Quitting it all and moving to a farm, isn´t exactly what it´s cracked up to be
A few months ago, in Copenhagen I remember all the day-dreaming about a change from the city. Life on a farm. Life dipped in nature away from the buzz and fuss of the concrete jungle ( even though Copenhagen is quiet a cosy/beautiful/calm city if you must live in one). However, I was also very aware of being reminded that a farm is work, and though beautiful, a farm-life should´t be over-romantized. I made sure to remind myself of this like a good parent assuring their kid, about the reality of an over romanticized adventure:
You have this image of waking up to the sound of birds, running deliriously in the cornfields and falling down on soft green pastures, chewing on a straw, breathing in fresh hair, raising well-behaved free charming chickens. One with the surroundings and in touch with your natural instincts.
Reality, the first few days here, I truly did notice the bird sounds waking me up. I remember telling T about it each time, about how beautiful the symphony of birds truly was. He would listen closely, while telling me how after so long he sometimes forgets to notice. I did´t know how that could happen? “Forgetting to notice?” Until days, weeks and then months pass by. Only while writing this actually, do I even remind myself again to pay close attention to the symphonies.
The truth is you get used to things, like always. The bird sounds slowly get muted out by everyday life, the cornfields dry out, the soft grass disappears if not watered twice a day most of the time, the free chickens poop on everything you hold dearly and almost peck a hole in your flesh when you try to feed them. The wild dog that is now taken in as a family member, won’t stop barking at the little monkeys and chews on everything that is left outside, oh! And also likes to steal shoes. The duties pile up, and running in lush greenery or reading in a hammock, sometimes, slowly becomes something you need to make time for and not actually the norm of the day. Your partner finds a scorpion in your bathroom, well camouflaged into the brown tiles and you try not to overthink what could have been if you had been in your Danish brain and forgot to check before entering.
Yet, in the same breath, all those things make it all so real too. Like the beautiful sunsets and sunrises that greet you twice a day. The little birds that keep you company while you rake the fallen leaves. The dogs that make you feel safer and the chickens which are quite skilled scorpion assassinators. Nature refuses to let you think of it as a stagnant and controllable force, their to fulfil your santisized Eurocentric fantasies. Instead, it reminds you at every corner that this is a dance for two, not to view it as a fine-tuned zoo. It´s wild and untamed and unapologetic. You need to show up and play your part, engage with life, learn with life, seek to be present and see the natural life for what it really is; alive and constantly moving and changing. Like you.
Hope you are blooming wherever you are and that seeing life for what it really is, never diminishes it´s beauty but adds to it. Stay wild at heart.
