Is there any way the IRS could be my spiritual teacher?  I mull the question over in my mind while I tear open the envelope as Bob pulls away from the mailbox to head home.  It’s a game I play with myself when I feel my blood pressure rise.

The IRS is annoying me. Someone at a desk some place made a type error and added an extra digit to the house number of my address.  Now, according to them, I’ve left my family and moved out.  They’ve updated all their records accordingly, and, of course, the burden is on me to get it all changed back.  

That’s not all.  The next envelope comes from the New York State Labor Department.  They need me to file a statement on gross payroll wages for all quarters prior to January 1, 2020.  There’s a terse note on the letter that this is my SECOND notice.  We pull in the driveway, I walk in the door, and promptly find the fax receipt for this report.  I sent it 30 days ago.  Someone must have lost it on their desk some place.  But again, the burden is on me to re-send it.  There’s another bump in my blood pressure.

And then an email blips in from my insurance agent.  The new insurance company is insisting on another inspection.  It doesn’t matter that Bob and I spent two hours with one of their inspectors only three weeks prior.  They lost the report.  So they need another inspection.  And, of course, that means we have to carve more time out of our schedule to make it happen.  

My blood is now at a full boil.  Between the cafe, the farm business, my writing work and homeschooling, I’m living a four career life.  That life works with schedules, lists, files, and written protocols, all designed to free my mind and heart up as much as possible for the best parts:  Sunday dinner with Mom and Dad, bantering with my kids around the table,  listening to Ula read to me at night, teaching Saoirse to cook dinner for Kate and Joe, dancing with Baby Lark in Kate’s kitchen, leaning on Bob’s shoulder while we sit in the woods, and falling asleep with a couple of dogs after immersing myself in a good book. These are my paychecks, the rewards I reap in exchange for managing everything else. 

The IRS, the Labor Department and the Insurance company all represent, in my mind, a dock in pay.  They are unnecessary infringements on my sacred time, a result of other people’s failure to do their jobs properly.  

So I am angry.  But the angrier I am, the less we banter around the table, the less I’m willing to listen to Ula’s reading, the less fun we have..the poorer life gets…the poorer I become. 

I rise early the next day.  I don’t sit in the dark watching the fire and petting the dogs like I usually do.  I do yoga instead.  And each time my mind wanders to the IRS or the Labor Department or my schedule, I remind myself that I’m inflicting poverty:  robbing myself of this moment to feel my body and my breath for the sake of revisiting what is already known.  By the end of an hour I return to my desk.  The anger has dissolved.  The IRS and Labor Department and a return phone call to the insurance company all take less than 20 minutes.  They are necessary details, and getting caught up in the “why” of them only impoverishes my life.  When I let that go, I move swiftly on to the next task.

…Until the bulletin from Governor Cuomo appears in my inbox notifying the public that the first case of Corona has appeared in New York State.  Within five days, he has declared a state of emergency.  I wash my hands thirty times in three hours waiting tables at the cafe Saturday night.  Our cafe numbers on Saturday are down.  Way down.  

By Monday I’m hearing from family members and customers.  Will the cafe close?  

There are, of course, economic reasons to keep the cafe open.  Payroll and bills are among them.  But we have some reserves and strategies we could employ for that.  Goodness knows, living where we do and the way we do, we wouldn’t go hungry or run out of cleaning products or toilet paper in the event of a 30 day lockdown. 

The truth is, there are two pandemics menacing the planet right now.  One of them is Coronavirus, which I haven’t contracted yet.  But the other is even more contagious, and I came down with it this week.  It’s called Fear.    I realize that for most of us, Corona is a case of the sniffles.  Heck, I put my life in greater danger riding as passenger while Saoirse practices driving.  Or walking the dogs in hunting season.  Or sitting outside in a forest filled with Lyme-infested ticks. But what about Mom and Dad?  What about my other customers who are immune-compromised?  What about Bob, who’s a type 1 and over 60?   And what happens to the medical system when everyone gets sick at the same time?

Bob and I climb high into the hills overlooking our upper pastures on Monday morning.  There, we throw sticks for the dogs, drink coffee and talk.  And we consider our business and our mission. What should we do?

