From the Farmhouse Table: September 2021

A Radical Reset

Over the weekend, we lost a close friend of my late father. She was my play aunt, a mod hostess, a romantic. She taught me about forgiveness, and the importance of sincerity.

During the same weekend, a college friend who has been job hunting since December, shared the good news that she’s landed her dream, work-from-home job.

Grief and joy have chased each other, often this close.

Usually, September is a month of reset. A new school year. A time to forgive and move on. A shift in seasons.

What’s keeping me grounded this September is the idea that this is also a transitional moment between things we lose and things we let go. And the idea that forward movement is a chance to radically reset. I have binged on Hedgebrook’s Grief and Healing series, short video exercises centering process, not destination. I’ve been listening to a meandering playlist that drifts from Shoshana Bean to Biggie Smalls to H.E.R. to Lou Rawls. I’m reading and rereading books that draw tears from my eyes (Among the Living and the Dead, by Inara Verzemnieks) and make me belly laugh (She Memes Well, by Quinta Brunson).

Last week, I read a piece by David Treuer in the New York Times that I’m still thinking about. ‘A Sadness I Can’t Carry:’ The Story Of The Drum, is about the Ojibwe, whose Big Drum gathering is a place to mourn, process grief, and understand loss. I keep coming back to this paragraph:

“There’s two words we use a lot at drum, two ideas: wiidookodaadidaa and zhawendidaa. Let’s help each other, and let’s care for each other,” Joe said. “If we did those two things, our community and our whole world would be a better place.”

Keep writing and be kind to yourself.

-Kimberly A.C. Wilson, Executive Director