Birthday Blog

Happy Birthday Maya!!


This has been my face pretty much all week :)

 Life is going pretty well at this point. In honor of my birthday I am first going to make a list of everything I am grateful in my life. Then I am going to follow it up with issues I am feeling really passionate about and hope you will help me in making them better!

1) Friends and family. At the beginning of this fellowship we were asked to think of a time when we felt loved. I remember having the hardest time figuring out what to say because I was filled with memories. All I have to do is hear my mom's voice over the phone, play tennis with my dad, or hug my boyfriend (i.e. picture to the right), and I feel this strong community of love and support. From last weekend all through the end of the month, I have people who want to come visit me because they care about me.

2) Nature. Everyday I have the pleasure of waking up to a red streaked sky or maybe a foggy one clouded in mystique. Sometimes its that first light of orange, yellow, and blue-tinted hues lighting up my window (as seen below). And now, seeing the trees turning colors as fall approaches us, is more spectacular than I can fathom. I revel in the majesty of this world and am excited to continue to learn more of nature's boundless secrets.

3) Food. This goes hand and hand with nature. This past six months I have felt a connection with my food in the healthiest way. When I grow my watermelon, from seed to fruity goodness, I revel in the pinkness, the abundance of seeds, and the bounty of its flavor. And then I ferment it to create watermelon soda, a delicious drink filled with more nutrients from the bacteria we nursed to life ourselves. While I have always loved food, I have struggled to love it in a healthy way. With the lifestyle I now get to lead, I am thankful for food for its positive effects on my health.

4) The Present Moment. I have had a variety of moments here at AMI, from the mundane of picking weeds to the miraculous of fireflies dancing around me. Yet, even in the mundane I find miracles. In picking peas I have been able to connect more with nature, and thus more to my health and my community. Each pea comes off the vine differently, shining a different green hue or maybe growing a different shape. When I let myself be fully immersed into how each pea is similar and is different, I find myself making new connections and building upon them. Thus, I am thankful for being able to appreciate the now: in the simplest moments and the fireworks and thrills.

5) AMI. I would be amiss if I did not thank the AMI staff and fellows and community that we have created here together. I still can't get over how special it is that once ago, we were all 11 strangers, and now we are a community, a farm family, working towards healthy living together. And while sometimes I focus on the challenges, I know I have learned and grown so much from this program.

While I am thankful for so much more, I would like to say how I want to use all of these gifts I have been given to work towards stronger communities. I will elaborate on these issues in the next few blog posts, but just to get you thinking I've put some of my issues out in the open, with some links to people and websites that I think do a good job explaining their importance.

1) Building closer, strong-knit communities. 

2) Eating and being connected to real, whole foods. 

3) Keeping food waste to a minimum through tighter systems and compost

4) Voting!!!

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