I got to my piano lesson 7 minutes late -- my teacher was beginning to wonder if I had decided to skip it. No, no, it's just hard to be on time.
And then I was over half an hour late to a new knitting group that is meeting once a month now. About six or seven women who know each other from temple sit around a dining room table and knit with great focus. Except that we talk and laugh so much that most of us, even Nell, end up ripping out our work at some point during the evening. Some of us are in choir together, others are part of a book club, others have had children in school together for years. It is striking to me to see these high-powered modern women sitting together, fully engaged in an activity that is centuries old and requires no current day technology in the room. When we need help, we ask each other. Suddenly it was much later than we thought, and we gathered up our yarn and headed home to our regular lives.
But this morning Jon and I arrived exactly at 7 AM, as requested, to help with a "barn raising." It wasn't a barn, it was a high tunnel that needed its plastic put on. What made it like a barn raising was that the farmer had asked anyone who lived nearby if they would come and help, in exchange for some bagels for breakfast. I don't know who he invited, but he got me and Jon, Chip and Susan, and Dennis -- five farmers over the age of 55 and under the age of 80. I think we are the ones who accepted the invitation because we have all made similar requests of fellow farmers, multiple times, in the past. The younger folks have not yet had much practice at showing up, voluntarily, and certainly not early in the morning. We older farmers know that we are just replenishing the supply of good will, even if it feels an awful lot like regular work.
It was fun to watch the young farmer directing us. He had been thinking about how to get this done all winter long, by his own admission, and he hadn't really imagined that he would have the "A Team" at his disposal. He said, "you all know way more than I do about how to do this." He was right, but he had a new system, so we followed orders. He had all the tools and materials laid out and he had thought through every step. The air was supposed to be calm from 7 - 8 AM. Sure enough, at 8:00, the wind kicked up. But since we were all seasoned professionals, there was no panic. We just held on tight (the greenhouse is 275 feet long, which is a very long way to travel over uneven ground when you are trying to grab the plastic that is billowing up at the other end). After a while, Chip and Susan and I were just human sandbags, lying on the edges of the flapping plastic and chatting while Jon and Dennis and the farmer installed the ropes.
I had to leave before the job was done because I was trying to get to my next appointment -- the funeral of a neighbor's father, 60 miles away. As I have said before, funerals are important to me, and this particular neighbor had specifically asked for our support today. There were 11 of us from Blueberry Hill, including a former neighbor who had come all the way from Asheville, North Carolina. We sat behind the family and joined the singing and the prayers, feeling comfortable in someone else's traditions. I love going to religious events with Noel, the atheist who is married to Rhonda the practicing Catholic. He is so respectful and so present. I sat next to Betsy who can sing anything, beautifully, and make everyone around her feel musical. On my right was my sister Anna who is also always respectful and attentive, an experienced social worker with an empathetic way about her, and not a whisper of religious affiliation. And down the pew sat my mother and Mel, the wise elders of our community who cry as easily as breathing, almost.
Tonight I will be on time to a meeting that I arranged -- at least I am reliably punctual when I am the one running the meeting. So it's not really that I can't be on time, it's just a matter of wiggle room. There is more wiggle room when it comes to a piano lesson or a knitting party...I have about six more weeks of wiggling before the vegetables take over for real.
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