It\u2019s hard to believe today is my last day at work. It’s hard to believe this is the last day I’ll come in, snarf the last cup of morning coffee lurking in the pot, and get a daily dose of morning banter from with Dale before sitting down to process the day\u2019s news. Hard to believe that yesterday\u2019s meeting with the news department was the last. Harder still to fathom leaving the North Country.<\/p>\n
Last night we had a goodbye party (by which I mean bacchanalian feast) at Ellen\u2019s. The table groaned under the weight of homemade pasta, corn fresh from the garden, Ellen\u2019s famous flatbread, and a host of other delights. And so it was that on this particular balmy evening surrounded by good friends, I was inducted into the tribe.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the summer April (another tenant chez Ellen and now dear friend) and I were puzzling over the sort of magical dynamic at work on the farm. What was the community we had entered and shaped? It wasn\u2019t a commune (there seems to be a \u2018been there, done that\u2019 attitude to communal living in DeKalb). Boarding house, halfway house, youth hostel\u2014none seemed right. And no pc hogwash about intentional communities, either. Given the mishmash of personas living under our roof, intentional seemed the furthest thing from accurate.<\/p>\n
The word we settled on: tribe. Merriam Webster has a couple of definitions, my favorite being \u201ca social group comprising numerous families, clans, or generations together with slaves, dependents, or adopted strangers.\u201d That pretty perfectly sums up the group at Ellen\u2019s. We number 6, or sometimes 7. We range in age from 20 to 65. We\u2019re from all over. And everyone is or has been a little bit of a vagabond, a little bit of a stray. Nobody in the house really makes sense together. But we\u2019re all looking for the same thing.<\/p>\n
This is where the adopted strangers part of the definition comes in, jokes about indentured servitude and serf labor aside. On the Maple Ridge Road, a sort of merry chaos reigns. Everyone does their part to keep the garden\/chickens\/ \/barn\/sheep\/equipment\/turkeys\/dogs\/kitchen\/cats\/yard going. Everyone helps with meals and dishes. Everyone\u2019s contributions are respected, everyone\u2019s personalities allowed to flourish. And yeah, we all get made fun of\u2014but there\u2019s an equal opportunity harassment policy.<\/p>\n
Living, working, and playing together during a North Country summer has made me (and, I imagine, my other housemates) really consider the things I value. Perhaps I border here on the clich\u00e9, but everything seems to involve the proverbial dinner table. First there\u2019s food, and how it got here. I grew up in a city where vegetables come from supermarkets; where items are bought, not made. As a result, I\u2019ve never really seen food come, as it does here, from garden to table throughout the summer. The process is sort of miraculous. But I recognize that it takes work, and here is item two: labor (tumbling utterly headfirst into the clich\u00e9 here, but bear with me).\u00a0 I\u2019ve spent most of my life being funneled through educational channels and while I\u2019ve almost always had jobs on the side, I\u2019ve never done much manual labor. Now, I rue knowing how to do next-to-nothing with my hands. (This, my friends, is soon to change. I\u2019m thinking about starting a bathtub gin distillery. Any investors out there?) And I\u2019m also starting to place enormous value on vocations like farming and craftsmanship, where hard work (hopefully) produces concrete, useful products. And finally, item three: good company. We get it at the dinner table, folks, and it certainly isn\u2019t lacking on Maple Ridge Road. I\u2019ve laughed a lot with the old tribe\u2014and learned a lot from them.<\/p>\n
So, the secret to tribal success: real food, real work, real company. Ellen\u2019s got it figured out (perhaps this is what makes her such a good boss). Wherever I go next and wherever I end up, I know I\u2019ll take those things with me. And even though summer\u2019s drawing to a close and the winds are blowing me first to Texas, then to Vermont, don\u2019t think I\u2019m done with the North Country yet. I\u2019ll be back here one way or another\u2014you can count on it. In the meantime, long live the Maple Ridge tribe!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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