In Memory

Yesterday was Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. From sundown Saturday night to sundown last night, my husband’s people fasted as they remembered their sins and sought atonement. Mothers and grandmothers lit candles in memory of the dead. Families gathered last night to break fast together.

I, too, fasted yesterday. I too remembered people now gone.

This is a way into a story I don’t really have any right to tell. Still, it weighs on me and the only way I’ve ever been able to excise anything is to write it down.

I tried to post this yesterday but for some reason couldn’t get the courage to do it.

So.

As most of you who read this blog on a regular basis know, in last August before heading to the annual Burning Man Artfest-cum-Carnivale in Black Rock City, Nevada, I took a few days to visit my sister on the organic farm where she was interning for the summer before heading back to school to get her MA in English.

Since we live on opposite coasts we don’t get to see each other that often and even though it was a little awkward—I was supposed to be helping pack up for our desert trek, after all—I still made a point of visiting her on this farm about an hour or so east of SF.

R. and I spent two days hanging out with the three women who worked there: L, the woman who owned the farm, my sister; who used to be a cook at the chichi Berkeley eatery Olivetos; and the other intern, a former baker from Boston. The three women called themselves the Farmer, the Baker, and the Cook as a sort of joke that quickly became old hat.

The first night we ate a mixture of specialty produce from the farm and specialty meats they’d traded at that morning’s Berkeley farmers’ market. We hiked and talked. Talked and walked.

On Sunday our friend M (again, from Burning Man fame) came out and spent the night. The next morning he and R drove back to SF via Napa, wine-tasting their way into their own little Sideways adventure.

I stayed on the farm and spent that afternoon and the following day working alongside my sister, the Baker and the Farmer. I picked sungold tomatoes and peaches and pumpkins. I cleaned garlic and onions for market. I watched them pack orders for restaurants like Chez Panisse and Olivetos and Quince. Throughout, the Farmer’s dog, D, scampered between us, chasing mice and rabbits. When D stood still she always made sure some part of her flank was pressed up against somebody’s shins.

These women were all educated and their conversations ran along the lines of books and philosophy. (On the outdoor kitchen table, were several copies of the New Yorker and a primer of butchering. On the way down to the main field was a mattress where the Farmer was wont to sleep on the hottest of summer nights and on that mattress was a copy of The Turn Of The Screw, dog-eared and water-stained.)

During my visit I also learned that the Farmer and the Baker were dating and that the Farmer was toying with the idea of converting the farm from a specialty organic produce farm to an artist retreat or colony. She needed a break, she explained. Farming was hard work and it tended to isolate you.

On Tuesday afternoon after work my sister and I drove back into SF and I met up with R and M. We had dinner. My sister went back home and the next day we left for Burning Man, which I’ve written about extensively on this very blog.

When I returned to NY, life went on as usual. Just scroll back through the last few months’ worth of posts and you’ll see what I’ve been up to.

On the farm, my sister reported during our daily phone conversations, life just sort of coasted along. She was going to continue to live at the farm, in the yurt the Farmer had provided for both interns, throughout the fall semester. She’d work for about ten hours a week—tending the chickens; helping around the farm—for a small stipend.

She started classes last Tuesday. She attended an orientation on Wednesday afternoon. When she got home that night the Farmer wasn’t around but she learned from the Baker that the two had broken up at lunch that day. Perhaps, the Baker speculated, the Farmer just needed some space.

But the next morning at 7 am the Farmer didn’t show up for work. The Baker and my sister waited for a few minutes. They waited for a few more. They called her cell phone. They text messaged her. Nothing. My sister had a weird feeling. The dog wasn’t barking. And the dog always barked. And come to think of it, D hadn’t barked when she’d returned the night before, either.

She and the Baker walked up to the house and my sister, telling the Baker to wait by the door, went inside.

In one of the back rooms she found the Farmer sprawled on the floor. There was a lot of blood. She’d shot herself. The dog, too, was dead.

My sister rushed back out of the house, telling the Baker not to go inside. She called the police and then called me. I was speechless. I panicked. All I could think of was that I wanted to reach across the country and yank my sister away from this, yank her all the way back to what now seemed like boring but safe Brooklyn. Instead, I talked to her for a while. I don’t know what I said. All I know is that it felt inadequate. The police were taking a long time to get there, she kept saying.

Now, six days later, my sister’s staying with friends in SF. She’s helping the Farmer’s friends and family in whichever ways she can. But every time I talk to her she vacillates between sounding strangely calm, sad, angry and overwrought. She’s a tough kid. Always has been. She’ll get through this, scars notwithstanding.

Even though I only knew her for a few short days, I sensed that the Farmer was a good, kind person. (I still remember the look on her face when she thanked me for helping them out that day—the sudden flash of shy vulnerability. A timid sweetness.)

My heart goes out to her spirit, wherever it may be. My heart goes out to her father and brothers, her friends and colleagues. My heart goes out the Baker. My heart goes out to my sister, suddenly jobless and homeless days after graduate school started.

My heart goes out to all of us who, teetering at the edge of that dark place, somehow fall into the abyss.

And so I light this virtual candle in memory of the Farmer. And repeat the hindu mantra: Lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu.

May all beings everywhere be happy and free.

Without exception.