Gratitude: A List
By: Maddie Privott
We have been at this trail workin’ and community livin’ for nearly 3 months. Although we still have hard work ahead of us, the end is coming into view and I find myself having frequent moments of gratitude that have given me pause. In an effort to give others a glimpse into this experience and to articulate gratitude for our time here together, I want to list some of what I know I will miss as I recall my summer as an SMC crewmember. What words I find will undoubtedly be incomplete, but here are a few of the bits and the pieces:
- Having a place at the table. Since leaving home for college time spent sharing a meal at a communal table has become a rarity. On hitch, “the table” might mean the crew perched on logs encircling a fire, or huddled beneath our kitchen tarp to escape the rain. Whether on hitch, or at the homestead,
there is a warmth and magic to enjoying a meal with others whom you are in community with.
- Eating our labors. If I let myself go, this whole list could center around the food we eat. I will simply say, vegetables taste better when they’re fresh from the garden.
- Every meal ever prepared by the hands of Heather and/or Molly. Okay, okay I’m done.
- Community meetings. They provide a space for direct communication, debriefing, thought provoking discussion, silly games, learning, and excessive coffee consumption.
- Onsite projects. These have ranged from “Pickle It! 2015”, to constructing a cob oven, to planting veggies, and inoculating mushrooms. There have been myriad opportunities to learn skills and collaborate on projects.
- The peculiar conversations we have on hitch. After you’ve been outside for days with a group of folks with little for entertainment but the company of one another, you may
find that the conversation topics begin to depart from the norm. You reach down deep into the recesses of your mind and find the weird stuff. Hitch is a unique context in which to get to know someone. It accelerates the process of reciprocity and openness.
- Remembering how to laugh like a little kid. See #1, #6, and #10.
- The mountains and woods. I would be remiss not to mention how special it is to go to sleep to an insect choir singing to the constant exhale of a river, and then to wake up and go outside and simultaneously go to work.
- The SMC team. Becki, Eliza, Heather, Jon, Michael, Molly, Natalie, Sean, Tuck, and Vincent are people I am thankful to have spent this summer living among. The work we do requires a good measure of grit, and jumping into a residential program with strangers requires a good measure of flexibility and graciousness. Each of these folks have demonstrated all three, and much more.
- The whole crew singing/yelling Annie’s “Tomorrow” in unison the final night on hitch. This ritual started on the first hitch and has continued throughout the summer. In my opinion, we would all be capable of playing ourselves in a production chronicling the SMC pilot program. But I digress.
-Maddie
