Because mom and dad told me to update this:

Oh. This old thing?

The best part about being the master of your own blog is you can get away with things, like not posting for four solid months, and then come back to it like it was your plan all along (ahem dramatic effect?), and summarize your life in a few pithy sentences and move on! Woo! So, here goes! The life of Peyton Lynn, July 19th 2013 to Now, November, T-minus 8 days til Thanksgiving:

I moved from the farm to a week in Washington D.C., a change in pace that was as claustrophobic as it was inspiring. After so much time with the same smelly, sweaty people at Future Pointe (love you guys), it was good to check in with the world, with all the war memorials and monuments and museums, and with my mother, and sisters. Talk about an awesome summer. In August I moved Johnny Boy into School of Mines in Golden, Colorado; it's weird thinking that baby brother is all grown up, but great that he's so close. We see each other occasionally, like when he wants to use me, for a ride, food, or climbing gear. #family!

School began the end of August, and if my lack of blogging isn't a hint, let me spell out my schedule for you: BUSY. All the time. Between classes and work and Romero House and volunteering and thesis writing and maintaining something of a social life and every now and then, sleeping, I barely have time to drink the coffee in the morning that is often my only source of fuel. Highlights this semester include: a class on Jane Austen, and an in-depth study of the translation from real person and real life to writer and published works; living in Romero House, an intentional community held up by five pillars (community, simplicity, social justice, spirituality, and service...not real columns); the weeks I wake up at 6am to write thesis every morning because there's a looming deadline, or because I need something to break the writer's block, or because I'm a little crazy; and the beautiful and terrible and wonderful realization that graduation is getting closer and closer, that I'm going to have to leave this school that has been my home for so many years, that I've grown and changed and will probably, hopefully, grow and change even more, and that I have no idea what's coming.

That's not true. I have some vision of a future, a vague perhaps not yet invented position as Writer Pig Farmer Teacher Ice Cream Shoppe Owner. The last part might be the fragment of an old childhood dream; but if we aren't spending our days chasing those most outlandish dreams, what are we doing?

Finally, a writing sample, since that's all I ever seem to do. The prompt, from my Magis and the Search for Meaning final Honors seminar: What do you value? What is at the very core of your identity? What is the thing that, if taken away, you no longer are who you are and you lose your integrity? I should dedicate this to Dr. Bowie in the Honors Program, whose service to myself and my peers these past four years has been life-changing.

Teach A Girl To Read

I can honestly say I’ve only been proud once in my life, and it’s the time I took my eight-year-old neighbor to the movies. I’d been Chloe’s nanny for over five years. I’d started watching her after school and during the summer two months after I’d moved to her street. I was there her first day of kindergarten; I took her to the docks to learn to swim; and when she was four, I taught her to read.

I had learned to read when I was Chloe’s age. My own mother was a ferocious reader. One of my earliest memories must be Cathy Lunzer, curled in the forest green armchair in the den’s golden lamplight, with a book. It is in observation I learned the value of words.

In observation I learned, and in demonstration I taught Chloe. Chloe has eyes browner than mine and curly, dirty blond hair with ringlets to put Goldilocks to shame. She loves her younger brother Luke like I love my own: passionately, and with compassion, sometimes violent, sometimes soft. But her most endearing quality, at least in my opinion, is her insatiable curiosity. There is no rabbit hole too small to escape Chloe’s notice, nor any scary enough or simple enough to frighten her away. It shouldn’t have been surprising, then, when I told her one day that I loved books, and she said Why? and I said You have to read them to find out, and she said Okay, and started to read.

Chloe fell in love with reading as I had fallen in love with her. She read everything I put in front of her and more: Isabel Allende, Nancy Drew, T.A. Barron, Lord of the Rings, and my childhood favorite, Harry Potter.

This is the day that made me proud: I took Chloe to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II, in July 2011, two days after the movie’s release. I remember it was raining, which made her curly hair curlier so she looked even more like Hermione Granger, the bookish and brave heroine whom Chloe idolized and that rainy afternoon, copied in dress and manner and hair. Chloe had finished reading the series the third time just two days before, and was squirming and excited beyond words to see the final film installment of the series. We bought popcorn, found our seats, and started to watch.

It was near the end of the film. One of the central characters—mine and Chloe’s favorite, played by Alan Rickman—was dying. We knew it was coming. His film fate had been written in the pages of the book. But it was a touching scene nonetheless. He drew a rattled breath. Chloe’s hand grabbed mine, and I heard her whisper:

“No.”

I looked over. Tears were streaming down her face. She squeezed my hand, harder, harder, and like she stared intently at the screen I could not take my eyes of her, off this girl who was crying for someone she’d read in a book once, off this girl I loved like my own who I’d taught to swim, taught to read, and I realized in that dark theater, taught to love. For if she felt empathy for a character on a screen, a character in a book, how could she not love people in real life?

In that moment, I realized: this is what we are about. Reading and crying in theaters and holding hands. Learning what to value, and what to believe. For twenty years I have poured my hours and days and nights into stories, into reading and writing, and after all this time and after so many stories and after one handhold with Chloe one rainy, summer day, I think I can say what it all means.

