It’s 4:51 am and my alarm will go off in 9 minutes. I’ve been laying here for a while thinking about the day that is about to unfold. A day dedicated to being on the tractor. A day of smelling what my father called the dirt of life. There is something magical about the smell of the earth being woken from its resting place. The way the earth feels in your hands and nothing about it feels dirty. To me and many others, it feels like you are holding life.

At 5 am my alarm goes off and my bride of 27 years rolls over and places her hand on my arm, within seconds she is back to sleep. Though it was brief, the connection we made will carry me through the day. As I walk down the hallway and wake up my joints, laying right in the middle of my path is the not so puppy. I kneel down and she lifts one leg telling me she would like a belly rub. As I rub her belly she rolls up on her back making sure I can get every inch of her belly. Though the belly rub was less than a minute she knows I love her.

As the sun comes up I cross the field on the tractor. No fresh earth smell yet but the smell of the diesel from the tractor tells me it will soon be here. I sat the other day with an older man that I admire. I learned early on in life that those older than me most likely could guide me, so I would make less errors in my youthful judgment. As I sat in his large enclosed tractor his massive weathered hands wrapped around the steering wheel. I asked about this beeping sound and he said, “the tractor has GPS and knows this field so it can drive itself, but no tractor is driving me.” He also said, “these younger boys play the radio so loud you cannot hear the tractor and I like to hear the tractor.” As I sat with the older man he seemed connected to the tractor even though the tractor was as big as an RV.

As today’s sun cut through the pines the fresh earth smell soon swirled behind our open cab tractor. My body was covered in dust from our lack of rain but I welcomed the covering. As the day progressed I got off the tractor and watched my boots sink into the woken earth. Though I am just one simple man on a small piece of this earth, I was connected to the earth. As some would say I was grounded.

I had all day to think about life and to enjoy what I call tractor therapy. I never saw another human all day. Even though I want to help others I embrace the solitude of seeing no one. We live and breath in a fast paced world full of devices to keep us connected but many of us seem very unconnected and not grounded.

My late lunch was two yogurts sitting at our pond. My hands are dirty and there is still paint in the corners of my fingernails. The last few months, as I find my way back to me, I have painted gallons of things at our home and farm. My father used to say,” everything looks better with a fresh coat of paint. Giving the things I see a fresh coat of life. I’ve connected with a paint brush which is nothing more than an extension of my hand, which is nothing more than an extension of my soul. Though I am an educated, simple man- I feel those who work with their hands are like the older man in the tractor. They are connected and grounded.

As the sun sets my body is covered in that woken earth. I spent the day connected to the earth. I embraced the solitude of a world without people in a rush, without manners, without kindness, and without the lack of respect for each other. We all need places and times to connect to something. To wake up the part of us that gets buried by the rush of life. To hold a door open, to make an old person smile, to give us the energy to make a positive difference.

As I type these words to you I’m using a device that was designed to keep us connected. But nothing is like the connection that the human heart and soul makes. -Josey

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