August 25, 2023 - Elizabeth Lerman’s “Fieldwork”

When it rains this early in the morning, right as the sky is waking up, or before that even, when it is so dark you are certain dawn is still hours away, I feel myself fall back into the modest mattress of a small bunk bed. I smell the rain soaking the wooden walls of our cabin and dream about staying asleep, of giving in to the weather and staying put all day, tucked tight into my sleeping bag — navy blue with my name stitched into the soft flannel, feeling more worn each year and the older we both get, the more I want to stay zipped inside, comfortably cocooned while the day starts without me. But morning was always calling and there is no way, then, not to get your hands dirty, rolling bales bloody with mud through fields that swallow the soles of your shoes as you go, and breaking in half feels so tempting sometimes but there is a holy mist that early, fog hovering above mountains as the storm breaks, light sneaking through cracks in the clouds, droplets of dew settling down on tall grass and the wet earth smells like something you can never forget, and here, in the heat, with my window open and the rain getting heavier, I slip deeper beneath the sheet, grateful for the self ordered sleep, but part of me misses getting up before the sun and seeing it all start, working in a way I feel incapable of now, and it makes me want to try, even harder, to exist again and sometimes I crave the structure of having no choice, of doing something simply because you have to, then going to sleep that night knowing you’ve done it now and can do it again.