Goodbye, Bee Heaven

Finished. The last CSA share box was packed Friday, my last harvest day was Saturday, and the last Pinecrest Farmer's Market was Sunday. There has been a buzz of celebration in the crew, since we are so glad to be done with market, with crazy packing days, with stressful personality clashes.

The experience has been long and unpredictable, full of frustrations and joy. I walk through the avocado grove and remember how trim the trees were when I arrived. The avocados delicious. I remember the things that have happened since, like chasing the shadow of a wild dog away from the chickens one drizzly night. Riding my bicycle past the red and white store on the corner, smelling the BBQ in the smoker some guys had set up in the parking lot. Frantically spreading straw and Remay on the delicate crops when the freezes were coming, weighing down the edges with rocks to keep the dry cold wind from whipping it up. Realizing that what I came to learn would not be taught here and wrestling with decisions for the next step late into the night lying awake, thinking, writing, talking to friends and family. Sitting with Mike and Tommy beside the oven as we ate our baked supper, blanket clamped to the frame around the kitchen entrance to keep in the heat. Seeing the Florida beauty bush lose its purple berries, then its leaves, then burst out with foliage again a few months later. Sighting a male painted bunting, then that evening watching Merlot the cat strut across the barn floor and drop it mangled underneath our table. Waking up to roosters in the night, or clattering palm fronds, or a gentle rain storm. Watching a giant cloud over the Glades glowing and flashing with lightning. Working through hot humid days, sweating, frustrated with the knots in my back, fire ants finding skin and biting to leave little pustules and then purple scars. A blue motorcycle, which I had last seen in Wyoming packed for Alaska, parked beneath the gangly limbs and seed pods of the tropical poinciana tree. Watching a lizard on the fence post flare out the flap of skin on its throat in the angled light of the sun going down, a little red signal flag.

No matter where you are, so much happens, and I can't help but wonder . . . which flags did I wave here? What have I said and what have I done and what does it matter? Where are the blessings and the trials, and are they even distinguishable?

Well, I hate long goodbyes, so I'll end. Thank you Mike and Pedro for having a campfire with me last night. I enjoyed sitting in the grass and watching the flames and coals, waiting for a late supper to cook in foil packages, drinking beer, feeling so tired. There were probably 20 people I would have had at my farewell campfire, but if they had been there, it would not have been so simple. Every moment is dear to me, from Pedro laughing and telling me in Spanish how happy I'll soon be with my "hombre," to finding a palmetto bug (small green roach) in the dregs of my beer. When I felt it in my mouth I reacted and let it slide back down the bottle neck. I got rid of it by drinking again and spitting the roach into the grass, and Mike, you said I was a "hard-ass." I'm not really, I just try not to let things bug me.

Goodbye, Bee Heaven.