immediacy of things
In August, my wife, Adele, and I flew to London, caught a train to Bridgend, Wales and spent thirteen days moonlighting as farmers. Through a practice commonly known to some evangelized environmentalists as WWOOF-ing (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms), we were able to trade labor for room and board.
Situated on roughly 800 acres of undulating limestone in Dunraven Bay, we spent the early mornings plumping up pigs and cows with rolled oats grown from the mineral rich land. Midday was typically reserved for shepherding the hundreds of sheep, which meant driving a manual truck accompanied by an eager and lovably tattered Welsh sheep-dog. Afternoons called for crouching in the veg patch weeding, pruning, and harvesting fresh produce. Post work evenings were spent meandering the Welsh Coastal Path hunting for medieval castles, an adequate pint (or two) and a flat surface for the subsequently countless games of gin.
The secluded homestay, tucked away in overgrown brush riddled with wild pheasants clamoring about, offered, or attempted to, a reprieve from New York City’s unrelenting scramble. No neighbors, no service, no problem…right? Turning off turned out to be far more challenging than I initially anticipated. My anxieties bubbled at the thought of looming projects, follow-up emails, and deadlines. Sitting in despondency plucking aubergines (eggplants) and hammering fence posts, I came to internalize my dependency on immediacy, my addiction to access, and my lack of peace. I felt helpless, weak, and embarrassed at my inability to properly manage my internal monologue and choose this new cadence of life. I felt unable to control my time. All those hours listening to Rich Roll and Lex Friedman podcasts, or running “as a form of therapy” felt frivolous. Oversimplifying Einstein, “time is relative based on your state of motion”. So in turn, to some degree, the rhythm of your life is an active choice. I choose to feel rushed, I choose to feel anxious, I choose to feel annoyed…or I can choose to be patient, deliberate– slow. But part of the whole time equation is not only realizing that you control your own pace, but also how you feel about your speed relative to the rest of the world’s. My tempo was at odds with the farm's rhythm and the tension permeated.
My film photography became a way to curb time. The manual qualities of my 1940’s Rolleiflex and finite nature of medium format film forced me to see and move a little slower. To breathe. To accept. The layered limestone cliffs at sunset took millenia of ebbing tides and tectonic shifts to be awe inspiring. The tomato took time to root, sprout, and ripen. The cheeseburger lived a past life of roaming and rolled oats. Good things take time…le duh. But what they really take is acquiescence and the understanding that immediately doesn’t have to be the standard measure of time.
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