Dear friends,
I am typing this on the tail end of a few, perhaps serendipitous (I don't love this word, but it works) conversations about life out here, farming and being outdoors, and how it has rattled and enriched me in the past months. Somehow that inspired me to finally get down to this email. But maybe let's rewind a bit.
Firstly, I'm very sorry for my long silence. I think it's been eight months since I last wrote to you? On the bright side, you can take it that I'm feeling a lot less alone, and a lot more rooted than when I first started writing these emails, a year and a half ago. I went back to see what I first wrote, and it was something along the lines of feeling excited about a new place, but still, unfamiliar, and (I like this word) suspended. I don't feel that way any more - since last year, I've settled down in Thailand a lot more, without even really meaning to. I have a bank account and mobile banking apps; a local insurance plan; a room that I'm about to start decorating; dogs that I fed and cared for since they were the size of my palm; and a few (like, 6) more local friends than I did this time last year. So I would say I'm growing roots, slowly but surely. Once you download the e-payment apps, that's when you know it's getting serious. (And that you’re buying too much baking equipment off Lazada).
But I am very sorry for putting this off for so long. Something in me says - if you don't have the right words, don't write. But I don't think I'll ever have the right words, so I suppose I should just write. And I hope this comes as a (nice? not-horrible?) surprise during this tepid time.
I’d like to share something that’s been on my mind. These emails have often been a way of unravelling my tangled psyche, much like a good conversation.
Since I came back to Thailand in February, I’ve been trying (and often failing) to be (more of) a farmer. We’ve got a lot of land at home and ample tools; the only thing missing is skill/knowledge/experience (of which I had almost none), and a willingness to get down to doing the work. I knew I lacked the former and I thought I’d make up for it with the latter, but I’m not as hardworking or gung-ho as I thought. With no one around who -really- knows what they’re doing, I’ve been dabbling in a lot of trial and error, to varying results. Some have been wonderful (I built a planter that I’m very proud of), and others have sucked (I got a whole row of plants covered in whiteflies because I refused to cut down one heavily infested beanstalk). In general, it’s been a lot of going outside every day and wondering what to do next, and sometimes doing it, sometimes being too bewildered to start. All this is to say - it’s been a real culture shock to play farmer.
You don’t know what a relief it is to get this out there. On Instagram, it seems like everyone who grows food has it so effortlessly figured out. Like delicious vegetables and fruit, beautiful pots and planters, and rich compost springs from their fingertips every day while managing to look #grungily #aesthetic at the same time. Of COURSE that’s not the case, you silly millennial, you say. Everyone struggles and then takes nice photos of the nice stuff! And they took years to get there! Well, I know. But when I look at myself, I see a confused, usually improving, but often rather clueless blob who sometimes manages to wrangle edible stuff out of the ground, mostly by accident. I don’t think it’s meant to be easy - that much is obvious - but I am constantly learning how much of myself is needed in the process of farming.
Didn’t expect that, did you? “Of course you should expect ‘yourself’ to be involved in growing food. Who else would do it, a waterproof robot in overalls?”
Yes, well.
If you grew up in Singapore in the early 2000s, maybe you can relate. Do you remember a point in your life where you’d spend more time doing skilled physical work than learning, and replicating some form of theoretical knowledge? I don’t. The two ‘hard’ skills that I learned growing up were cooking and how to mop the floor, and depending on how dedicated you are to deliciousness and hygiene, neither has to be too hard. I know a lot and I could write a knockout essay for a class or the social theatre of Facebook, but I’ve not spent a full week fixing up broken things, or installing a pipe system, or growing and harvesting a crop.
I’m not saying this as a jibe to our education system. “Why did we spend so much time on trigonometry and none learning how to weave baskets?? You’ve ruined my life!” I think every generation gives its best to the next, and our parents felt (and observed!) that aiming for university and an executive-type job would be a stable, safe way to live. A life dependent on our minds, with our bodies as a sidepiece or an afterthought. Something for hobbies or to torture vigorously (‘exercise’) when we’ve sat in a chair for too long.
But a lot of things that physically make up our lives don’t come about through mental (and finger-to-keyboard) work alone. As much as I’ve been trying to make the process of farming as efficient and integrated as I can, I’m learning that the only way to do that - and to get there - is to do the hard work first. The shovelling manure and threshing straw, building one lousy compost pit and then a next, slightly more functional one. And the real culture shock here has been the requirement of time. It takes a lot of being present, and realising that one foot can only go in front of the other, to do this. This is something that, true enough, can only be learned with the knowing repetition of footsteps.
Wasn’t that a lot of platitudes for one email? Okay, confession time - I started this email almost two months ago, wrote… well, everything you’ve read before this paragraph, and then left it to sit, because there were some things I don’t know how to say. Pleasantly enough, much has changed since I last vented my frustrations about my lack of ability as a farmer, and some of that has to do with, indeed, putting one foot in front of the other and being okay with that. I think, however, these latest revelations are fodder for a next email.
I hope you are all faring well - and as always, I would love to hear back from you.
All my love (and wishes that you will soon be immersed in the wonder of nature),
Hui Ran