On Wendell Berry

“Life is on its legs again, and we exult.” That is how the late Wendell Berry concluded an essay on helping a newborn calf onto its feet for the first time, and emblematic of his ability to find joy in the everyday miracles, satisfaction in hard labor, and also to make me tear up.

If you happen to follow any farmers on social media, you may have noticed the outpouring of eulogies for Berry after news of his death Aug. 31. The New York Times said of Berry in its own eulogy of him that he had never achieved the status of household name — but I know more than one farm kid named Wendell who would disagree.

Berry spent his life advocating for the small farm, the small farmer, and the land they tended. You might know him from his 1977 essay collection “The Unsettling of America,” where he excoriated industrial agriculture. Before the farm crisis of the 1980s, before agriculture was seen as a major contributor to climate change, before more than half our global seed supply was held by four companies, Berry was there, seeing the degraded lands of our future and offering a gentler path forward.

Many of the farmers of my generation made their way to the profession through Wendell Berry’s work, but Ihad never heard of him when I started working on farms over a decade ago. And I can’t tell you how it was he was originally introduced to me. Maybe it was a tattoo with a line from one of his poems, maybe a snippet of conversation over harvest bins, maybe I finally just asked somebody why they named their kid Wendell. Whatever it was that finally opened the door to his work, I quickly came to appreciate how he could have convinced so many twentysome  things to sign up for a life of waking early, working hard, and appreciating the land they cultivated as a place of both wonder and nourishment.

A critic or two over the years has accused Berry of romanticizing rural life, but I think what those folks see as romanticization could more truthfully be called reverence. It’s easy for a convert to the country way of life to wax poetic about their new chickens or their first homegrown meal. And it’s easy for the city dweller to dismiss those joys as old-fashioned. But Berry’s land ethic was one grown out of deep roots and shaped by dirty hands. His legacy is impressive by any measure; there’s the Kentucky farm he stewarded, the essays, novels, and poetry he wrote, but to me, the activism that accompanied his ideals is where that idea that he romanticized rural life falters.

Never one to leave the work to others, Berry was a regular at demonstrations to protect his beloved Kentucky’s fields and forests. He had a long history of protesting against the expansion of coal plants, and in 2011, at the age of 72, he joined a group of protesters who spent the weekend camped out in the governor’s office, demanding an end to the practice of mountaintop removal. This wasn’t rurality as costume. Instead, it was a fierce and abiding love for the place he called home. And he wanted that for everyone — a homeplace that was loved and protected.

The six years I’ve spent living on the Key Peninsula have been time spent orienting my life back toward the land. Sure, that means starting a farm, but it also means reframing the way I think. Madrona blossoms don’t smell like honey; honey smells like madrona blossoms. Wind rushing through the tops of the Doug-firs doesn’t sound like an approaching car; cars sound like rushing wind. A cowbird doesn’t sound like a computer; a computer, well, you get the idea.

I can’t truthfully say I was thinking of Wendell Berry when, nearly a year ago, I read about the proposed development of the Calahan property into a gas station and sent a text to a group of local women asking how to stop it. But I can say that the idea of a gas station sitting as the focal point for our community went against every value I held and that Berry’s writings had helped shape.

That text message turned into a gathering around our kitchen table, which turned into public statements at board meetings, which turned into finding even more people invested in the idea of a better home. It then turned into a petition with over 900 signatures, over 300 people completing a survey about their dreams for the space, and it turned into many more meetings.

And somewhere during the last year, it also turned into community members helping connect the dots for officials at two public service districts, so that as it stands now, the Pierce County Library System is considering purchasing the Calahan property as the site for a new library building in Key Center.

So while I can’t say that I was thinking of Wendell Berry when the effort to stop the gas station first began, I am thinking of him now. The work Berry began in his lifetime continues, and it is up to everyone who found inspiration, solace, and belonging in his words to carry it forward. If a library is eventually built at the old Calahan property, leaving the environmental calamity that could have been just an unpleasant memory, I’ll hope to see Berry’s books on the shelves there. And I will say a quiet thank you for teaching me how to love this place well.

“Life is on its legs again, and we exult.”

Madeleine Spencer is a farmer tending to community, friends, and family in Longbranch.