farewells and vegetarianism

i might not survive this. 

i've been trying not to think about the babies getting bought and taken away ever since i decided to come work on a goat dairy...and now the day is less than two days away.  someone's coming saturday morning, while i'm in santa fe, to buy all but 20-30 of the biggest does....all the bucks...all the smaller ones....my attila... are going.  and i don't know if it's for meat or for dairy or for a mix...

but, honestly, nobody buys 35 bucks to start a dairy...  i'm not that naive.

i've been hanging out for an hour or two every afternoon just playing and cuddling with the kids out in the pen, but i was having a really hard time today...once i realized this was my last night with most of them...just started bawling... the first little face that met me at the fence was my frida.  she followed me to my chair that i've had set up in view of the barn door where they run in and out all day, and the moment i sat down, climbed into my lap and rested her chin on my chest...and just sat with me there for an hour...napping and sniffing my face while i bawled.  for a while she chewed on the hair sticking out in front of my ear...which turned the sobs into laughs...briefly.  maddy came and rested her head on my lap, too, knocking the frolicking kids out of her way.  funny that frida's and maddy's responses were so similar...these little girls of other species.  i feel so deeply that there is so much more happening on an emotional level with these animals than we want to believe...  and it blows my mind how different people are...that i ache to think of these little animals having an upset stomach...and someone else wouldn't think twice about killing them, to eat, of course... and i don't say this as a judgment - i honestly think absolutely no less of someone who chooses to eat meat... but where does this difference come from? 

i was having a facebook exchange with my friend kate who was responding to a photo of bruno, and i asked how anyone could want to eat him...and she said that whoever wants to eat him should have to cuddle with him for a while first, and then see how (s)he feels about it... and i think there's truth to that. many people, it seems most of society, in fact, go to great lengths to avoid being close to the production of their food - especially of meat (obviously i'm not the first to note this)... and even those who work around it have to distance themselves.  everyone knows that  you don't name the pig you're going to butcher unless it's something snarky like "pork chop" or "bacon"... we do these things, i think, because as living things perhaps we have a natural desire to relate to other living things...and we're supposed to.  i mean....maybe i'd feel differently working on a chicken farm.  i strongly dislike the geese here, so maybe i should explore this more... but what if we let ourselves draw nearer to these other beings and allowed ourselves to have relationships with them as we do with dogs and cats and horses... i mean, what are we afraid of?  that we won't be comfortable eating them anymore?  is it better to keep ourselves distant and avoid connections so that we can do what we think we want to do?  or to open to what might be possible...to how new ways of relating might change us?  this kind of goes back to that kairos thing from the rambly walden post - being open to life changing us...   

the day i went out and found the little buck smothered under its half-siblings...all the life drained out of him... it was so heartbreaking..so numbing...to see this exuberant little creature suddenly stilled and stiffened, not to mention imagining his fear and struggling in his last moments...  i totally respect peoples' choice to eat meat... but i feel like fewer people would, or more would eat less, or would eat it with more reverence and less wastefulness...and would be more particular about where it comes from, if they thought about it as taking another living thing's life...instead of something they're entitled to.  i think that's what i've had such a hard time ever since high school with my on-again-off-again commitments and re-commitments to being vegetarian... that every time i bite into meat i cannot separate it in my head from taking the breath out of some living creature somewhere...especially when i have alternatives... at times the flavor has trumped the principle, though i've never figured out how to deal with the guilt of it...which is why i think i keep coming back.  i think vegetarianism is most often associated with deprivation (which it can be depending on your practice of it)...but i think it can also be a really eye-opening and maybe even spiritual practice... let's all join hands (and hooves) and sing kumbayah now.

i'm getting weird. i'll stop.  

anyways. i know most of you aren't vegetarian...and a couple may think me barbarous for not being vegan (yet)...i really don't mean any of this as judgment... just thoughts i'm sorting through for my own life... 

i've decided to just focus on frida for the next few days...she's staying. mike said he'd keep her, but if that changes for whatever reason...i'll just have to find her a home... she's my lifeline right now.

frida, and the puppy chow beth & dan sent.  thanks guys.  love you and miss you....and let me know if you want a little kid or two. ;)  no....seriously. <3