Wendell Berry’s passing this week hit me harder than I expected. I started reading Wendell Berry’s fiction shortly after graduating from college, and I have read (and re-read) most of his works of fiction, many of his essays, and a good portion of his poetry. In fact, the only book I haven’t read is his most well-known, The Unsettling of America, which I purchased while I was in college. I expect I’ll read it now.
I first conceived of this blog post on Monday evening, as I was hanging clothes on the line - I’ve not purchased a dryer, which now seems like a very Berry-esque thing NOT to do. I had difficulty sleeping that night - Berry’s passing hit me harder than I would have thought. It reminded me of the grief I still carry. Of what was lost when I moved back closer home. Of the losses that precipitated the move. And perhaps what was gained.
Danny Branch was the fictional illegitimate son of one of my favorite Berry characters, Burley Coulter. During the final days of Sami’s illness, the story from Fidelity about Danny picking up his unconscious father at the hospital so he could die on a farm where he’d spent much of his life working gave me strength. And inspiration. I thought of this story on the last night of Sami’s life. How many of us are lucky enough to read something so powerful - exactly when we need it.
More than 20 years ago, I wrote to Mr. Berry once. I asked him something about the Amish and the relationship between their sense of community and their way of farming. To my great surprise and everlasting delight, he wrote back! Somewhere in a file, I still have his letter. Around the same time as our correspondence, I got to see him speak in Sacramento. I found him every bit as engaging, humorous, and thought-provoking as his fictional characters.
In many ways, Berry was a contrarian when it came to modern agriculture. Even so, I’ve used Berry’s essays in my extension work. I’ve used his fictional works to inform my sense of community. He wrote about the Port William Membership - and I’ve experienced some of that feeling during my ranching and extension days in Placer County. And I’m experiencing it again as I’ve returned to the communities where I grew up. I am reminded (again) that being an old timer in an agrarian community is as much an attitude as a chronological condition. Berry describes Danny Branch in similar terms.
I’ve also used his fictional work to inform business decisions. Making do with old equipment takes willpower for me (I can be overly enamoured with fresh paint and shiny things), but I think of the characters in his work when I’m trying to decide how to ranch. I’m in the midst of conceiving a new agricultural and timber enterprise with my daughters and their partners - and re-reading Berry’s work this week has reminded me - again - of the value of “making do.”
When I think about his life and his writing, I know that I fall short - but don’t we all fall short of fictional and real heroes. Isn’t that the role that heroes play - encouraging us toward unattainable excellence? I’m too into material things. I’m writing this on my computer (rather than in a notebook by hand, as Berry drafted all of his published works). I bought a tractor (he farmed with horses). And yet his written work and spoken words are part of the lens through which I see the world - or more accurately, the lens through which I see the community I hope to be part of.
In Berry’s fictional works, Danny Branch was the heir of everything that was good - and that was hard - about being part of the Port William Membership. He farmed with horses (which I’ve tried). He valued the old ways and tried to make a living from the land in a modernizing landscape. He hung on during an age when small farms were consolidating or becoming housing tracts. As Berry wrote in his poem, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” every day, Danny did something that didn’t compute. I aspire to do the same!
While I’m sad about his passing, I feel a sense of responsibility. Not to be Wendell Berry, but to create and support the kind of community that was central to his writing. To his life. He could make me think. I’m pro-choice, he was pro-life. But his thinking and writing on the subject (as on many others) wasn’t divisive; rather, I found it well-reasoned, consistent with his other perspectives on life (and death and spirituality), and thought-provoking. And inspired by a love for the world around him.
The morning after his passing, I took a cup of coffee to the top of my hill and watched the sun burn through the mist of the first truly fall-like day. It was not, as Berry writes, season-turning weather, but the autumn feel to the day seemed fitting. I went to lunch at a friend’s ranch - doves in red sauce on polenta. And I felt the pull of membership. That evening, I dined on lamb chops from lambs I raised, squash from my garden, tomatoes grown by someone I know brought to me by a friend. And potatoes from the little store that serves this little town. Before dinner, I split wood and talked to neighbors about deer hunting. And I felt I was part of the membership of this little spot in the Sierra foothills. I’m an imperfect human (aren’t we all?!), but I’m lucky to be able to live like this. Berry helps us see the choices we can make that ensure this way of life persists.
In many ways, Wendell Berry’s work inspired me to start my Foothill Agrarian blog 17 years ago. I have no illusions about how my writing compares to his, but I do think the places on this planet that we live in and work on - the relationship between working landscapes and the people who work on them - need local champions. Of Berry’s many legacies, this is the most important to me.
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