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It’s been a while since our last update. Andrew and I caught a particularly bad bug this winter, and the newsletter has suffered for it. This post is about that bug, and the silver lining it had.

A Very Bad Bug

In late December, Andrew and I caught this winter’s super flu at a family holiday party. There were lots of little children with lots of toddler-grade touchy-sneezy energy stumbling around. We washed our hands and slathered them with sanitizer between brushes with each potential patient zero, but it was all for naught. In ways unseen, infection was inevitable.

I developed a cough that eventually became so severe that it withered my voice down to a rasp. It would remain as such for the next two weeks. Andrew followed suit, although in true resilient form, he recovered much more quickly than I did. This is why I call him my better half. He’s just built better.

Most curiously, losing my voice put a stop to my writing. As above, so below: I was wordless in all directions. A monologuing well, gone dry. I went quiet, and my internal world went quiet with me. There was simply nothing to say.

I think of myself as a words person, and this sudden mutism was at odds with how I experience the world. I had to be selective about what I needed to communicate because words were, quite literally, painful (and at the rate I was running through cough drops, getting expensive.)

Extraneous words were a strain, so I accommodated my injury the way one does when they stub their toe or strain their knee: I changed my gait. I spoke only when necessary, augmenting with expressive but often confusing hand gestures, lots of pointing, and the occasional typed iPhone missive.

In my unscheduled retreat into monastic silence, I was loosed from the pull of social media, a place where I (in better moments) use short-form to share business updates and (in less ideal times) share my own indulgent earmarks with the unsuspecting world. Instead of all that, I refocused inward. I put my need to communicate on unpaid leave and, in my quieted, fluey haze, I started to really listen.

On Listening

I listened.

I listened to the creaking frame of our old cottage, to its groaning pipes and squeaky hinges. I listened to the sparrows and wrens at the feeder outside our kitchen window. I listened to Andrew in work and life with a stillness and presence unmuddled by my own need to speak. I listened to the sound of life gently ebbing around me in its soft, meandering tide.

Then, I listened to the digital world, to emails pinging the iPhone in my back pocket, to the explosive reels and photo carousels of social media, to my jaunty, always-overflowing to-do list app. It was loud.

When my words quieted, my mind quieted. With my mind quieted, I could better hear just how loud modernity can be.

At the time of this writing, I now have my voice back. In some ways, my old gait is back, too. I have too much screen time. I interrupt and interject more than Andrew probably likes. I sometimes forget about the sparrows at the feeder, or the grumbling of our old cottage’s bones. I have things to do. Very important things.

But something has shifted. There’s this nagging question that won’t go away. What words are worth saying? What ideas are worth communicating? What is essential and what is superfluous?

These questions aren’t just about words.

Reader, have you read Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince? It’s one of my favorite books. I have it in both English and in French. At one point in the story, a tamed fox tells the protagonist, a young prince, “L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux,” or “What is essential is invisible to the eye.” When I lost my voice, I was unceremoniously reacquainted with the essential: that soft clockwork of the heart that we all share.

This business that Andrew and I are building began with the search for a gentle and peaceful life. Many years later, it has become something broader and more encompassing. Just before the flu propelled me into existential reverie, we received a barrage of holiday cards and emails from our CSA members. There was so much gratitude. Short notes. Long ones. Little gifts. Holiday treats. Sometimes, just a wave, a nod, or a smile.

We have delivered hundreds (maybe thousands at this point) of vegetable boxes. Our CSA members have prepared innumerable meals with our produce. Untold numbers of leftovers have been repurposed for breakfast, hastily packed for lunch, or reheated for a second go at dinner. Our weekly recipes, recreated in homes throughout Virginia and the District, improvised and improved, have slowly taught people how to eat seasonally.

In countless small ways, our humble CSA has done good work in this community. It’s perhaps the best kind of work anyone can do: we’ve made life just a little bit better. We found our gentle and peaceful lifeway, and we’ve helped others to find it as well.

Fate Intervenes

It’s taken me two months to pen the loss of my voice and the perspective that loss gave me. Two months to process how I’ve reintegrated into the louder world.

Maybe this newsletter is just the fallout of billions of flu virions inflaming my brain. Humans have a long history of mind-altering experiences unveiling philosophical truths. I want to believe that it was a natural and convenient nudge back in the right direction. In December, I caught the flu. A few weeks later, I remembered how to be a better person. Fate intervenes in its own way.

Losing my voice helped me remember that life-building isn’t just big ideas and grandstand posturing. It’s in the small things: how we talk, how we love, how we eat, how we work, and how we rest. These are the essentials of life. You won’t find them on a screen or in your inbox.

What happens from here? Like our CSA, our pace of life is seasonal. Our story continues from winter to spring: wine bottling on the near horizon, planting schematics for new berry plots and herb beds, a pale vermouth and native fruit aperitif in the works, a vineyard to prune before the spring thaw, and of course, our step-by-step journey to remember how to live peacefully, together.

I’ll be back with my words to share it all with you.

Until then,

Kelly

P.S.

Our CSA runs year-round. If you want to learn more about it, check out our website.

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