Farmer Daughter

by Patti

Sunday we spent the entire day livin’ it up in the country. A friend of M’s lives in a rambling farm house that sits on a billion acres of land. They raise horses and their kids catch fireflies.

S went bonkers zipping across of acres of unspoiled land on a dirt bike. There went my kid, all decked out in Evil Knievel gear and a huge dare devil orange helmet. Her blonde, curly hair flew wildly behind her, and, even from far away, I could see the joy in her body as she felt the freedom of the land that stretched before her.

She rode this dirt bike for hours, and then she and M flew around the fields on a 4-wheeler, taking curves like stunt pros while the resident dog “herded” them like they were sheep on crack.

Then she fed the horses mounds of fresh carrots, plucked the grassy fields for bugs and worms, got dirty from head to toe, and, even though her “allergic-to-floaty-things-in-the air” eyes were all puffy by day’s end, she stated quite simply that she wanted to be a farmer.

Though I would most likely never move to a farm because doing so would end up with M and I singing this:

I still love giving credence to what she says.

Okay, so yeah, Saturday she wanted to be a police officer. The day before a rap star. Last week she wanted to work for Apple designing Mac computers. A few months ago she wanted to work at M.A.C. – the cosmetics store. Last year she wanted to be a hairdresser. So what?

Even if her future “career” choices are a little on the schizophrenic side right now, her unabashed enthusiasm for each new experience says something about her character: that she is capable of dreaming, and hoping, and happiness.

For her to know what that is, holy cow I’d buy the whole farm.