain forward from elastic bands. We focus on eyes, we are masters now at reading eyes.
Then this: I am searching for more masks for my mill people. Everything is going to take weeks to be delivered. I will not buy the disposable masks used by more important people. Even if I could find them. I leave those for the more important people. I search for American made ones. Ones made from the left overs of other projects like shirts or hoodies.
Everyone only tolerates wearing the masks but me. I feel safe behind one. My face can rest. I let my eyes do the talking. I feel less ‘seen’ but I am behind a mask fourteen hours a day so I also feel suffocated and confined. I need to find more filters.
Hmm: just discovered that there is no space in my little abattoir for my beef cows. With the big slaughter houses closed my little place is booked up to February. 2021! The hogs will be even longer. This is all no good. Nothing I can do about that problem. But no meat for us for a while.
And: I have decided to take the Airbnb offline. It is my safe place now. And people make me nervous.
This: I still have been nowhere but the mill and the farm. Since this all began. Since just after I got back from New Zealand. In fact I feel as though I might never go anywhere again.
This entry: The world as we know it is gone. We are facing an uncertain future. We are. Due to aggressive proactive measures ‘ shelter and wait’ the human loss has been mitigated but at a terrific cost to our futures. I believe this minute organism, so small it can be carried on and expelled by breath, yet replicates 2000 times faster than a cold and has big teeth, is the catalyst of a new way of living. This will not be the first pandemic to hit our modern delicate biological systems. We need to be always ready now. Plan ahead.
But we are herd animals. We collect in tribes. In years past these tribes and villages did live close and safe – connections were at yearly gatherings or fairs. A funeral was a village affair – a wedding the same. People did not wander far. The biggest cities were always dangerous, beset with disease and strife. But we need our tribe – we need to gather.
So, In a way this is not new. Staying in our patches. A mill feeding her village and sending flour in sacks to the big towns bakers is old. Going to a local farm to buy your eggs and milk is old. Having large country gardens and city gardens is old.
A later thought: I have just realized that my Green Card never came. The immigrant service must have been disbanded. Immigration is at a stand still here in the U.S. and my application seems to have been caught up in the slow down. I am not alarmed. The repercussions of being illegal would include eviction from the U.S. I would want to self isolate for a long time before I could see my family though. But NZ feels safer to me now. I did complete the application procedure so I think that should help whenever that big machine starts up again.
And this morning.: Sheila and Poppy are well. Sheila is so much happier now that it is warm. Wai and Tima get on alright but do not choose each other’s company.
Mr Flowers limps about curling his bad foot under and using it as a crutch but when he flies out of the barn in the morning he is still our regal jewel.
I have lost two of the new pigs to some ailment. I wormed them and the vet sent antibiotics but still two died fast and the rest still have not started to really thrive. One is still particularly unwell but I am determined not to give up. I carry him out into patches of deep weeds and grass for the day. He eats out there and is drinking again but still very unsteady. 
Dogs are good. Cats are all present and correct. The chickens are laying and the ducks have taken us over. One is sitting on eggs right next to the front door in the garden by the deck. 
She is well camouflaged.
Today for the first time in what feels like forever the sun is out.
I think sun will help.
Take care my darlings – sorry to talk so much about myself. But I feel foggy and out of focus. I have lost my sense of being and am just waiting now. Like some of you maybe. Lucky I have a very busy job. But still a large part of my Self has curled up by the fire with her back to the world. Still. Gathering my forces maybe. But deep down. I have gone deep.
Cecilia
The Kitchen's Garden 
65 responses to “The Tunnel”
Ps. Aren’t we all kind of like your duck. Camouflaged from the world around us.
Your efforts are Nobel. If heading deep is taking care of yourself, so be it. As long as you’re making time for nutring self care. The Lounge has always been a significant part of your self care, time for you. We are here and we care about your wellbeing. Thank you for sharing your voice with us.
July 8, 2015, “I hope you have a lovely day. Or, more importantly I hope you see some loveliness today and recognise it and let it calm you. Life is so full of holes we can fall down. But life sends us these moments of joy like little lines of rescue. So I wish for you plentiful moments of loveliness.
Love your friend on the farm
celi”
This Miss C. This.
I wrote a long letter of…I don’t know what. Thoughts I guess and it all went away. Please know you are thought of so very often. Yes thank you for this post, despite feeling disoriented and really preferring to retreat. We’re here. And we’ll be here. Please take care of you!
