Thoughts from the Farm of My Fertile Mind

I finished reading Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier this last week. I brought to mind something that has been nagging me for the past three years. Before I moved back to Missouri from Oregon I had a real sense of impeding doom on the horizon. I was worried that something catastrophic was going to happen and leave me isolated from my family. I was also worried how I would survive in a big city with no way home. It came down to a realization about my lack of self- sufficiency in the modern world. The summer that I returned to Missouri my mind was consumed much of the day with thoughts of how inept I was at making my own way if I was ever forced into that situation. I thought on how one could do without any corporate held utilities. I thought on ways to feed myself without going to any markets. The only things that I kept banging up against were gasoline and property taxes. Given a certain level of economy and horse riding I figured a five hundred gallon tank of gas could last a pretty good while. But there was no way around property taxes. No land belongs to anybody when you get right down to it. We all have to pay and if we can’t we lose the land. There is no escape from money in the end.

Many of you may know why I have thoughts running along these lines in this day and age. If you don’t know why I suggest you think on it a while and it will probably come to you. If it doesn’t come to you then all I can say is that you are getting fat and the slaughter is coming.

I was talking to an old family friend about my apprehensions concerning my ability to make my own way competently. The recent winter storm and its accompanying power outages had set his mind along the same lines. He confided that it had actually been in the back of his mind for a couple of years as well. He told me that he wondered that there might be more to it than just a male desire to be independent.

“You know women start making arrangements for a baby sometimes before they even know that they are pregnant? Maybe we are living in pregnant times and we are feeling an urge to prepare ourselves for what is about to be birthed.”

That made a lot of sense to me. Like some distant call, we are straining to hear. I talked to my Mom about planting a bigger garden and doing some canning. She was all about the garden, a little less than enthusiastic about the notion of canning. She talked about all the trouble and I told her it would be better to get good at surviving before we are in a position where we have no choice. She demurred and I assured her of my dedication to be a part of the entire process. We also plan on getting a cow or two. I wanted to get a pig and chickens, but again the enthusiasm was very low.

The fact is I made a decision to try to make it outside of the box as soon as I got back here. I haven’t really succeeded at that yet, but I’m still trying. As I walked around the mall yesterday I had a feeling of nausea. I can’t stand this consumerist culture anymore. I want to be as little a part of it as I can. I keep wondering when people will value each other more than the goods that they buy. I keep wondering when people will finally realize the dissatisfaction that will never sate with more stuff. All the stores in the mall look the same as all the stores in all the malls. This isn’t ours. It isn’t our communities. It is mass produced, anonymous and tedious. I looked at all the different styles that the kids had. What I find the most annoying and amusing is the Hot Topic “individuals”. There has never been so much spoon- fed conformity in the subculture before now. In this part of the country originality is trumped by banality. I want none of it.