In the Moment (an essay, but still in the creative writing dept, I hope)
In the Moment
essay written the last week of January, 2008
In the Moment
“Baby just give me one reason to stay here--and I’ll turn right back around…
Baby just give me one reason to stay here--and I’ll turn right back around…”
Tracy Chapman’s song blasts out on the radio. It’s midwinter, Midwest. Bleak. The empty hollow center of winter. The epidemy of bleak. Skies so gray there’s absolutely nothing in them; you can look and keep looking: you will find nothing. It’s only icy gray whiteness, a gauze cloth covering the wounds of winter. I drive home after school.
Rain is falling onto frozen ground, sodden snow turns to slush, that awful mud of winter’s uncovering.
Coming around the corner on our dirt road, I see a herd of cows. It’s our neighbor’s feeder-calves, pushing up against the fence, waiting for the round bale of hay to be brought by tractor forklift. Are they as miserable as I think they are? The grind of the farmer’s tractor in the distance is all they’re attuned to. I stop the car at the side of the road and look into their eyes. Have you ever looked into a cow’s eyes?
There is no creature so placid on earth. That they are being raised for slaughter seems unfathomable, when you look into their eyes. I look at their coats, thick with caked mud, their cloven hooves covered a foot deep in the cold ooze, then again at their eyes: hopeful, fastened onto the source of the hum, the grind of that tractor across the road. Doe eyes, soft eyes, looking away towards what may bring dinner. The cows stand packed together shoulder to shoulder to share body heat. There’s a warm, farmlike smell emanating from the field; I love the smell and take a deep breath, closing my eyes. Looking again, I’m immersed in the scene. Moist eyes, wet noses, the steam rising up off their backs, their breath coming in little soft puffs.
An edge of pain arrives. I’m jumping into memories, memories of their future to come, I know it; I’ve seen it many times. In about half a year they’ll be shipped to the stock exchange, placed in holding pens. Gates will slam open, whips will crack and they’ll be ushered through pneumatic doors, onto the weighing platform in the auction room of the stock exchange.
I’m there, now, reliving it. We, the audience, wait. How many times have I watched this with children, as part of the Farm Camp I run in the summertime, trying to be dispassionate… Yes, this is where meat comes from.
We sit in what might be an auditorium, a theatre. An auctioneer sits in a window above the weighing pen; the audience members are seated in a semicircle on old schoolroom chairs.
The kids and I sit off to one side. Whoosh, the doors bang open, a small herd is there in front of us on the slightly rocking platform. The cows freeze, and stare in fright and confusion at the people looking at them.
I switch into teacher mode. Can you guess the weight of the steers in front of you? 950 pounds, sure. Look, get the actual weight; use that to refine your next estimate. Oh, a bull? 1100 perhaps. I make it into a game. The kids are playful, are into their math. Funny how quickly we learn to evaluate. A few of the kids get nearly perfect at estimating weights; I can do it, too, sometimes being off by only 10 pounds or so. How can we do that? Kids, can you see the shape of the body, the texture of the fur coat they’re looking for? Next we look at the meat buyers, trying to catch how they barely twitch a finger to indicate agreement with the auctioneer’s singsong chant: Yes, I’ll pay that. They compete with each other for bargains. They all know each other; they’ve been coming here for years. Their trucks are waiting at the end of chutes, at the end of this death row. We’ve seen the measure of their worth, the meat-buyer’s fingers raised in agreement, the auctioneer’s pounding on the table, “Sold.”
The kids and I leave the auction room, walk up two sets of stairs and go on a catwalk over the holding pens. Looking down, we see the various herds in their places, each representing a small farmer’s hopes for paying the bills and being able to keep going. Cows’ bleating makes an uproarious noise. We observe the various types of herds, the colors and shapes of the animals.
Afterwards, we join the farmers at lunch in the adjacent café, farmers happy with recently padded pockets, or maybe miserable that the “cards fell as they did” on this particular day. Farmers are philosophical. They know they can’t affect the market forces that come from far off, the forces that determine whether their kids will get one or two pairs of pants for school this year, and whether the fields will get planted with an upgrade in seeds or as usual they’ll be staying with the cheaper ones. Hopes up, hopes down. A philosophical view. People go about their business.
As for the hopes of the cows? Not sure. Did they ever have the hope of living beyond the day?