I see you lovely! And Sheila thanks you for her monthly box of apples! Though soon I will have to make her apple pie as her teeth are not so good anymore!
Having problems with word press.
Three times I’ve written and finally I’ve been able to post. Just so happy to know you’re okay and ditto what everyone else said.
Better out than in, They say… so often it is true. Better to air those words and feelings. Tunnel hadn’t occurred to me but it is apt. We are waiting for either the train to hit us or the light at the other end… and sometimes I fear the limbo of simply being endlessly trapped in it. Each of us have anxieties particular to our circumstances. The G.O. and I feel like we’ve been practising for something like this for some time… living modestly… and are coping well with day-to-day life on the plus side. Our concerns are long term health and wellbeing for ourselves, family & friends, human population of the earth and the earth itself… it is doing much better these days of living lightly… but if our new normal is a return to the old normal then we are on the same terrible trajectory.
I watch for your post every day. You have echoed what is in my head.
I am so sorry I have been remiss. But it has bern a slog! And now ! A challenge!
Was so very glad to see your name in the box this morning. Have thought about you and been worried seeing what is happening in the US and Illinois Wished you had been able to face this huge turmoil in the world ‘at home’. Jacinda Ardern and her government have done a magnificent job in New Zealand. We were hit early and hard . . . we responded hard and that has borne fruit. Personally I have been lucky, somewhat because of living semi-rurally . . . methinks my surviving some six years of bombs, strafing, being an unwanted refugee, seeing people shot, raped, dehumanized . . . has left me with a firm belief of ‘one day that will be over’ . . . have just lived for the ability of working and sharing and loving others in the community more than ever before . . . be well and look after yourself . . ..
Oh, Ceci! SO very happy to see your name in my box – just couldn’t open it – some glitch! My husband had a heart attack just as all of this had started. We were able to save him and the day he was released from the hospital was the day they closed it to all visitors. We and home care folks got through this. He certainly has a different outlook on life, just as Violet Hoarder said, I hope it will last, too, for all the world. C – your highest happy emotions match in height to your deepest emotions…You are able to touch the skies or reach the fathoms of the oceans, other people who do not embrace the zest for life that you do, can’t experience this phenomenon. I hope you are on the rise at this point, and you must know how many, many people care about you! Huge cyber hugs, Sunny (Violet, are you Lavender now from lack of sun – chuckle!)
Thank you for thinking of us. Your Farmy Family worries… I think it’s perfectly normal for thoughts to spiral inwards and for the brain to fix on less happy things when there is such fear and global mess all around us. Although here we are slowly being allowed to expand our activities, using sensible caution, I find I don’t really want to go and mingle with other people much unless there’s clear air to breathe between us. I think you must be very, very tired now. I wish I could take on your work for you for a few days so you can sleep, breathe, look at the sun, commune with your animals and sit on your porch and watch the world go by, just for a bit.
BTW, I got the email notification of this post, but it hasn’t appeared in my Reader. I bet you posted it from your phone – that seems to be a problem with more than one blog I follow.
Virtual hugs – you can imagine them as coming from whoever you badly need a hug from right now. xxx
I too was happy to see you back in the saddles as it were.
Yes, it’s like a tunnel sometimes, or like being stuck, but I think we can make something new from it. It may just take a while.
Kia kaha Whaea Celi xx
Haere Mai, kare! ( wow American spell check had trouble with that! Love love
Thank you for sharing your insights, and feelings. We have all been sorting out the good and bad these days. It is astonishing how little we seem to actually need. The schedules of others have come to a standstill, while we find ourselves more involved with the land, the wind, the sun, and the farm, and thankful for the many distractions from the media and stories. A new normal is about to envelop us all!
I often think of wildlife during times like this. They go to their shelter or home and stay there, licking their wounds and taking the time they need to heal. The pandemic hasn’t affected me so much except that Forrest is working from home, and that may continue for a long while. I am waiting to see how this changes things – how we live. I think it can all be good, if we are open to it and embrace gratitude, and not panic and fear. For now, I feel a time of rest is necessary. You do so much, Celi. Find your little den of comfort and hole up to rest when you can. I still think of us finding soft layers of fallen leaves and just laying back, looking up at the sky and enjoying “being” for a little while with nature.