A Landfill, A Retired Millionaire Farmer, And Being Chosen (Or Not)

Notes from a trip to northern Arizona

My desk last week

On the AZ 87, just out of the city my family and I drove by a long brown mass of earth that is a landfill. Michael says he doesn’t remember it being that big. I didn’t even know it was a landfill until he said it. 

I don’t know who owns the land it occupies. I don’t know if any of my take-out containers or the giant water bottle I threw out in a rage (that I feel very guilty about) are in that growing mass. I don’t know how big it will be next year, or in ten years. I know that Arizona, and the US in general, produces excessive waste. Landfills are filling and I’m not supposed to notice. The landfill’s location is purposeful, tucked away. Only now urban creep encroaches, brings us closer to what we should never have been so separated from in the first place. To be able to send away one’s trash seems to be a move that encourages callousness, disconnection, illusory comfort.  

I wonder how much food is rotting there that hungry people could have eaten.

***

I’m sitting outside on the porch in the cool air and working on my zine. Part of the time away is carved out to write this deeply idiosyncratic project that is forcing me to stretch and grow. I’ve never illustrated any of my work before, never adapted fairy tales, and never produced a handbound zine. Desert Pookas is a leap away from this newsletter into the world of creating art only thinking about what I like. It’s a project that thumbs its nose at the algorithm and if anyone who doesn’t know me purchases it – wow, icing on the cake.

Alicia Kennedy reposted Celine Nguyen’s note with a quote from Chitra Ganesh: 

People are often under the misimpression that someone from a higher plane of power will come and pluck them out of their current circumstances, catapulting them to success. While the 'chosen one' narrative may happen once in a blue moon, the vast majority of success happens with the discipline of a daily grind, and networks of peers who lift each other up, on a regular basis, over years. 

This will include colleagues who are both older and younger than you. So be mindful of how you treat people. Treat everyone with equal generosity and respect, including those whom you perceive to be younger or have less experience or power. Be kind and present whether you think they can give you something or not. Being kind is not being a pushover. The intern or assistant curator that everyone is bossing around today may one day make a much more powerful mark on the field than you ever imagined. 

People remember how you treat them, long after you’ve forgotten. Word of mouth is still a powerful communication tool of the field, and the art world can be a lonely place. Do what you can to cultivate presence and generosity in your workspace, on a daily basis. You will be rewarded in spades.

Ganesh’s quote reminded me of Patti Smith quoting William S. Burroughs: 

Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don’t make compromises, don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being successful — be concerned with doing good work and make the right choices and protect your work. And if you build a good name, eventually, that name will be its own currency.

Writing on the internet is a weird world, and one that I’m indebted to in many ways. After what feels like ages writing blogs and newsletters, I try not to hold my breath and wait anymore. I foster a healthy sense of ambivalence about what is owed to me by a platform I use. It takes effort, it’s very on purpose. But it becomes easier with practice. Don’t get me wrong, I want to write and be published and I’m ambitious and determined. But I can’t waste hope on the algo.

***

Pretty good, not great

While waiting for our food at the cannoli shack, Michael walked around an adjoining consignment store with our older kids and had an interaction with a woman working there: She asked where he was visiting from, he said Tempe, and she said she’s sorry to hear that. She likes it up north. My husband, a kinder person than I, laughed it off – “And I like it down south.” I’m rolling my eyes as he’s telling me this. Our city isn’t that progressive in my mind, but then I remember Arizona’s history of being a deeply conservative, Republican state, and since 2016 a streak of MAGA devotion has hardened. I wonder what she likes most about the area, the cool weather, the pines, or the market for Trump memorabilia? (She sells 100 dollar bills adorned with the former president’s face.)

***

Maeve with my stack of books

I move a stack of books around the house we rented, hunting for a spot of natural light. My four-year-old follows me and wants to get in the picture. I tell her this is for my work. She poses and then moves out of the way.

***

On our way out of town, we stop to get pastries. We hit the bakery right at the fresh bread rush hour but Michael braves the line – I really want a babka! Once the goods are in hand and he’s pulling out of the parking lot he motions toward a pickup and shakes his head: “That guy talked at me the whole time I was in line.” This man was a retired big-ag farmer, a regular at the bakery complaining about the wait and joking with the woman behind the counter. At some point another person in line said the two of them sound like a married couple and the woman replied, “He friggin’ wishes.” He farmed four crops on nine thousand acres in Yuma. (He didn’t say which ones, but that area is known for vegetables, hay, cotton, Medjool Dates, alfalfa, and more.) He didn’t own the land but he was well cared for. When he retired, his boss asked him if he wanted another one million or two million on top of what was already in his pension. The man said he’d take one, asked to give half to his right-hand-man, and told the boss to keep the rest. I never saw the guy, just the giant silver truck he drove, but my guess is that he thinks he “won” at life. 

***

Rodney and Daphine Machokoto founded and run Machokoto Family Farms in Phoenix. Back in December, the Arizona Republic covered how a year earlier they signed a five-year lease for five acres of land. Clara Migoya wrote, “Five months after they planted, they received news that the owner was terminating the lease before they could even harvest. A developer had made a sweet offer.” Farmland in Maricopa county (where Phoenix is located) is “being lost at a higher rate than anywhere else in the United States.” There are efforts, like through Local First Arizona, to preserve it and to support independent farmers. 

David Naimon interviewed Amitav Ghosh on Between the Covers, and there were so many moments in that episode where I went back fifteen seconds and re-listened. Toward the end, Ghosh said, “Where the public good is neglected in order to create profits for individuals or companies, there we have corruption. Now, in the United States, we dealt with this very efficiently by denying that there is any such thing as a public good.”

A lot of people in this country labor under the state-sanctioned idea that they need to be good enough to be chosen, and if they aren’t chosen, they aren’t good enough. Similarly, there’s this horrific bind where it seems like it’s impossible to be considered a successful farmer until you have a big farm, but you can’t afford the big farm until you have the money to own land – or fall in line with big agriculture. The country (and the algorithms) continue to choose mostly people who have already been chosen, with millions of dollars being bandied about in some rooms while elsewhere people’s leases are terminated before harvest.

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The Good Enough Weekly comes out every Friday, alternating an essay with Of the Week. I also take on freelance editing and writing projects. Reach out if you’re looking for help in those departments — I’ve worked on everything from zines to textbooks. More info here. My zine of adapted Irish fairytales, Desert Pookas, is available for preorder now!