Back to the present. The song continues:
“I don’t want no one to squeeze me - they might take away my life
I don’t want no one to squeeze me - they might take away my life
I just want someone to hold me and rock me through the night”
The tractor’s hum is coming closer. All eyes are affixed on the event.
The farmer drives the tractor to the feeding pen, places the giant round bale of hay in its place. He gets off the tractor and opens the gates; cows scramble in and edge into place to grab clumps of alfalfa and timothy grass. After an initial scuffle, I hear the sound of soft munching, so peaceful.
I don’t know why I have arrived so intensely on this present moment, why it stands out as illuminated to me, why I am so absolutely here right now, in the moment. My mind begins to form a poem, something that contains “past passed” and “mist missed,” also the Gates of Heaven.
Turning the radio down as the song fades, looking past the cows to the horizon, the bleary sunset, the evening darkness closing in. I get a shiver from the lack of contrast between the sky and earth, that most indescribable gray that permeates everything.
“Baby just give me one reason - give me just one reason why
Baby just give me one reason - give me just one reason why I should stay
Because I told you that I loved you
And there ain’t no more to say”
The song is over. I feel a debt of gratitude for Tracy Chapman reminding me about matters of the heart, and the choices in life we actually get to make. I drive home.
essay written the last week of January, 2008
In the Moment
“Baby just give me one reason to stay here--and I’ll turn right back around…
Baby just give me one reason to stay here--and I’ll turn right back around…”
Tracy Chapman’s song blasts out on the radio. It’s midwinter, Midwest. Bleak. The empty hollow center of winter. The epidemy of bleak. Skies so gray there’s absolutely nothing in them; you can look and keep looking: you will find nothing. It’s only icy gray whiteness, a gauze cloth covering the wounds of winter. I drive home after school.
Rain is falling onto frozen ground, sodden snow turns to slush, that awful mud of winter’s uncovering.
Coming around the corner on our dirt road, I see a herd of cows. It’s our neighbor’s feeder-calves, pushing up against the fence, waiting for the round bale of hay to be brought by tractor forklift. Are they as miserable as I think they are? The grind of the farmer’s tractor in the distance is all they’re attuned to. I stop the car at the side of the road and look into their eyes. Have you ever looked into a cow’s eyes?
There is no creature so placid on earth. That they are being raised for slaughter seems unfathomable, when you look into their eyes. I look at their coats, thick with caked mud, their cloven hooves covered a foot deep in the cold ooze, then again at their eyes: hopeful, fastened onto the source of the hum, the grind of that tractor across the road. Doe eyes, soft eyes, looking away towards what may bring dinner. The cows stand packed together shoulder to shoulder to share body heat. There’s a warm, farmlike smell emanating from the field; I love the smell and take a deep breath, closing my eyes. Looking again, I’m immersed in the scene. Moist eyes, wet noses, the steam rising up off their backs, their breath coming in little soft puffs.
An edge of pain arrives. I’m jumping into memories, memories of their future to come, I know it; I’ve seen it many times. In about half a year they’ll be shipped to the stock exchange, placed in holding pens. Gates will slam open, whips will crack and they’ll be ushered through pneumatic doors, onto the weighing platform in the auction room of the stock exchange.
I’m there, now, reliving it. We, the audience, wait. How many times have I watched this with children, as part of the Farm Camp I run in the summertime, trying to be dispassionate… Yes, this is where meat comes from.
We sit in what might be an auditorium, a theatre. An auctioneer sits in a window above the weighing pen; the audience members are seated in a semicircle on old schoolroom chairs.
The kids and I sit off to one side. Whoosh, the doors bang open, a small herd is there in front of us on the slightly rocking platform. The cows freeze, and stare in fright and confusion at the people looking at them.
I switch into teacher mode. Can you guess the weight of the steers in front of you? 950 pounds, sure. Look, get the actual weight; use that to refine your next estimate. Oh, a bull? 1100 perhaps. I make it into a game. The kids are playful, are into their math. Funny how quickly we learn to evaluate. A few of the kids get nearly perfect at estimating weights; I can do it, too, sometimes being off by only 10 pounds or so. How can we do that? Kids, can you see the shape of the body, the texture of the fur coat they’re looking for? Next we look at the meat buyers, trying to catch how they barely twitch a finger to indicate agreement with the auctioneer’s singsong chant: Yes, I’ll pay that. They compete with each other for bargains. They all know each other; they’ve been coming here for years. Their trucks are waiting at the end of chutes, at the end of this death row. We’ve seen the measure of their worth, the meat-buyer’s fingers raised in agreement, the auctioneer’s pounding on the table, “Sold.”
