The Pig Farmer's Wife

It’s early in the morning, sun not even up, and in my slippers, still-warm pajamas and one of Jeff’s thick coats, I take a bucket of scraps and leftovers and quickly walk out back to feed the pigs.  They squeal with delight as I pat Posie and Curly Cue on the head – Sage and Taggart’s two favorites – and dump their breakfast into the trough.  I use a shovel to break the ice on their water and take off my glove to turn on the spigot and replenish their bucket with fresh water.  The bucket of water tips over and soaks my brand-new, felt, L.L. Bean slippers I got for Christmas. Not too happy and now wide-awake and cursing under my breath, I wonder, “Is this really my life???”

How did I get here? And, who dreamt this up?  Well, if Jeff had his druthers, that life might be ours.  Having some property outside of Nashville, raising pigs and chickens, cultivating a big garden each spring . . . It’s an idea I keep throwing back to him since he has said, in jest or not I don’t know, that he might like to raise pigs and provide local, sustainable pork and bacon to the Nashville-area community. 

Ironically, Taggart and I do not eat meat – Taggart as a vegetarian and me as a pescatarian – and raising pigs for slaughter might prove to be more than we could bear . . . nonetheless, I would support Jeff in exploring this endeavor if this was a path that opened to us.  Because right now, all options are fair game, or pig as the case may be!

At least that’s how I am facing my future and choices.  And, if Jeff is presented with closed doors or open windows in the not-so-distant future, I hope he can think big too.  Because in thinking beyond what we have always done or been, we can become more of who we are meant to be.  And that has the potential to make everyone happy.  My dad called it “right livelihood”, I call it whole-hearted living, but what I know is that when you open yourself up to new possibilities, the sky’s the limit.

Perhaps it is pig farming or creative writing or owning a neighborhood market or “flipping” a fixer-upper house that Jeff and I pour our blood, sweat and tears into, whatever it may be, the next right thing will arise.  And I hope we are brave enough to embrace our next chapter with courage, trust, authenticity, and gratitude. 

I found a quote yesterday by Emerson and shared it with Jeff.  “If man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles, or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.”  By dreaming the dream, and building the road, we’ll get to that beckoning good – one board or pig or church organ at a time.

(Jeff liked the quote!)