The Care Package

Friends Surprise Me with Unimaginable Kindness

Last month I shared that a business loan fell through because the farm didn’t earn enough to qualify. It was a terrible blow. It was a loan I’d qualified for every two years for the past decade, and like a fool, I assumed it would always be there to count on.

If you want to read more about that situation, the essay is linked here, but for now, know bad luck fell on the farm and I knew the next few months would be more frugal and tense than ever before.

There’s magic to writing things down. An old friend read the essay and texted straight away, saying she and her wife were throwing together a care package. They were ready to drive from out of state that very day.

I told them I was overwhelmed that moment (an understatement) but to make plans for any weekend of their choice in June. We made those plans, we lived our lives, and last Friday they arrived.

They pulled into the driveway right before lunch. It was beautiful outside, sunlight coming through the leaves of the king maple in the front yard and catbirds singing. Friday ran out to greet them in her wobbly old dog way. Familiar faces poured out of the car with a bouquet of wildflowers and big smiles.

There’s a relief in catching up with old friends. These two have known me a long time, over a decade and long before I came out. And like most adult friendships spanning years and state lines—we fell in and out of touch—but back in person, it felt like no time had passed at all.

There are people who experience this all the time and don’t believe in magic. Buck wild.

We spent most of the day in the farmhouse. We ate lunch together and talked about our lives over the last few years. We talked about our old anxieties and new ones. We talked farming, politics, home repairs, mental health, and the disabilities they struggle and thrive with. We laughed. I cried at least once*. I think the whole living room’s blood pressure went down.

While yapping and eating, it didn’t escape me that it was Pride Month. How all of us, grown queer women, were able to talk about our farms and animals, lives and work, like we were just like everyone else.

I wasn’t trying to spoil the mood but I did mention how lucky we were to be here and now, living at a time where a room full of out-and-proud lesbians can talk about witchcraft, patriarchy, and the property they legally own. It wasn’t that long ago a transcription of our lunch date could get us burned at the stake.

Later in the afternoon we walked along the forest path. The weather was muggy, as it seems all it does is rain this season. But the moisture had life all around us crawling as vines or blooming into flowers.

We chatted as we strolled around the woods. I finally learned how to tell poison ivy from everything else with three leaves and the many uses of jewel weed. I was patiently explained the difference between ragweed and mugwort. I learn so much more when I can see and touch things. It was a gift getting those lessons on the path.

At one point while walking back to the house, my herbalist friend complimented the rhubarb, the monarch of my kitchen garden, wide leaves spanning over the radishes. I told her it was from a small cutting she handed me from her own garden five years earlier. I also showed her the comfrey she had given me, now happily flowering under an apple tree I planted fifteen years ago.

Folks, if any woman gave me a plant, I have kept it alive. If she gave me flowers, I have dried them. Tenderness is a rarity in my life and I archive all the evidence.

Before they left they unloaded the “care package.”

They started pulling boxes from the back hatch of the car.
This was no banana bread and coffee…

My old friends brought me a summer’s worth of provisions, five overflowing boxes of shelf-stable groceries! The kind of things anyone with a big garden, egg laying hens, and freezer full of meat can turn into amazing meals without having to visit a grocery store for MONTHS, at least not outside the occasional fresh milk and butter! What a huge relief of food security in uncertain times.

They know my life, as they homestead as well, and understood the expense of things like ghee, oils, seasonings, sauces and soups. They brought staples like giant bags of rice, tea, and coffee and little treats like puddings and chocolate chips. There was toilet paper and bug spray, duct tape and dog treats.

There was also months worth of cleaning and self care supplies like tooth brushes and masks, floss and first aid. Among all the store-bought things there were handmade tinctures and books to read.

I was told they had the greatest time pulling items from their pantry to bring over. These women, like a lot of us out here, always have 6+ months of food on hand. A practice I also share but usually save for winter prep. Now I had the gift of being able to go months without buying groceries. A huge expnese these days, not a concern any longer, not as long as I keep tending my farm to take care of the rest.

I sent them home with sunflowers in pots, handmade soaps, and a chamomile plant. I also told them about some events in the area they may enjoy, and I think I’ll be seeing more of them this summer than I have in years.

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I didn’t realize the magnitude of the care package until after they started driving home, when I was able to sit on the kitchen floor and sift through the boxes. I started to cry very happy tears.

I texted them to truly thank them, as I am better with words than in person. In person I was wide-eyed and deflecting with jokes and banter. Alone in the farmhouse I was gobsmacked. Between this surprise gift and my garden, I won’t have to buy groceries once all summer. That money can go towards saving and repairing the farm, maybe this will be the summer I finally catch up?!

I had started the day trying to plan out how to manage the month on paper. My morning was just pacing, physically and mentally, and by sunset I had a house full of food and a heart so full my center of gravity shifted.

A few hours with people that loved me and the world felt more managable in every way. That was the bulk of their care package and their magic; time spent with me.

Friends are magic.

Queer people are magic.

Love is magic.

Thank you.

*cancer sun, pisces moon, for the lesbians reading this.