Dirt, Water, Sun, & Time

For all that we’re citizens of this digital world, we don’t really trust it.

We’ve learned to deal with social media to the extent of ignoring it. We’ve realized that, between them, Google and Amazon have made a pact to swallow up the earth whole. As users, we make an uneasy peace with Craigslist – or Freecycle – and heed the warnings about meeting in busy parking lots and well-lighted places, just in case. Nine times out of ten, everything is fine, and the largely lawless digital world flickers on.

As non-supporters of social media, the Hobbits still view online dating with deep suspicion.

Which only makes sense. By nature somewhat introverted, the whole idea of meeting strangers is, to a Hobbit, somewhat daunting, and on a bad (READ: cynical) day, abhorrent. So, it’s a surprise to us to count the number of friends we’ve made online, despite our distrust of the digital world for making lasting connections.

There’s Elle, and her brilliant and funny “Sweetie,” with whom we truly enjoy spending all too infrequent time in the North Bay. There’s Kelly, down south, Kansas up north, and Jacquie even further north, with whom we’ve swapped seeds, stories, recipes, and more. There’s Bake My Day and Healing Hands. There’s Nami-Nami with whom we spent time with in Scotland (jet-lagged and dazed) and in Estonia (slightly less jet-lagged, still dazed), there’s Saints and Spinners who met us in an airport and waited with us between planes – the list goes on. We’ve shared so much of our lives with people we haven’t met, yet through swapping recipes or reminiscences about our slightly nomadic lives, we’ve made connections.

This isn’t even counting all of T’s colleagues and writer-friends who also blog. It’s a little crazy, when you count all of them – two of them have made room for us in their homes, sight unseen, and over we came. Just from knowing each other through our words.

So, it should not have been astounding to have a visit from a not-yet-met blog friend feel so much like having extended family over to visit.

We did all a Hobbit’s favorite things – baking, and eating. Watching things and eating. Playing with kites, and eating. And all sitting in the same room, silently reading … and eating.

We introduced a New Yorker to See’s. She introduced us to Hedonist. We fell into sugar comas.

We talked about all of the things we wish we could do, we hope to do, and we expect to do someday. And tried to put our dreams in some sort of sequence so that they could more frequently meet reality. And planned for our next trip to visit more friends we’ve never met.

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We’ve pushed off our trip to Scotland again.

The plan was to go in May, but we’ll more likely visit in the autumn when the weather is probably not going to be as nice, but we’ll have gotten the garden set up to where we can leave it. It’s a little surreal that we can let go of our plans so easily – plans that, weeks ago, were sometimes all that kept us going, but the reality is that our friends and “family” in Scotland aren’t sitting still with baited breath, waiting for us. (Some of them are actually planning 2014 trips to the U.S.), and we’ve been digging in and trying to make our living here. Life can only go forward, so onward we go. We’re looking forward to outwitting the frequent showers and getting the garden settled in – as soon as the rototiller stops dying. We’re anticipating a few days in Yosemite at the end of the month, reacquainting ourselves with the ten thousand waterfalls sure to be melting and thundering to the valley floor by then, and we’re paging eagerly through seed catalogues and imagining our food dryers and canning jars packed full.

It’s hopeful, these anchors to reality, in the digital world. Some things are still true: friendships. Dirt. Water. Time. Growth.