Lying Fallow

a forgotten way

I've had times in my life where I've been lying fallow, waiting for the next cycle to begin. I think I'm just coming out of one of those times. I may have seemed busy, either to myself or to others, but the busyness was a superficial activity like the microbial activity on the surface of the earth. 

In a way, I think I was lying quietly, waiting to capture something that can't be captured. That elusive prey was a feeling of belonging, of being recognized and acknowledged. I lay so quietly, wanting that thing, that I started to forget who I was. So I started to be someone else, who I really wasn't.I started saying yes when I meant no, and no when I meant yes.

I love the desert. I would move there tomorrow if ... 

I love the clean-ness of the air there, not clean in the environmental, physical sense (although it does seem quite fresh), but clean almost in a spiritual sense. The wind blows, the sand moves, the bunnies jump around, the desert truly and clearly doesn't give any indication that it cares about you or notices you, in the sense that you can't anthropomorphize it like a shady tree or a sweet babbling brook.

So the desert gives me a chance to strip myself (figuratively, folks) naked and ask myself: who am I? And this year, my life and my body have said “NO”, you’re not going to run 50 km, let alone 50 miles, in the beautiful desert this year. You need time to lie fallow; time to regenerate and be bored, time to heal and feel.

One thing the desert always shows us is that there's always another morning, when the wind is blowing and the sand moves lightly. It's not too late to wake up and make a move. It's not too late to recover the land that has been lying fallow. It's scary, though. To be honest with yourself. To say what you believe. To engage in a discourse with others, instead of either deleting people (guilty) or falsely agreeing with them (guilty).

Well, my answers to that age-old question (who I am) were not super clear. The desert doesn't actually give you the answers, it just gives you the peace and quiet so you can try to figure them out. 

• I'm a woman 👩

• I'm a wife 👰

• I'm a mother 💞

• I'm a runner 🏃

• And a Grandmother!!!! 💓

And then there are all the microscopic things that we add on, like extra toppings on the pizza: midwife, writer, cafe owner, saxophone and clarinet player, traveler. I'm good at Trivial Pursuits. I don't like green peppers. I don't mind breaking rules if I think they're unjust. I have three Pfizer vaccines in my body, and I was part of the original polio vaccines unethical clinical trial in the 1950’s in east Africa.. 

Maybe fallow is the time we can separate fact from fiction: separate those things we do "just" to impress others from the things that we do instinctively. Or even the things that we do to impress ourselves, even those things can be recognized by the harsh light of the desert. 

Now is a time in our world when we are moving further and further away from each other. We are drawing thicker and thicker lines between ourselves and amongst ourselves, with little chance of repair. It's time to take some breaths and lie down. Feel the earth under you. Remember what's real. Remember what's true.