I was tired and found myself here

Thai Harris Singer

“It’s fine, it’ll grow back!”  

Virginia assures me

I am in a thicket of yellow wingstem higher than my head.

Virginia is somewhere woven among the red pepper plants.

I’m trying to figure out the best way to clear a pathway through the weeds without mowing straight through her patch of purple orange pink flowers. 

Thai Harris Singer working on the farm.

I’ve lived in New York City all my life but for the month of September I’m staying at Shannon Farm in Afton, Virginia through WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms), a global work exchange program where people can gain farming experience for free housing. Afton is in the Shenandoah Valley, surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains, near the Appalachian Trail. 

I was told my grandfather used to say: “When you go somewhere new, find the black folks first.” So here is how I orient myself:

100 miles southwest from Richmond, where my mother was born & raised and loved to pick wild blackberries in a thicket down by the railroad

180 miles west from Hampton, the stomping grounds of my aunt, a craft artist of insect carapaces, random weeds, wasps nests and other found natural items 

90 miles southwest from Fauquier County, the land where one of my enslaved ancestors fled to join the Union Army

25 miles from Thomas Jefferson’s plantation, Monticello

My host Virginia puts me up in her home in exchange for help around her homestead that sits on 500 acres of land, shared by other community members. Virginia is generous enough to let me into her world: filled with homemade maple yogurt, tending to cows and chickens, dips in the lake after a humid morning of pulling weeds, and naps. I try my best to assist her in the everyday tasks of living in alignment with nature. Today, this means clearing this brush all the way to the electric fence where I’m careful not to get shocked.

The weed whacker is whirring louder than even my city-trained ears are comfortable. I’m still worried about the problem: “But I don’t want to hurt your flowers!”  Virginia is clearly impatient with me. It doesn’t have to be just-so, and it doesn’t matter if she loses some flowers as long as the path is made. I make the path and it’s messier than I’d like. Moving through the impulse for perfection becomes part of the routine.

On the way out of her garden, Virginia stops the car by a vast field of sunny goldenrod. She clips a couple pieces to add to a bouquet she will bring over to the local artist gallery where she volunteers the next day. She gets back in the car, goldenrod on her lap, we drive off, and I feel a dis-ease that simmers through me for the rest of the day. Discomfort with abundance. What do we do with the rest of it? We can’t just leave it there! Where will it go? How will it be used? We must do something about it. I toss and turn it in my mind like an itch.

Discomfort with abundance.    (Ecollective graphic)                                           

Waste can find new life as abundance.

The life Virginia leads at the Shannon Intentional Community rejects this model. All things feed back into each other to create more. Weeds that cover the backyard → are fed to the chickens → the chickens lay eggs →  for our breakfast → their raw egg shells are composted to the soil → the soil grows a red pepper I pick and munch on a walk, I keep the seedball (core) of the pepper in my pocket → I throw the core to the chickens when I return → they eat it along with  grain that attracts stray field mice → the cats hunt for stray field mice that we chuck back into the weeds to decompose, and so it repeats. In other words: all things have a purpose. Waste can find new life as abundance.

A visually and literally delicious combination grown at Shannon.

At Shannon, nobody owns their own homes nor the land their homes sit on. Instead, land is owned communally by the members. Shannon’s members understand that they are ultimately visitors to their homes, passing through temporarily, until they’re not there anymore. Shannon is an antidote to the conception that the land can be privately owned. But don’t get it twisted, these homes are fly, frugality and ingenuity come together to create uniquely decorated cottages, bright sunroofs, expansive handmade porches, and adorably quaint front gardens embellished with handmade pottery and rocking chairs. 

These homes have sunk deeply into their bones/they are comfortable being lived in, despite owners’ knowing that they are not “theirs” to own at all, that one day this home will be passed on. 

This to me is a radical new conception of abundance. Holding on loosely, not being afraid to lose what isn’t theirs to. Being a part of something bigger than the self is extra life. There is … and then some. 

Thai (left) and fellow worker complete making the wood pile.  It’s a beautiful as well as pragmatic construction.  Chop wood, carry water, make a three-dimensional wooden mosaic. 

Someone on the farm tells me that humans make up 0.01% of all life on the planet. I’m reminded of this by a passage I read in Lesley-Ann Brown’s Black Girl on Mars. She writes about the development of the modern Western relationship to the natural world, describing the European Enlightenment as:

… that period when Europe humanized herself at the expense of the entire planet and everything else on her. 

She goes on to say: 

Where would we be without the European compulsion to name and organize…We are a culture that often uses nouns for concepts that used to be expressed as verbs, thereby halting the dynamism of existence, bounding it into seemingly static ways of being - a “human being” stands out here.

The dynamism of my existence —  I have spent most of my life being socialized to believe that everything that surrounds me exists to be in service to this.

