Long Days, Short Nights

When it's sunny in June, there is no reason to stop working. Long days, short nights. This morning I slept in, waking up with a start at 5:20, wondering where I was supposed to be, but I figured out it is Friday -- now one of the easier days of the week with only one mission (picking vegetables) -- and I could go back to sleep.  For the last eight days I have had to be somewhere at very early hours, so this morning is a luxurious one. I am still in my nightgown at 6 AM.

In the last week, we have launched the CSA for yet another season. There are pieces of the system which go very well by now: we register our members, we send welcome messages, we keep track of the payments.  We planted peas in March, we filled about a quarter of an acre (I hope that is an exaggeration) with lettuce, and we stayed in touch with all of our farmer friends so they would know when we needed their vegetable help.  We have learned a lot in the last 17 years and we were ready on the first day.

This year the challenge is working with an almost entirely new crew.  They are lovely and they want to do everything to help. But there are so many things they have never seen or done, so when it was time to actually pick and pack and produce the CSA this week, it was up to me and Carrie and one experienced volunteer to get them in their places, show them how to get chard into a bag, remember to count, and do it all as quickly as possible.  On Tuesday night I realized we needed to pick a substantial number of things to get through Wednesday and I decided the simplest solution was for me and Carrie to get up at the crack of dawn and pick it all ourselves. So we did, and it was the best and only way.  As it was, we just barely hit all our marks getting the bags ready for delivery by noon.

While I am living and breathing vegetables and logistics, there are still diversions on my calendar, and it is last night's social event that I wanted to tell about.

About a week ago I got an email from a fellow alto in the choir, saying that one of our choir members was having a really hard time with her life and could we all get together and have dinner.  So seven altos met up on a delicious evening, and we sat outdoors on a plaza at Lake Anne and swapped stories and had a fine Greek meal. Our friend Betty Ann, who is 80 years old and astounded by that fact, has been caring for her disabled husband for 35 years and it is really wearing on her.  She does not consider the option of finding a different answer, she just lives with this reality of being a constant caregiver.  They were married for 12 years before he got a brain tumor and ever since then she has been the one who does everything for both of them. The reason she is having a harder time now is that he is not talking much anymore.  And he does not want to go anywhere. He is safely able to stay by himself so she comes and goes, keeping busy and participating in the world outside of their home, but the reality of that caregiving is a constant for her. One of her biggest source of sadness is that she can't travel to visit their children and grandchildren.

Our little group talked about our upcoming concert on Saturday (not going well, we are all worried) and we talked about the things we have in common. As I looked around the table, I realized what a vulnerable group husbands are.  Only one of the women has a completely healthy husband.  In truth, I have a healthy husband but he has a history so I can be counted in the group of six.  I think I might have been the youngest person at the table (and we did talk about our ages quite openly but I can't remember if am younger than Ruth), so that partly explains why there are so many health issues.  But all of the women at the table are healthy and strong.  Why are men so poorly constructed?

We talked about the apparently universal phenomenon of leaving husbands at home so that we can do fun stuff.  And yet every person there has a good relationship with her husband.  We have known each other long enough, as choir members, that we know all the husbands and the origin stories of the relationships. We know about the troubles, the cruises, the grandchildren.

It was an excellent evening. We didn't solve any of Betty Ann's problems but we listened and we laughed, actually.  At the very beginning, when we were ordering drinks, some of us wanted sangria but we couldn't see ourselves drinking a whole glass. So some of us shared.  Ruth and Betty Ann drank out of the same glass with two straws. Just thinking about that makes me smile.

Life is full of memorable moments.  Weeding dill at dusk is memorable, and sharing sangria with nice women is memorable.  I am still one of the luckiest people I have ever known. And now it is time to get dressed and teach some young women how to pick chard.