Actually, I was just thinking about myself again.

Sleep is trending right now. I've seen articles all over town about it, especially in magazines we have subscriptions to that I don't read.. The Atlantic, Harpers and the New Yorker. But don't worry when people come up to visit, I fan them out all over the house. 

I desperately wish I was an overachiever in the sleep department, by which I mean an underachiever in the department of needing a lot of it. Un-achieving a lot of hours sleeping while achieving a lot during day time hours working. You know what I mean. The high end of the spectrum is reserved for people like Martha Stewart (clocking 4 hours, a fact which everyone in our world is well aware of, but, was also recently mentioned in this months Vanity Fair - one of my prescriptions which I now can read portions of, especially if I'm not sleeping on plane). The low end of the spectrum is for children and dogs. Rock bottom is for species that make cocoons. (Which are also trending right now. Along with tarot, fermentation and the return of scrunchies. And there you have the Saipua trend report; you're welcome.)

I was in California last week, working on some projects. I was traveling alone and had become strung out on the time change and the 4:00 wake up calls for the flower market (New York florists never hit 28th street before 6:00 - and the best, most fashionable of the set never are seen before 8am! If I want to run into my friend Emily I plan to have lunch in the area.) After a week of 5 hours of sleep a night, I started speaking in tongues during important meetings. I was leaving dinner parties before dinner was served. That low grade sleep deprivation headache hit me by Friday; the kind that makes me wish I could unscrew my eyeballs and take a pressure washer to the inside of my skull. 

Now I'm back at home on the farm, trying to regain my 8-hour routine. I plan to take naps but then always end up working through the afternoon...too focused on accomplishments. Counting them, stacking them up in my brain. Did I do enough today to feel good, to feel right. If I take a hot bath, a long walk with the dog, or even an hour just to lay down...these things also become categorized as things to get done. Self care? Check!

How do I get to the other side of that? To the place where rest just is. Shaking off my own expectations and judgements, walking away from my tickertape inner monologue, leaving my work persona for a moment. I glance out the window at all the trees blowing in a sudden breeze...who am I? 

Oh well, 4o'clock. Time to go tear some shit up on the tractor.

what started as a city post became a farm post, sorry.

One nice thing about trying and failing at flower farming - and sure I'm being a bit dramatic - is that it's made me appreciate buying other peoples flowers so much more. And the city. Good God I love fleeing to the city, revisiting our dusty paint peeling apartment and sinking into old routines...I have a chair by my window where I sit in the morning and in the night. I put my feet up on the wall and watch the sliver of new york harbor I can see beyond the row houses. The light coming up; I am drinking coffee. It's quiet except for the Russian construction workers across the street mangling a civil war era row house into some architects magnum opus. The light going down, I'm drinking a glass of wine listening to records trying on all my city clothes alone. Occasionally padding barefoot into the kitchen to graze on some cheese and arugula. Oh how I long now for a box of arugula, in the face of another night of purslane here at the farm. With a squeeze of lemon and drizzle of oil. Sweet sophisticated liberal arugula! Expertly cut with lasers, probably packaged in a factory with underpaid workers, a hint of danger - is it contaminated with e colli? I don't care. I skip washing it. 

Lately I've been listening to Anna Von Hausswolff. I think many of you would like her.

I've been practicing my singing because I want to perform one day. I want to make the big barn at the farm into a flower studio and performance space and invite others to perform in my talent shows. Hmm I'm going to need lighting. I've been practicing 1. Rhiannon Stay and 2. Sophie B Hawkins Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover. It's going pretty well. I sound really good in the car, speeding on the thruway one hand plugging my ear so I can better hear my intonation. 

We must dream. 

I've found a little rhythm at the farm finally. Living here this past year is teaching me many mystifying lessons which I did not anticipate. I said to Eric once a few weeks ago, this was a mistake. Then I googled "identity crisis." 

My relationship to Nature is complicated. I'm not starry eyed about it. I don't want to run into the field of wildflowers and spin around Sound of Music style. Most of the time I am just making lists against Nature, taking her to task... 

If it's not going to rain, then I'm going to crank on the irrigation system. 

If the soil is too thick with clay to drain then I'm going to order 20 tons of sand to mix into my iris beds...

If I suspect beetles are eating the dahlias then I'm going to...

One thing that I seem to feel lately is not myself working on the farm. And I figured out why that is! The old me knew everything. Or else I pretended to. You can do that pretty well in business I think, and one of my key rules in building Saipua was always fake it till you make it. But there is no forgiveness on the farm. There is no faking it. No matter how much I resist it...the farm is making me learn true humility. I hate every minute of it. But it's about time.

I turned 33 last week.