In The Footsteps of Grass

Words and photography by Olivia Bee

A week before our wedding day I look up from feeding the hogs, and there across the pasture stands a white rainbow. It is seven days before I will ride Joe’s childhood horse down the aisle to “where rainbows never die,” on the seventh of October. I close my eyes and walk through it with the dog.

And then suddenly there we are, saying our vows in a circle of wheat and sweet peas underneath the walnut tree, surrounded by everyone we love. And soon after, we are newlyweds kissing in our kitchen.

Which means I am a wife...something I never saw myself becoming. But I have begun to ad- just the meaning of the role to suit me. For in this partnership, husband and wife are equal.

Together we have found divine purpose in taking care of this place, and in turn, each other.

This is the story of becoming — how we find meaning in the every day actions, repetition, consistency. Chop wood, check water, carry feed. Harvest, prepare, eat. Birth, life, death.

How I have found my truest self through this every day working with my hands, feeling my most beautiful and powerful covered in the soil I harvest our food from, with a diamond on my hand. How all of eternity is captured in a blade of grass, a piece of clover through his eyes.

And how this farm is always a metaphor, reflecting back to me, the whole world