CHAPTER SEVEN

SEARCING THE WORLD FOR OUR PLACE

We were now a family, the year was nineteen eighty five. Dave the youngest just turning five, Eve ready for first grade and Joan and I both thirty-five. To keep my mind off the farm and Auction, I had promised us a trip around the world which would include New Zealand. Losing a farm is gut-wrenching and a bit like losing a child. I knew I would not be able to process it right away, so it was better to put my mind on something else first….like a trip. A farmer is defined by his place and work. Although our farm was still run down, people who knew about farming said we had really cleaned the place up. I had been making a cheese that I was proud off and selling it around the country. In my work, I had the daily rhythm of milking and chores and the yearly rhythm of the seasons. Always rushed in the spring, trying to get the crops in the ground, the summer was spent making hay and in the fall getting the corn in or filling the silo one last time. Even winter was busy, feeding and keeping the cows clean and comfortable. There is not much time to think about who you are. I was a farmer with a family. What else was there than that? After selling the farm, I had to confront that existential question and try to work out who I was without a farm. Farming has two sides to it. On the one hand it can be very spiritual. It’s all about birth and death; it’s about creating and destroying matter. In the sacrament of communion in the Christian church, the bread and wine are raised symbolically to the flesh and blood of the risen Christ. Farmers who spend their whole day working in the physical world are like a priest working in nature. We are constantly transforming matter into living substance that feeds mankind. On the other hand, farming is very physical and can drag you down into materialism. Running a farm is a bit like running a truck business. You have to haul feed to the cows and then take all the manure back out to the fields. It pays very very poorly and involves long hours. Maybe that’s why it ranks last on young peoples’ choices of professions.
I was somewhat lost about our future so Joan and I stored all our things in a friend’s barn and left. This time, we went looking around the world for our place, not just around the East Coast. We decided that we needed to retrace our earlier lives and see if we could fit into one of those again. After all the hard work, it was nice to relax and my sciatic leg soon got better. We were still interested in the Camphill Movement and we joined Mourn Grange, a Camphill community in Northern Ireland that was close to where Joan and I had met. I ran the small dairy farm and Joan taught the children and we learned that it wasn’t the right place for us. Although I truly admire Camphill and the intentional communities they create, I was not comfortable and wanted to be more independent. I felt that by joining Camphill I would have to immerse myself in the community and give up my individuality. Later, I felt, I would rise up again, remade and stronger but I was not ready to do that then.
After six months at Mourn Grange, we went to New Zealand, flying Singapore Airlines. Singapore Airlines gave us a special deal where we could have a three-day stay-over for practically free. A nice hotel and all kinds of tours were included. Our little family had a wonderful time being tourists. Singapore was celebrating the New Year which made it a little noisy and crowded but we went to temples, saw traditional dance shows and the usual places to buy stuff. This was very different and exciting for our country children.
We stayed in New Zealand for two wonderful months. We stayed at my sister Liesbet’s farm, with a beautiful Kiwi fruit orchard right on the river. My parents lived twenty minutes away so Eve and Dave finally got to know their grandparents and I was able to reconnect to my roots.
While we were there, my brother Johannes visited with his wife and two children. We had decided that we would rent a camper van and spend three weeks touring the South Island. The four children were new to each other and loved playing together and the wives were also good friends. It was more a question if the two brothers could survive each other in a cramped space. Everything was fine, we were taking turns driving, until I drove under a low overhead bridge and demolished the top of the camper van. Luckily we were close to a distribution point and another van was coming in, in three days. I have to admit I was a little shock up, but Johannes and I decided that we would not rent a car for the next three days as New Zealand has such a good bus service. Low and behold, ten minutes later as we were unloading the camper van, Johannes informed me that he had decided to rent a car without any further discussion. This brought up all kinds of boyhood memories, mainly of my older brother walking all over me and me tagging along as the younger brother. I had spent the last twenty years getting over this and I wasn’t about to fall into old patterns. I was coming down the camper van steps with an arm load of toilet paper as he informed me of his decision. I started yelling at him while throwing rolls of toilet paper in his direction. He drove back to our friend’s house while I caught a bus and walked. We continued our verbal fight in front of the kids and wives, me threatening that the vacation was over but the wives managing to smooth things over. My brother’s parting words were that it was my problem how I felt about our boyhood and not his fault. He was sorry that I was upset but not sorry about how things were when we grew up. Maybe he had a point that it was my problem and not his. I felt good that I had stood up for myself and did not allow our relationship to fall into old patterns. Recently he and his partner visited and in conversations about our youth he did say that he was sorry that it had been so hard for me, he hadn’t been aware of my situation. This made a huge difference to me as how we grow up as a family sets our patterns for life. Patterns that are hard to break out of. Sincere apologies can transform a situation into a positive experience. We ended up having a wonderful vacation and at night Joan and I got to sleep in the tent, rather than in the crowded camper van with all the children.
While in New Zealand, we visited several Biodynamic farms but did not feel called to stay there. At the end of two months it was time to find a place to be and I accepted a position on the farm that belonged to the Kimberton Waldorf School, where Joan had taught eight years previously.