Hey May!
Reflecting on jobs and identity after a busy month.
My Wisconsin Farmers Union calendar is stuck on the May 2024 page. I should expect May to be busy by now, but I’m still taken by surprise every year how the month flies by. May 2025 was intense, and June is just a few days away.
It has been an odd road to deconstruct life, running and building a farm business. Then work out how to reconstruct life, goals, and passion again. Though I think a good balance has been struck recently.
Taking time to stare at all the beauty. Hopefully next year I’ll make sure May is less busy.
An aspect I appreciate is finding work that is meaningful and dignified. While we live in a society where working is a necessity to live, our work doesn’t necessarily define us. And dignified work often has roots in the treatment of the people working that job, not always the job itself. Over the years, I have worked a gamut of jobs, from being a waitress, to making heating ducts in a factory, to packaging cocoa mixes. To intensive cleaning, restaurant management, then onto an array of farm work and business ownership. Some of these jobs were physically or mentally taxing, but some jobs are more bearable if workers are treated properly. One of my hardest labor jobs was also my favorite, working for a local vegetable CSA. My employers treated me with dignity even though we toiled intensely through the warm season.
Identity is in the life mix; we are often identified by our jobs, and we may even create an identity around our jobs. There isn’t anything wrong with that, though perhaps we lean a little too heavily on jobs identifying who we are. I have been called the “goat lady” many, many times. And I embrace raising the San Clemente Island goat breed and plan on working with this breed for the foreseeable future. I still want people to see all the different facets of me. A flawed human who likes to be challenged and tossed outside my comfort zone, who still dabbles in art and may still one day pursue creating some animatronic pieces. There is ambition, but also extreme exhaustion and failure.
Perhaps next May I will be better prepared for how busy that month can be, or make a more conscious decision to not let May be so busy. Giving myself time to smell the fleeting crab apple blossoms.
