let the time for parting be sweet

The Gardener LXI: "Peace, My Heart"

Peace, my heart, let the time for
the parting be sweet.
Let it not be a death but completeness.
Let love melt into memory and pain
into songs.
Let the flight through the sky end
in the folding of the wings over the
nest.
Let the last touch of your hands be
gentle like the flower of the night.
Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a
moment, and say your last words in
silence.
I bow to you and hold up my lamp
to light you on your way.

(Rabindranath Tagore)

Well, looks like I will be changing my blogs' name back to: Misadventures of the Monster Librarian. 

Two and a half weeks ago I slipped away--a quick weekend back to the Midwest; a weekend of spending time with my best friends in Michigan, but also time spent visiting a library in Ohio and interviewing for a Children's Librarian position. And can you believe it?? I got the job...and so I begin to say goodbye to the Farm; begin to watch sunsets and sunrises over mountains more carefully--we don't have mountains like these in the Midwest; begin to walk familiar roads and trails, to say goodbye to the signs of familiarity: the apple trees and birch, a winding river and a bedded pond, a swimming hole in the woods; begin to pack my life into boxes and crates, to think of logistical things: apartments and rent, and what does a month of groceries cost these days?

I am excited for the cliche, "beginning a new chapter," part of this next adventure, but I am definitely very sad about leaving the Farm. I have grown up here, not from childhood, but rather from that equally important twenty-something-into-a-thirty-something stage of adulthood; the time when you clarify yourself like butter, deepen your beliefs, start to feel comfortable with who you are, start to build a home for yourself.

Tonight I milked the cows for the last time. I said goodbye to each one: Josephine, Joanne, Tara, Curly, Beasley, Brie, Sylvia, Emily, Stella and Bathsheba, and then admired the newest two calves, one from Tara, one from Brie. I  looked affectionately at the dairy barn: the cat lazing on the scale, the now empty stalls, the pens of calves.

I walked up the hill to watch the sunset over the gravel pit. I watched as the sky pressed down upon itself, indigo blues pushing down onto pale powdery blues which lay heavy on the layers of tangerine and crimson which sighed just above the tree tops. It was an amazing sunset. I lay and watched the deepening of the night, feeling an ownership for the hundreds of acres here, which belong to me as much as I belong to this community. One day of goodbyes down in a sea of them. *Sigh*

P.S. Also, wanted to welcome one of my old colleagues, Beth, who is now following along! Thanks Beth!