Rainy days are like 3 am thoughts and reflections ...
Esperance received a fair bit of rain on Thursday. Rain is one of my all-time favourite parts of Mother Nature. I grew up in the mid-north of SA where it wasn’t a common occurrence and, as a farmer, I know there are good times for rain and others not so great.
To me, any drop of rain is a good one.
I love sitting at the computer creating stories for you all to read when it’s raining – again, that type of day, when it’s dark and grey, with rain falling steadily, is my favourite time to write (unless it’s very early morning).
Thursday I wrote heaps of words. If you can imagine, the hitting the tin roof, never once changing its rhythm or song. Puddles started to form; it was cold… It was perfect.
I never thought rain could unsettle me. But it did on Thursday.
If you haven’t followed my blog much, you may not know I was a farmer for twenty years. Farming and stock are in my blood. I lived on 8,000 acres east of Esperance until July 2014, when I left my husband.
I left my husband because the marriage couldn’t be saved. I didn’t want to leave the farm; I didn’t want to stop farming, and I certainly didn’t want to live in town. But I had to make decisions for the health of my children and me. So, I made the sacrifice of leaving the farm.
Rainy days can be a bit like 3 am moments – raw and honest and true.
I got to thinking: even though my ex may not like farming and living by himself, he is still doing what he loves. My children are still doing what they did before – school, living with me. For them, not much has changed.
It’s been my life which has changed the most dramatically. I get up each morning, living in town, and write. I don’t get to see the fog slowly coming across the paddocks as the sun rises any more. I don’t get to work with sheep, and I don’t get to see the land I love.
Thursday, all I wanted to do was run, with arms outstretched, pushing everything out of the way until I put my feet inside the front gate of where I lived for twenty years.
I guess you can take the girl out of the farm, but not the farm from the girl. Leaving the farm has left the largest hole in my heart. One I’m not sure can ever be mended.
