Today is our first snow of the season. November turned out to be a glorious month, warm and sunny most days. We've been walking up Mount Philo almost every day for weeks, and it gives J and I a time to talk without other distractions. Before Thanksgiving, we talked about the upcoming meal. Now we talk about our planned dinner parties, and soon, it will be all about the Christmas dinner meal. I can't be excited about everything I put in my mouth but I'm trying to be interested. I go back and forth between being excited about the holidays and finding some new interest, and being totally vacant, browsing blogs that only make me feel worse about how little i'm accomplishing.
The other day, I decided to put together a new resume with my most recent work on it. I started looking at sports bras on the web, and found that an amazing number of my designs are not only still available, but have been named top sellers at retail. I opened Lucky magazine, and two of my designs are featured in a full page ad for my former employer. Even more funny, yesterday while shopping at Gap body in a huge mall, I came across two of my designs now being sold through that former employer to the Gap. Crazy, I say, but it made me proud.
Even with that boot up, I'm still having trouble getting out of bed. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Jay and I just came back from the field up the street where Dave now farms, with a nice head of cauliflower and a bunch of turnips. I am feeling blue, frozen by the loss of my sweet work contract. The mud sticks to my sneakers, reminding me that I have totally forgotten how to dress for the field. Tonight we will have curried cauliflower with lamb shanks, and tomorrow turnip something or other.
It's been several years since we've farmed. This year we planted a few things in Grampy's garden, where our first little greenhouse used to be. Because of the weather and blight, we ended up with some lame kale, but great cilantro and parsley. But today, walking out in the field, I felt a loss greater than my own. We've lost a huge part of our lives, on the pretense of being too busy and/ or too old. Although we've filled it with other food related obsessions, the authenticity of harvesting field to table cannot be replaced.
I've often thought of what a crazy life I've been leading, spending hours at the airport and on a plane every other week, and how unreal and unpleasant it had become. But what I will miss is the brain excersize, and the pleasant warm feeling of a final design that works. Satisfaction, I think that is called. Where will it come from now?