An Aphidious Adventure, a Ferocious Flood, and the Elusive Duffel Bag

"Here we go. The only way out is through.”

- Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

One of the more relatable children’s books in our home is Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. The tension, the discomfort, that Alexander (the main character) experiences during this one particular, captured day is compounding - it causes a reader to feel angst AND empathy, often in parallel. The story is comparable to a boxing match - round after round of frustrating, misunderstood, unjust situations for Alexander to process and then “resilientize” (I know that isn’t a word but I’m not sure there’s a better one in this moment) to a point of exhaustion, and a conclusion of his moving to Australia which of course would solve all of life’s problems. There isn’t a happy ending; rather, a realistic one: “It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. My mom says some days are like that. Even in Australia.”

I grew up on my grandparents’ retired farm in rural Indiana, about an hour from Chicago. We were surrounded by farming - corn, wheat, tomatoes, beans. Submitting a 4-H entry for the summer county fair was an automatic “must-do” (aahh, the dreams of those 1st place blue ribbons with gold trimming!), as was helping our neighbors with detasseling corn and weeding mint fields. My classmates drove tractors to school. The Coffee Cup restaurant in town opened at 4am; arrive at 4:30am and you risk missing out on blueberry pancakes and HOT coffee. I, along with my best friend, Jordan, would purposefully wake up at 3:45am, and ride our bikes into town just to count the number of pickup trucks in the parking lot (followed by breakfast, of course). Our town’s mentality was simple: “just wake up earlier”.

So farming isn’t new to me.

Flower farming is.

And raising children continues to be a daily renewal of “let’s just see what you’ve got”.

A week ago, a friend (hello, Andrea!) stopped by and we eagerly walked to the farm to check out what flowers, if any, had bloomed. Admiring the tiny Globe Amaranth buds, we both noticed that aphids had decided to make these hues of purple and pink mini-Truffula trees their home. …And the Celosia their homes. And the Bachelors Buttons, the Calendulas, the Strawflowers, the Dahlias. (We later discovered that there are over 5,000 species of aphids, and we both screamed after reading that interesting fact.)

Andrea stayed the entire afternoon [insert an enormous amount of Gratitude here], spraying neem oil on over 3,000 flowers. …What grounded me in this experience wasn’t the physical, laborious task at hand. It was the immediate, selfless pivot from a friend who saw a need to help, and in that moment, sacrificed her time - the ultimate gift - for mine.

(Key Takeaway #1: Farmers learn to depend on friends. It’s humbling. It’s human. It’s lovely. And we all need to depend on one another more often, it’s the connecting force that binds us as people.)

A few days later, the flood warnings/watches arrived in abundance. My childrens’ reactions to the nonstop phone beep alerts became something like, “uh-oh mom, here’s another one!”. Mother Nature crushed it, pouring down torrents of rain overnight, causing the river to overflow and run off into the lower forest. Charlotte and I somberly (and with a miniscule amount of hope) walked down to the farm in the early morning, but we couldn’t even make it to the gate, there was so much water. Nothing could’ve stopped this flooding, and I was certain that nothing would survive this mess. …And yet, within 6 hours, the water had receded and most of the flowers were re-aligning and re-situating themselves towards the sunlight. A farmer friend reassured me, “Elizabeth, roots run deep. They’ll be fine.”

(And, rest assured, the flowers are flourishing.)

(Key Takeaway #2: Respect is demanded for any living thing whose roots run deep. As Robin Wall Kimmerer reminds us in Braiding Sweetgrass [regarding a handwoven black ash basket], “...Slow down - it’s thirty years of a tree’s life you’ve got in your hands there. Don’t you owe it a few minutes to think about what you’ll do with it?”)

The storm was followed by more wildfire smoke.

Two days later, an ER visit for a freak accident with Solomon. (He’s fine now.)

Bringing us to this afternoon…

We’re all smothering Cyrus with hugs at the drop off location for his first sleepaway camp adventure. “Where is his luggage?”, one of the eager camp counselors asks. One second, let’s open the trunk…

Right, it’s on the front patio step of the house. An hour away.

(Key Takeaway #3: Surrender. The energy spent trying to figure out “why” or “how” is better spent. Like, on podcasts during the commute back and forth to camp. With, or without, a duffel bag.)

What are these moments, these experiences?

Are they opportunities for us to get real, to make mistakes, to dig deep?

Is this just Life, unfolding, fast-paced and requiring lessons in flexibility?

Or…

Do these Life events expose us, tangle and de-tangle us, tighten our hearts - only to expand who we are, our character?

“Every storm begins on the horizon, in the gathering of small forces. The elements merge into a roar and then move with no concern for what might stand in the way. Blind and indiscriminate, the storm hits everything in its path with the same force.

What will be able to withstand the blow?

…and yet, a tree with simple stature remains. [It] holds steady, anchored too deeply to be undone.

Then even as one storm passes, another begins to gather - the cycle slowly revealing itself as the way of the world. In the days between, the tree builds its strength in unseen places, beneath the surface where its roots reach to conquer darkness and fill that space with life.

We, too, set our sights on the horizon, wondering what might approach us next. And it is here, in the quiet lull, when we must decide whether we will grow tall or deep. If we will find our strength in the brevity of fleeting things or the beauty of forever. …Showing up and showing compassion, especially when it’s inconvenient. Tethering ourselves only to whom and what we truly stand for. Roots growing through bold confrontation, when dreams for something lasting become reality.

Obedience, one might say, to a better nature.” - Craig Cunningham