Familiar Surroundings or New Adventures?

It’s been 5 ½ weeks here at Adamah. Everything here has become so routine, it feels like I’ve been here for months- waking up at 5:30am for Avodat Lev, chores, breakfast, rushing out to work at 8:40, Lunch at noon, second work session at 1:30, and then either class or free time, finally collapsing from a long day at 10pm. But two activities this week disrupted this routine, providing some variation in our schedule. Sunday we went on an Urban Sustainability field trip, where individuals in Hartford spoke to us about their methods of farming, the programs they run to help families in need, and policies about helping individuals find jobs, particularly those with histories of crime, generally unable to find work. After a brief group recap, enabling us to reflect on what we learned, we were given some free time in the afternoon to roam about and go shopping before heading to the Moishe House of West Hartford for a barbecue. The Moishe House staff gave us a tour, talked to us about the work they do for college students, and we headed back to Falls Village with our stomachs and minds full of everything we had consumed that day.

Later that week I had co-led a pickle workshop at a JCC camp in New York. Four of us left Falls Village early in the morning with an Adamah apprentice, a staff member who had participated in Adamah in the past and was currently working as a helper and mentor to current participants. We drove out to the camp and demonstrated how to make pickles, allowing the children to do so on their own, while explaining to them that the food we use is grown on our farm at the Isabella Freedman. The children asked questions and commented on the pickle-making process as we, the staff members helped guide them with this process.

Both of these outings were fun and fulfilling, but returning to the Isabella Freedman on both of these days was relieving beyond measure. There’s something  special about living in a kibbutz- like environment, where you are familiar with the area, with the participants and staff around you, with the familiar routine that makes going away on a trip or adventure slightly unsettling. I know that I’m going to wake up at 5:30 in the morning for the prayer service and leave three hours later for work. I know that lunch will be waiting for us at noon (or 12:30, with some slight changes in this week’s schedule), and work session with frequent classes on leadership or farming in the evenings. I know that Sunday evenings at 7:00pm are fellowship meetings, where Adamah-niks discuss topics involving how to make the Adamah House a better and more manageable living situation for everyone. I know that on Fridays at 1pm, we are all expected to be at the “Sadeh” (more formally known as Sadeh HaChalomot, or “Field of Dreams”) for pre-Shabbat planting or weeding. While familiarity can sometimes get monotonous- such as when I’m scheduled to work on the field for several days in a row and know that I will be weeding or harvesting  during that time- it’s comfortable. I know that as a farmer, as an Adamah-nik on an intense work schedule, I’m counted on to be somewhere and I get settled in that routine. When going on an Urban Sustainability trip, working at a camp two hours away, or even hoeing and weeding on a farm a half away from the Isabella Freedman, I enjoy the adventures, but soon find myself anxious to get back to Beebe Hill, on campus, or the Cultural Center, to wash, cut, and pickle the vegetables we harvest out on the field.

Harvesting tomatoes with a Hazon intern- one of a few
individuals who came to the Isabella Freedman for a week
to help out on the field.

Calling the Isabella Freedman and Adamah my safe space, my home away from home sounds cliché. But that’s kind of what it is. To leave this place, despite only being here for more than a month, seems strange and intimidating, when I’ve gotten used to life on the farm with the Adamah fellows and Isabella Freedman staff. After spending a summer where many things are predictable and basic needs, are taken care of, it’s figuring out how to transition myself back to reality so I can check out apartments next weekend in New York; be able to start my new job on the Upper West Side come September; begin to think about graduate school and my career-bound life- that will not be so simple.