I think the last time I bought a bar of soap was in 1999.   That was the year Bob was fired on November first.  That was the year I spent a lot of time in the woods, contemplating home economics and financial security.  We were down to our last few dollars when we made a counterintuitive decision.   Rather than use the money to cover expenses, we used it to buy materials to make homemade lip balm.  We did this because we realized that I was always buying lip balm.  So, rather than letting it be a source of outflow, we turned lip balm into a source of income.

We sold the balm to our farm meat customers.  I took boxes of lip balm out to Cornell and sold it from my desk between classes.  Within a few weeks, we had doubled our initial investment.  I took the profits and used them to buy supplies for making soap, and sold it the same way.

Between the farm, the odd jobs we picked up, and the spare hours that went to making homemade soap and lip balm (and then hand salves and bath salts, candles and on and on), we were working pretty hard.  But we kept up with the bills, the house got paid off, and we started a family.  And we never had to buy soap.   We lived cheap, eating farm surplus and washing with the end cuts from our homemade soaps. 

We used the money from the soap, lip balm and other micro-enterprises to launch our website, and to start publishing my books.  

Our house was our workshop, studio and daycare center, in a constant state of upheaval with my desk and bedside table heaped with books for research, a never-ending stream of dirty dishes beside the sink, kid detritus across the floors, wax drippings from candle dipping on the counters, soap pots and lye stacked in totes on the floor, snips of paper and ribbons littering the carpet from our packaging marathons.  Shoved in between it all was always the next meal on the stove, a batch of kombucha fermenting away, or some canning project.  Outside would be flowers and gardening projects — vegetables, raspberries, grapes, blueberries.  And always, homemade soap.  Then, one day, it seems it all exploded into the next venture:  purchasing the old firehouse and post office, renting out the downstairs apartment, building the cafe, remodeling the upstairs into an airbnb.  

And I gave up on the flowers outside my door at home.  With all the cafe leftovers, I ran out of fridge space (and patience) for kombucha.   Then I gave up on the gardening.  Then I stopped making candles.  My time was going to farm accounting, writing, homeschooling, and then every spare minute went into that cafe — baking and cooking and ordering supplies and cleaning.

But I still made soap. 

It was basic economics:  the materials were easily had from our resource base, and a few batches generated all the soap we would need for ourselves and to sell.  I reminded myself of this fact each year as I gathered my supplies and rendered the beef suet to make it.  “It’s just a few hours each year,” I’d tell myself as I worked to squeeze it into my schedule.

The last batch of soap I made was in December of 2021.  We slowly used it up, and I refused to buy soap.  Homemade soap represented frugality, self-reliance, resourcefulness.  “I’ll make more,” I promised Bob and the kids.  In the meantime, we watered down our dish soap and brought it into the shower with us.  It would only be temporary, until I got a chance to make more.  I just needed to carve out a few hours.

Fall came, no soap got made.  Winter came, and we were still washing with watered-down dish soap.  At one point, I heard Bob and the kids whispering back and forth.  In secret, the girls had gone out and purchased soap behind my back.  They were hooking him up for a shower. 

By the end of winter, I found myself staring at my calendar and my to-do lists, admonishing myself for not making soap, for failing to provide for my family.  I kept trying to figure out where, exactly, my time went, to justify why I still hadn’t made it.  

Bob turns 65 this year, and I needed to engage in a  period of self-education to understand Medicare.  Two freezers at the farm are on the verge of failure, and running up the electric bills.  I needed to research and develop a plan for financing their replacement and line up contractors to do the work.  Then there was farm inventory and homeschooling, and the daily bookkeeping, and two book projects. 

But my life has always contained things like these, and my kids don’t require my constant attention any longer.  How is it that I could make soap when they were young and dependent, but now I can’t find the time?

I started tallying the minutes that added up to hours for the care and maintenance of my middle-aged body:  ten minutes twice a day to stretch out the plantar fascia to keep my feet working so I don’t cripple myself with plantar fasciitis; twenty minutes a day to do squats and lunges to try to keep my knees from giving out;  ten minutes a day to stretch my shoulders thoroughly so I don’t succumb to frozen shoulder again.  Thirty minutes a day to do an aerobic workout for heart health.  Twenty minutes a day for meditation to manage my anxiety.  Twenty minutes a day for balance and core strengthening exercises to protect myself from severe injury should I fall while out hiking or working.  

I’m beginning to understand why people retire — It takes so much work to maintain an aging human body, it’s impossible to find time to earn a living…let alone make soap!

And then, there’s something else that seems to be eating into my time, a critical difference between 49 year-old Shannon and 29-year-old Shannon:

I’ve developed a mulish insistence on doing things I want to do:  spend an hour each day practicing music, retreat to my bedroom midday with a novel; write fiction; watch a show with the kids in the evening; hang out with my friends at music night; sit by the wood stove and watch birds at the feeder; play in the jazz band on Tuesday nights; disappear with Bob, the dogs and a pot of coffee into the woods for hours at a stretch; watch the evening light reach across the front field while sipping an evening cocktail.  Some might call these “leisure” activities, but as I age, I’m losing patience with that term.  It suggests, to me, as though these uses of my time are less important than flipping eggs at the cafe, churning out another book, updating the farm website or paying the feed bill.  Or making soap.

I am simply no longer willing to compromise about using the hours in my day in the pursuit of these deep pleasures.

That doesn’t mean I’ve fallen out of love with my work.  I love slipping into the cafe early with Saoirse on Saturday mornings, baking the bread and pastries, dialing in the espresso machine.  I love welcoming the customers as they make their way in over the course of the day.  I love sitting with Mom and Dad and reviewing the farm production plan, or learning more about managing the farm.  I love helping Saoirse by editing one of her college papers, or helping Ula puzzle through a home school project.  

So, as I wrap up my temporal accounting, I have only one conclusion.

There is too much to do, and not enough time to do it.  

I have always tried to fit more hours into the day.  And in that trying, I always fail.

Sometimes I don’t find enough time to practice music.  Sometimes I forget to update a menu or the website.  Sometimes I fail to respond to an email or a phone call.  Sometimes I forget to comb my hair or take a bath; sometimes I skip cocktail hour or meditation, or reading, or morning coffee in the woods. Sometimes I skip closing out the books.  But I keep trying.  And I think that’s because, in the non-stop trying, my life stays full and happy.  My knees bend, my shoulders stay loose, my mind calm and engaged.

Recognizing this, while out with my sister-in-law last week, I did something crazy that I haven’t done in almost a quarter of a century.  

I bought soap.

And I came home and enjoyed a long, hot bath.  

 

Did you enjoy this?

 Better still, you can help make the magic happen for as little as $1/month by hopping over to Patreon and looking up Shannon Hayes.  Or, if it’s easier, you can also donate to support the podcast by sending a check to Shannon Hayes, ℅ Sap Bush Hollow Farm, 832 W. Fulton Rd, West Fulton, NY  12194.

And that’s a really important thing to do, because all of this— the podcast, the blog, the novels and books and the creative recharging that happens over fall and winter—   are a result of the support of my patrons on Patreon.  And this week I’d like to send a shout out to my patrons Kim Kobersmith & Kay Robison.  Thank you, folks!  I couldn’t do it without you!