The kids and I leave the auction room, walk up two sets of stairs and go on a catwalk over the holding pens. Looking down, we see the various herds in their places, each representing a small farmer’s hopes for paying the bills and being able to keep going. Cows’ bleating makes an uproarious noise. We observe the various types of herds, the colors and shapes of the animals.
Afterwards, we join the farmers at lunch in the adjacent café, farmers happy with recently padded pockets, or maybe miserable that the “cards fell as they did” on this particular day. Farmers are philosophical. They know they can’t affect the market forces that come from far off, the forces that determine whether their kids will get one or two pairs of pants for school this year, and whether the fields will get planted with an upgrade in seeds or as usual they’ll be staying with the cheaper ones. Hopes up, hopes down. A philosophical view. People go about their business.
As for the hopes of the cows? Not sure. Did they ever have the hope of living beyond the day?
Back to the present. The song continues:
“I don’t want no one to squeeze me - they might take away my life
I don’t want no one to squeeze me - they might take away my life
I just want someone to hold me and rock me through the night”
The tractor’s hum is coming closer. All eyes are affixed on the event.
The farmer drives the tractor to the feeding pen, places the giant round bale of hay in its place. He gets off the tractor and opens the gates; cows scramble in and edge into place to grab clumps of alfalfa and timothy grass. After an initial scuffle, I hear the sound of soft munching, so peaceful.
I don’t know why I have arrived so intensely on this present moment, why it stands out as illuminated to me, why I am so absolutely here right now, in the moment. My mind begins to form a poem, something that contains “past passed” and “mist missed,” also the Gates of Heaven.
Turning the radio down as the song fades, looking past the cows to the horizon, the bleary sunset, the evening darkness closing in. I get a shiver from the lack of contrast between the sky and earth, that most indescribable gray that permeates everything.
“Baby just give me one reason - give me just one reason why
Baby just give me one reason - give me just one reason why I should stay
Because I told you that I loved you
And there ain’t no more to say”
The song is over. I feel a debt of gratitude for Tracy Chapman reminding me about matters of the heart, and the choices in life we actually get to make. I drive home.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Skip Zilla on -
k. d. lang grew up in Alberta on the Canadian prairie, which she called "an empty canvas" for beginning her life as an artist. k. d. lang became a vegetarian in the middle of her life. She's said similar things about what meat is as you have, Connie, in this wonderful piece of creative writing. Kathrine Dawn Lang has been a bridge over troubling waters that divide persons, whether the division exists between genders, ages, classes, or cultures.
I wonder if we might better each of our schools by turning it into "genius factory" with a sign posted at its entrance "Imagination at work." You, Connie, have helped generations of parents and teachers learn to love their work of educating kids and students. You've continually reminded us to attend first to the personal uniqueness of each and to act imaginatively to support the diversity of gifts. Each of us has songs in us to be sung. Thanks, dear friend, tor singing your song so beautifully
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Permalink Reply by Ellen Pham on -
Beautiful essay, Connie... what they made the word prose for.
I love prose.
( a little off-topic, Gimme One Reason was the second song I plugged into pandora, and the first that produced, for me, a dance-able play list)
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Permalink Reply by Vincent Mespoulet on
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From time to time, i sing Tracy Chapman's "talking about Revolution" with my guitar. I'll record it for you: you'll see that i speak english like Yasser Arafat did... ;-)
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Permalink Reply by Katrin Oddleifson Robertson on -
Connie,
This is so beautiful. The small moments you are capturing with your words ",It’s only icy gray whiteness, a gauze cloth covering the wounds of winter" - wow! And I love the way you describe the cow - it makes them so alive, innocent. The writing itself is lovely and poetic, and you capture the dichotomy of what it takes to survive (farmers) yet the inhumanity of that survival, what it means to teach when your head and heart are not exactly on the same page....I am very impressed with your writing, Connie. Katie
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