A couple of days ago a wave hit my universe. My parents clearly indicated that they are looking to move on from the farm.
For 17 years we have run a family farm. My wife and I, our children and my parents.
During this time our circumstances have inevitably changed. We started with four adults working closely together on a common aim. Over the past 8 years I have increasingly worked alone with assistance from those around me when their time and energy permits.
That transition has not been an easy one. I have struggled with a sense of purpose, a sense of value, a sense of connection and usefulness, what it means to be a 'man', what it means to be human, what is required for a good life and what is enough.
All these questions have swirled in my head as I participate in (and try to manage?) the complex dynamics of eight closely related people while transforming a farming business to more closely align with my ethics, raising a family in a stable and loving environment, cultivating the loving relationship with my partner, supporting my parents and contributing positively to the broader community that supports our existence.
My parents' intention to leave presents a painful irony, and also provides a 'lesson' for practice.
A large part of our motivation for a family farm was to be available to my parents in the latter stages of their lives. To be close enough to offer support, but also to give them the opportunity to be involved in something meaningful (family & farm), at whatever level they were capable, for as long as they liked. I had imagined a contented and contributing 'retirement', a slow withdrawal to a comfortable and supported sunset of their lives.
The obvious irony is that, despite our good intentions, our fantasy was different to my parents' imagined future existence and from their lived experience. They no longer want what we thought they would want (if ever they did), and it is also likely that we behaved other than they expected.
The less obvious irony is that I have arrived at an intellectual resolution of many of my personal struggles. This allows a lived experience of relative joy, love, compassion and occasional equanimity.
However, I still find my tendency is to react rather than to respond in the face of this major and immediate uncertainty. Equally disturbing is my immediate reactive focus on material rather than emotional and existential concerns.
How easy it is for immediate circumstance to subvert the practice of years. How quickly the joy, love, compassion and equanimity flee in the face of difficult circumstances.
On the one hand it is a relief to be able to recognise that I have reached the boundaries of my skill. On the other, it is painful to know that the embodiment of my practice still rests on such ambiguous and fragile foundations!