Our mission at Sap Bush Hollow is to nourish and restore family, community and planet.  We do that as we graze animals across the fields, recycle the nutrients back into soil, feed our community the most nourishing food possible, and offer a space for people to gather.

It’s the gathering that we’ve been warned against. 

But I think of the new book I’m reading right now, The Rabbit Effect, by Doctor Kelli Harding. It was inspired by a 1978 study where rabbits in a controlled laboratory experiment that was designed to make them sick mysteriously stayed healthy.  When the researchers couldn’t identify a biological explanation, they examined their care protocols.  That’s when they found the culprit, a tender-hearted postdoc who cuddled, pet the bunnies under her care, and talked to them as she fed them.  “When it comes to our health, we’ve been missing some crucial pieces,” writes Dr. Harding, “Factors like love, friendship and dignity…Ultimately, what affects our health in the most meaningful ways has as much to do with how we treat one another, how we live, and how we think about what it means to be human than anything that happens in the doctor’s office”(xxv).

Harding reminds me of what I most deeply feel about our business.  We are a locus for healing.  Good food and laughter nourish the spirit and bolster immunity. 

Part of me craves a few days off…A retreat from all this madness into the safety of my own four walls.  

But I think of our other customers…the nurses and doctors who are likely as frightened as me.  They get up each morning, learn what they can about these new cooties, and go forward with their days.  They honor their calling and give service.  

And I understand that, unless a lockdown becomes the order here, that’s our mandate, too.  Our job is to help bolster health; to give people a good meal, to create a break from the isolation and crack a few jokes.  We need to help build immunity.

So for two and a half days we go with that plan.  We go home to the kids and review with them our protocols for keeping the cafe safe and clean.  We make hand sanitizer, direct them to trim their fingernails, review proper hand washing, explain that they have to resist hugging people for a while, and that they’ll need to wear gloves when working in the cafe.  We pull out a giant bag of disinfectant wipes and scrub down handles, doorknobs, salt and pepper shakers, menus. We give them the option of staying home, but explain we will be going to work as usual, as this is our calling.

We feel resolve. 

And then we start hearing from customers who are in quarantine, who have been exposed.  The possibility of hospitals and medical professionals being overwhelmed and unable to serve everyone who needs care becomes very real.  If we can help slow the spread of the virus so that the systems aren’t over-taxed, then we need to do our part.  Even if it costs us a month of income. 

So we change gears again.  At 3am on Friday morning before we open for #SapBushSaturday, I begin building an online cafe, working to get as much of our product as possible into an easy-to-order format so that people can pick it up from the self-serve freezer or arrange with us for delivery.   We write to our customers and send words of love.  And then I engage in the type of healing that Dr. Harding discusses.  I pull my kids into my arms and hold them.  We make plans to sew for the next few weeks, to watch movies, to keep making food as needed in the cafe kitchen, and to arrange deliveries to any customers who need it. 

And before long, I won’t be surprised if plans need to change again.  That seems to be the order of the day.  Make the best decision, move forward, assess new information, keep a calm head, make a new decision if the data supports it.

But what about the IRS?  Did they teach me anything?

They did.  I learned that, when my anger was blotted away, the job at hand was simple.  The only thing making it difficult was my own emotional turmoil…which was of my own creation.  It was within my power to remove my anger and make the job simple.

And here, facing down this Coronavirus as the owner of a family farm and public cafe, I see the same thing.  Only this week, it is not anger that I blot away.  It is my fear.  Because with fear out of the picture, this is the same job it has always been:  Adhere to strict disinfecting protocols.  Then figure out how the heck to get good food  into people’s hands and keep the business rolling.  Then keep making contact:  emails, phone calls, podcasts, blog posts.   And keep connecting with my immediate family: dinners together, hugs, cuddles. 

Ula and Saoirse roll with the changing decisions faster than Bob and me. They jump in to help.  They seem to understand the medicine in their own souls.  Seeing our own resolve, they shelve their own fears.   Their job is to help us move together as a family and a community, to replace fear with careful thought and action, and keep getting the food and love going where it needs to go. 

This is our work.  We feel proud to do it.  I feel thankful that our family can move through this together.  And, heck.  I’m even thankful for the IRS for helping me to understand how to get it done.