However, as a person who grew up in a city, who does not “provide” my own needs like the people at Shannon ( i.e. grow my own food, upkeep my own home), I live in discord with my environment. To make sense of my experience, I learned to name and organize myself as “human” separate from all other things. This of course is also the logic that allows humans dominion over other humans, a metastatic growth that developed itself into slavery, and now has inherited its way into my ego. But when I do this, I deny everything else its own right to livelihood. 

My backyard becomes my land to tame, I, human, imbue everything around me with meaning.

My self-importance, bigger than the ground under my feet?! 

My mind, bigger than the goldenrod field, and the whole sky and the two rivers that cross by the house, and all the riverstones and their snails? 

How exhausting!

No wonder I was tired and found myself here.

Feeling free in the Blue Ridge foothills of the Appalacians.

This is how I name the anxiety I feel staring up at the field of goldenrod.

The mind runs: “if I, human, can’t control this living plant, how will I make sense of it?” (And what I really mean by that is “how will i make sense of me?) 

Lesley-Ann Brown says: It will be a thing, living. 

I come to realize that this is not a grace I give to things easily, let alone to myself. In my world there is very little room to be a living thing. My value isn’t replenishable, if I lose, I lose I lose I lose.                                        .

When I understand myself to be one small part of all things bigger, I understand that I am not finite or prone to become waste. I can grow back. 

in a field of goldenrod at sunset.

I’m in a river flowing 

                                        foreign 

                                                            yet nostalgic … .

September 21 is my mother and grandmother’s birthday and I choose to spend my afternoon walking through one of the two rivers running through the property. When I was a child Mom would lead creek walks like grand adventure expeditions. We hunted for tiny frogs hiding under mossy overhangs, and sought out carefully water-crafted pathways running through rocks that I could probe a petite baby finger inside and envision to be someone’s fairy home. On the walk back through the creek I would make up details of the fairy’s life…

… her name is Silver Dust and she has purple iridescent wings, small brown shoes, and a pot of daisy tea brewing in the back and yes please i would love some thank you

I’m experiencing a state of flow I haven’t experienced in years, endlessly entertained by the masses of waterbugs I disturb with my feet (and proud of myself for wading with them; I would’ve been too scared of them as a child!!)

Knee deep in the water and 70 years ago today I was first brought to some kind of life in the form of an egg cell nestled inside my mother at her birth, and so too is true of my mother and hers and hers farther back than really makes sense to me. My grandmother and my mother aren’t here any longer but I’m walking through a river.

I check my phone, I have been in this river forever and it is only 6 pm. 

I feel both entirely unimportant and also possible.

I find a shallow river bank made of stones that have been cooking in the sun heat. I call my Dad. I read my book by Ntozake Shange (my favorite author), If I Can Cook/You Know God Can.

She’s thinking about the leaders of the Haitian Revolution, self liberated:

I must imagine…what a free people chose to celebrate victory…our very survival. What do we want for dinner? What was good enough to commemorate our humanity?

I lay my back down on hot stones with cool feet and I feel like a human being.

Zaki, I’ll tell you: 

On Sunday morning I made whole grain pancakes.

Free range chicken and just-picked veggie soup at night.

And that is more than enough.

Sunset in the Appalachian foothills. All photos in this article by or belonging to Thai Harris Singer

2025 update to article

Thai Harris Singer worked on a WWOOF farm in West Virginia in July 2024 and and began to envision herself co-founding an intentional land-based community by the time she reaches mid-life. She is  currently a cook for _______________  (name of kitchen) in Portland ME. On January 2, a day before her 28th birthday, she sent out this message:

Happy New Year family! 

Tomorrow is my birthday, and when I'm asked "what do I want?", I can't help but think about how many crises are unfolding across the globe at this time. I struggle to imagine asking for more when so many don't even have their basic needs met or are actively fighting for safety on a daily basis. Instead, I'd like to harness the power of my wonderful community to give back to people whose lives will be truly transformed by our contribution. 

For my birthday, I'm asking for your donation to an organization that is on the ground, feeding Sudanese people across Khartoum state. Whatever you are able to give, no matter how small, is very helpful. 

Khartoum Aid Kitchen currently runs 12 kitchens, and are planning on building more in the new year. If you're interested in seeing footage of what they do and who they serve, you can find them on Instagram @khartoum_aid_kitchen.

You can find the donation link HERE

Sudan is currently facing the world's largest humanitarian crisis, with the highest rate of displacement in the world and large populations at high risk of death due to famine.  And yet, (not that we're surprised...) the crisis in Sudan is not reported anywhere on the news, nor is it marched for in the streets. It would mean a lot to me if you could also commit to spreading the word about Sudan - educating yourself, sharing donation resources, and speaking up in shared spaces. It is essential we don't forget that much of our own privilege is afforded because of others' suffering.

I appreciate all of you for being such important supports and lights in my 28 years of life, and I'm excited to spend more time together in the new year!

With love & appreciation,

xoxo

Thai