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THE WORK FILE I Work the Land
By Matt Rentschler
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| I POP AT 6AM AND HEAR THE TRAIN ROLLING. I flannel up, put the levis on, grab the keys, sun screen, beep beep leash (pager), plus the heavy parka Channon donated for chill. I do my chow ritual: wheat toast, natural peanut butter, hard eggs on top, green tea, nectar (H20), and a multi. I kiss Chan goodbye and pet my kitty, Emilia, curled up by the heater as I hoof on out. Start the raft (fire apple freeway boat for piloting) and jump onto 244-W, pass downtown Tulsa. The chrome catches pink sun as she glares. Jump to 75-S, headed towards Bartlesville. I warm up before work: circulating feeling-attention from my topknot to my tippy toes; envisioning an aura of radiant presence; recognizing a quality of being, my own inner I-ness. I cap it off with a One Taste exercise: resting in this spacious Freedom, I embrace infinite Fullness – I let my heart and head mix with the sky, like a big blueberry pancake. No soundtrack in the morning: just the rumble of the rubber and my breathing. Thirty miles later, I pull up to the garage, punch my time card, plop in the chair and the duty begins. I am a ‘tender’--a deckhand, a sidemouse, an apprentice. I tend things and pass along tools: end wrenches, chop saws, saw saws, circular saws, nails, hammers, jacks, car keys, lunch, phone numbers, business cards. The man I heave the hand to is Bill Gray, my foreman, the first man, a ‘forwardman.’ I steer us where he captains the flow. Sometimes I toggle the wheel, alter course, make a suggestion, which he appreciates. He is an honorable and honest chief for me to sideman with. We handle eighty acres of land together, a lone outfit, just the two of us. The property belongs to my mate’s mama, Donna, a chain-smoking shaktipot of energy and light. She’s the kind of boss who gives you a benjamin for a c-note trip to the grocery store; who invites you in for lunch; who tells you to do one thing, then, not 5 seconds later, corrals you back with her hypnotic drawl, changing plans, adding new trips, deleting old steps, sending you off your way...only to corral you back again, with a smile. During our breaks between these errands, emergencies, and good ‘ole fashioned boredom, Bill is without fail bullshitting me. Like how he swears cherry pie and chocolate milk are nutritious (moreso, I guess, than brushing your teeth every morning with a quarter flask of vodka, his past regimented alcohol binge); or how he administers ‘country-music therapy,’ easing me in with a little Johnny Cash or Wanda Jackson, but then cranking the dosage with the likes of Willie Nelson and Freddy Fender. No doubt the man’s determined to bust my chops while he sharpens them, every day being a crash course in what he calls “Okie ingenuity.” He is, simply stated, a dirty old man, foul-mouthed and charming, hilarious and crass. A whoop and holler light up his face, his 67 years sun-leathered to a modest 80, seemingly ready to slough off. He is a fast-loose, compassionate runt. A wild spirit mellowed by ache and age, still the same glint of bar-brawling, broken-nose scrapper blinking assuredly thru those beaten eyes. A buffalo man, who has shown me equal amounts tough love and tender patience. Bill admits I’m a good hand: I don’t bitch about anything, am excited by work, and add to his enjoyment by being a fresh-faced, citified, country-no-nuthin’ corndog. (Plus, I’m sober more often than not, which Bill confides is one up on his previous hands). In a way, I’m literally Bill’s hand: he point-and-clicks and I’m on it. No ego-mouth, no muttering, it is just me and my post as the caretender, caregiver, steward, or surf; the hand to the land. But discriminating wisdom is my sharpest tool, always. When Bill says something like “pick up that dead goose with your bare hands,” I don’t hop to it, necessarily. There’s a kind of five-second delay, a micro-scan on how safe, silly, scary, or stupid the situation may be. Ego-less doesn’t mean brainless; it means unflinching atonement for the good and bad news of today. I work the land for many reasons: to release myself from the bonds of karmic klutzness; to master the inertia of my six foot, six inch frame; to be outdoors, intersecting w/ nature and the critters she’s leased. Above all else, I’m here to balance my exterior and interior, to couple mapmaking with labor and service. Who wants to be an educated idiot? Who really wants to not know how to change oil, change a tire, plow a tractor, handle an ax, feed a chipper, back a trailer, lop off tree limbs, build a bird’s nest, pump a nail bar, pick plumbs for jam, throw corn chow to geese, ducks, turkeys, and swans, wack with weedeaters, tackle miles of mowin’ -- who wants to miss being compensated in eye gift after gift, a 9 to 5 inspiration that begs to ask ‘Who is not already enlightened?’ I sweat, make a check, laugh with friends, and find my Self staring back at me thru pied seamless beauty, every day: This is how I span the land. |
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| Matt Rentschler is a member / co-host of the Integral University Art domain. Originally of San Pedro, CA, he currently waxes poetic in Tulsa, OK. For more info: here. |
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