There are things I cannot tell you. 

That’s hard for me.  During the growing season, these stories are a running narrative in my head.  The narrative helps me make sense of my life during a busy time of year.

I used to try to always write these weekly pieces as an expert:  a veteran home cook, home-schooler, business woman.  I quickly ran out of things to say.  Granted, sometimes playing the role of expert is appropriate.  I’ve been in this business over 40 years, and now and then I have some tried-and-true wisdom to share.

But playing the expert only takes me so far.  I grow bored and deeply insecure if I can only use this space to position myself as infinitely wise.  While there is some knowledge I’ve gained in my life, most of the time I’m bumbling along, struggling to make sense of things.  To feel creatively alive, I have to use my writing to explore those things unknown to me, those lessons in life that I’m learning in the moment as I navigate with all my raw vulnerabilities.  In this space I stop worrying about whether I come across to you, dear readers and listeners, as all-knowing.  I just take my life from where I’m at, open it like a book, and give you the story.  The journey and the completion of a piece are like deep prayer for me.  I come away with personal growth as a result of the sharing.

And that’s how I’ve managed to keep this up, week after week, during each growing season for the past fifteen years: With honesty and open imperfection.

As it happens, in the past several weeks, it feels like every issue that is plaguing our nation has finally worked its way into the crevasses of my secluded, nearly utopian existence, in deeply personal ways.  There are simple facts that can be known by glancing at the news:  our business, the swimming pool of the neighbors next door and our town fire house were all fired upon by a neighbor.  A few weeks later, my unofficially-adopted son Corey and I found one of our favorite neighbors after he died in his sleep.

Those are simple facts: traumatic events that warrant attention and narrative in their own right.  Ideally, they would be over and done and we would all move on.  After all, the ewes start lambing soon, then the chickens come, then the sows farrow.

But the after-shocks from those two events I mentioned above continue to shake up our lives on a daily basis as they call more problems to the surface: displaced anger, mental illness, racism, poverty, and fear.

And the threads of those stories are threads that I cannot spin here in stories for you.  They are too intertwined with the privacy and safety of myself and others.  Nevertheless, they have created a lot of cognitive dissonance within me as I work to reconcile my deep love for this place with my anger, sadness and confusion.  For the time being, these are the struggles I cannot work out through these weekly stories.  That would make them even harder for me to bear…

….Were it not for the daily presence of a million tiny miracles.

At the urging of our customers, we started a GoFundMe after the shooting.  I felt immoral doing it — I had insurance on the building.  When I realized it might be some time before we saw anything from our claim, and we still had to navigate supply-chain shortages and be up and running before we had our first chicken pick-up, we launched it.  But not without a lot of guilt.

Then one customer wrote that she was contributing for one simple reason.  It wasn’t to fix the honor store or to buy a new freezer.  It was to show us love and support.

And then another and another gave.  Farmers from across the country sent contributions in solidarity.

Some folks didn’t give money.  Some wrote letters.  Other folks came in to the cafe.  They sat at tables and counters when we were afraid to re-open, showing us they would continue their support.  When they heard we lost our beloved neighbor Tom Edmunds, neighbors came one-by-one and sat at his place at the espresso bar, quietly eating their meals in his honor, sharing our sorrow.  

Every time we come out in public, we are greeted with hugs.  One customer invited the girls and I out to have a facial.  Others cooked.  Many sit and listen.  

None of them can remove the struggles we are facing.  What Sap Bush Hollow confronts right now is just a microcosm of national problems.  

There are many things I am angry and sad about with my community and country right now.  I am angry and sad about gun violence.  I am angry and sad about racism.  I am angry and sad about our anger and sadness issues.

But each of these million tiny miracles is letting my feelings be only that:  feelings of anger and sadness.  They are feelings that pass through a few times each day.  And then they melt away and make room for other thoughts.  The million tiny miracles are keeping me far away from despair.  My heart is hurt, but it remains deeply in love with this work in this place.  

I see there is a lot that must change here in rural America.  I know I have a part to play in making that change happen.  I know that I may not always be able to take that journey of change back to my writing to process and make sense of it all.

But when that happens, there’s still community: a community of neighbors, a community of customers, a community of friends, a community of farmers, a community of readers who understand my work so deeply, they’re comfortable with what I don’t share publicly.  I am part of these things, and they are part of me.  And they will keep me whole, even as we grapple with our troubles.

And since I’ve admitted today that these stories are often prayers for me, I make this a prayer for you: May you also find those layers of community, may you be able to find your million tiny miracles to fortify you, so that you can continue to be play a part in fixing what is broken around us. 

The Hearth of Sap Bush Hollow podcast happens with the support of my patrons on Patreon.  And this week I’d like to send a shout out to my patrons Susan Miller-Stigler and Sophia Shaw.

Thank you, folks!  I couldn’t do it without you!  If you’d like to help support my work, you can do so for as little as $1/month by hopping over to Patreon and looking up Shannon Hayes.