Beginning a big trip

It’s no small task to leave a farm, bookshop, and midwifery practice to go on a five week trip to Europe with a family of four. Sitting in the Boston airport, waiting to depart, I’m hoping we didn’t forget too much.

We left our Nehalem, Oregon home in the stewardship of poet Travis Champ. His manual typewriter is set up at a desk facing a window that looks out toward our garden. Overhead are drying bunches of Jennifer’s lavender. Hope it’s a good place for him to work.

What a blessing to spend some time with Travis yesterday before we left, transitioning to travel with bits of talk about books and art, walking through the motions required to care for the fish and chickens and cats and dog and dairy goats.

One of those motions involves a favorite goat — Nutmeg — who developed severe mastitis in the days before our planned departure. I showed Travis how to straddle Nutmeg while holding one of her front legs and cradling her head. She struggled and cried out as we injected antibiotic into her swollen teat. Then she chewed her cud and let me hug her.

A former wrestler in high school, Travis didn’t seem daunted by any of this. Our gracious friend Brian who farms nearby is coming over to administer the remaining treatments with him. It feels good to know Nutmeg is in good hands.

Walking through the barn I mentioned of my favorite paintings to Travis — “I and the Village” by Marc Chagall. It features a vivid green-colored man looking into the face of his goat, or what I’ve always thought is a goat. There’s a dashed line between the eyes of the animal and man, with images of rural village life surrounding the two figures. The painting’s title underscores the core importance of human-animal relationships in village life.

Much of the mainstream pop culture that trained my upbringing associated free creative expression with urban settings, far from the village. With his beautiful wild colors, Chagall showed us that the basic human rituals of the village can be psychedelic.

At the other end of the spectrum are the rituals of American airports. Our flight is now boarding. Next post will be from Paris.