Last week I visited family farms in Iowa. It was my third trip. I came away with a feeling that I understood them in ways I had not before. I felt them.
Twenty years ago, at my great uncle Tom's funeral, my cousin Sophie read a poem:
Landscape--Iowa
No one who lives here
knows how to tell the stranger
what it’s like, the land I mean,
farms all gently rolling,
squared off by roads and fences,
creased by streams, stubbled with groves,
a land not known by mountain’s height
or tides of either ocean,
a land in its working clothes,
sweaty with dew, thick-skinned loam,
a match for the men who work it,
breathes dust and pollen, wears furrows
and meadows, endures drought and flood.
Muscles swell and bulge in horizons
of corn, lakes of purple alfalfa,
a land drunk on spring promises,
half-crazed with growth—I can no more
tell the secrets of its dark depths
than I can count the banners in a
farmer’s eye at spring planting.
--James Hearst
At the time, I appreciated Hearst's words as a stranger. I had never been to Iowa, though born and raised in Milwaukee. Instead, I had learned to scoff at the Midwest as flyover country, that farming was dull, not intellectual, and not worthy of consideration. I had learned a prejudice. Tom had spent much of his life managing my extended family's farmland in Iowa. Family politics offered a way to become involved, but at a price that I was not willing to pay. I could not say we were close--we were both woodworkers and yet did not visit each other's shops, nor did we talk much of Iowa and farming--but I had genuine affection for him that I believed he shared for me. I sat at his funeral, a close relation and deeply sad at his passing, but a stranger to his lifetime endeavor. Such are families.
The first time I visited Iowa, a few years after Tom passed, I was overwhelmed by all that Hearst's poem touches on. A rolling ocean of golden corn and soybeans. A grid of fields imposed over ancient glacial terrain. Machinery that dwarfed houses and was guided by satellite. Earth as black as night. Roads laid out precisely East-West and North-South, except where surveyors made mistakes and so added a curving jog. A giant sky above, the moving clouds writing out tales. It was not an idealized tropical island paradise, or soaring majestic purple mountains, or ancient dark forest. The farms I visited were not near any national parks attracting millions of visitors. But the beauty of Iowa was easy to find.
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The second time I visited, I strove to learn. Arriving with different eyes, I saw different things.
Perhaps the greatest gift of working with wood is enforced humility. Boards do not become a table through the imposition of ego and will, but through respect for, understanding of, and negotiation with the material. I started by admitting that I knew nothing of farming. I read crop reports, market reports, watched grain markets, studied bin maintenance, tried to map out supply chains, learn the role of farm managers, understand corn and soybean agronomy. I watched the Millennial Farmer's Youtube channel to learn about the daily life of a Minnesotan farmer (and "Clarkson's Farm" for how not to farm). I learned how much there is to know, and how little I understood. I learned about good stewardship of the land and its many interpretations. I found appreciation and gratitude for the work of the managers and operators, all they know and do, and something of why they do it. I learned what my great uncle and cousins had achieved, through their smart decisions, honest management, kindness, and commitment, helping our family farms thrive. I felt awe before the whole endeavor.
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This third trip left me quiet and thoughtful.
While riding in a combine harvesting corn late one afternoon, I asked the farmer what he loved about his job. He gestured directly in front of us, the twelve-row head noisily eating at the ocean of dry corn in front of us.
"I love combining. Isn't it beautiful?"
"The results of all your work over the year?" I asked back, hoping for more details.
"Yeah. It's beautiful," he replied, and stayed quiet.
No one who lives here knows how to tell the stranger.
I watched out in front of the combine, did my best to stay quiet, and just experienced what combining was.
For its not about the words, those inadequate suitcases of thought and feeling. Words might be handy to transfer thoughts, but are no substitute for immediate experience. The poet's job is like embalming life.
I focused on the fields of corn, looked for their beauty. I thought of the beauty of the grain of a freshly finished board, the clear oil revealing what sanding had only hinted at. I felt beauty in the cornfield. It was easy to see when I looked at what was right before me.
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Farmers know the joys of engaged work with their hands. The fruits of their labor are tangible, bought with hard work, and thoughtful problem solving. Their workplace is beautiful, their materials are naturally beautiful. The results benefit other people. Not every job offers beauty and usefulness so easily. A corporate lawyer told me his work offered neither, and the only thing about he enjoyed was the paycheck. After he detailed what he did, I believed him.
On the drive back home I wondered if we can only learn, appreciate, and understand what we can feel. Is emotional engagement the primary motivation towards knowledge? If you love it, you'll pursue it? If so, then Elon Musk is one big dummy. For as flexible and far-reaching his intellect may be, I sense he does not feel deeply about anything he says or does. Twitter, free speech, Ukrainian communication satellites --all feel like bottle caps he flicks back and forth between his fingers on a table, trying to pass the time waiting for his food to be served. His failure to understand free speech emotionally could be our undoing as a nation, the straw to the camel's back in the virtual public sphere that has lost its core connection to reality and responsibility. And he is one of many, like the corporate lawyer, who do not love their work, just the paycheck.
I hope to be back in Iowa soon, looking at the Spring planting, with banners in my eyes.
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