We have nothing to give one another but ourselves, our stories, and our lives. We must exist passionately, violently, softly, and love this way too. Because the greatest story we will ever encounter is our own, our own first days of school and swimming, our own tears and sorrows, our own moments of empathy, and pride, and love. These stories are what we’re made of – who we are – and what we must share.

This is how I believe we must live. Read a book. Take a friend to a movie. Hold a hand. Live and love and share with others, share tears and share values and spend days with people.

Decide what you value. Chase a good story. Embrace your own.

Teach a girl to read.

Update on the workings of the funniest people on earth.

So it’s been decided. The only thing better than 100 degree days opening cans with your friends with frantic goat round-ups at hourly intervals and pork breakfast lunch and dinner and a layer of grime and sweat so thick you’ll never be clean again is… you guessed it, nothing. Nothing beats right here, right now. I’ve said it a thousand times, I’ll scream it a thousand more, I love this place, I’m enamored with this space, I’ve got tomato sauce all over my face, did I mention I love this place? Here’s an update, assuming our Internet bandwidth isn’t used up before I’m done writing.

Thursdays are my day for hospitality, which means I’m in charge of the dogs, keeping the house clean, providing meals, and hydrating everyone working outside. (Team, if you’ve somehow got Internet down in Lower Barn and are reading this, don’t worry, Gatorade chews coming your way in 15 minutes.) It’s actually the hardest day of the week, because there are so many moving parts to hold in mind, playing mom involves a lot of scrubbing and elbow grease, and cooking is a hell of a lot harder than it looks. Kudos to all you moms out there, and especially my mom, I don’t know how you do it and I don’t think I’ll ever do it as well as you, so thank you, thank you! 

Back to the farm work. We have been seriously crushing the inventory out here. We’re four totes away from finishing all the Hard-to-Process that’s been backed up since winter. We’ve sorted out a dozen totes of canned goods in the past week. We’ve made so much pig slop, we’ve started dumping buckets straight to compost because the pigs can’t keep up eating it all. And we’ve completed a couple serious construction projects, including new nesting boxes for the hens and an outdoor composting toilet. On that note I must add, poop outside in a shelter you’ve built yourself, and you never poop the same again. The animals are doing well too—the pregnant sow is weeks away from giving birth, Ulysses the goat is annoying as ever but gets a new goat friend from another farm this weekend, and the donkeys have been rounded up to the pasture by the house. 

Our little FPF family is funny and fantastic. I’m not sure how I’m going to negotiate leaving this place, where the only way to fit in is to out-weird the rest and where our idea of fun is greasy hair contests, which I won, so y’all know. But seriously, not a meal goes by where we haven’t peed ourselves laughing or catapulted bits of pork into each others water glasses or come up with some new joke or bit or impression that we all think is hilarious. I think our motto for this place should be: Future Pointe Farm, the funniest people on earth! Because it’s true. And not only are we growing in funniness every day, we’ve grown incredibly as a community. Our favorite topics of discussion include what it means to be free, how important it is to ask for what you need, what happens when creativity and work intersect, why it matters that a person finds a comfortable place to live their own life, what it means to participate in a system like FPF, and how creepy Tim looks with his aviators and mustache living in the trailer just outside the house. (Answer to that last one: SUPER creepy.) My trust, respect, and love for this group of people are increasing by the minute. It’s wonderful place to be and is certainly redefining how I plan on participating all my relationships and interactions with others.

The only other monumental thing I’d like to add is that if I believe things happen for a reason (which I think I do,) I’m starting to get a sense of why I was called to this farm this summer. I’ve learned so much, about waste and sustainability, about using power tools and meditating during work and cooking, about caring for animals and managing heat and participating in a community… the list goes on, but more than all these handy life skills, I’ve discovered what it takes to live like you want to live. The word courage has taken on a whole new meaning. I’ve learned it takes courage to be who you are, to ask for what you need, to chase what you want, and to take yourself to great places with great people.  I’ve learned that’s the secret of life, to run freely and madly in the direction you feel called. And I’ve started the process of discerning where I’m called and how I want to get there. It’s a long process, but a good start. I’m excited to see where it takes me.

Three girls. Seven hogs. 450,000 lbs of waste. One farm.

Hey all, I'M ALIVE! I'm a little late on the update, but I have high speed winds taking out the Internet and crazy farm chores to blame. We also have very limited Internet time out here at Future Pointe Farm, so let me get right to it...

A few weeks ago, I traveled an hour east of Colorado Springs to the heart of middle-of-nowhere, Colorado. Located 70 miles from the nearest gas station, out on a ranch that is a beautiful cross between prairie and desert, lives Brendan McCrann, director of FPF and leader of the Teilhard de Chardin homestead program. Not counting the animals, there are just five of us living out here: Brendan, co-director and Regis alum Tim, myself, and two fellow Regis students, Claudia and Gianna. Three weeks in and I already love this group more than words can express. There's something about dishing out pig slop together at 7am every morning that just brings people together.

Future Pointe Farm, situated on the Brett Grey Ranch, is sustainable waste management program run by Brendan under the director of his awesome guide, Philip. FPF intercepts hundreds of thousands of pounds of waste from Colorado Springs every year and processes the goods into compost, animal feed, and recyclable materials. As a result, the farm puts out only a couple hundred pounds of waste every year (compared the the thousands it takes in), provides feed for all the animals here as well as a couple of neighboring ranches, and is almost completely sustainable, meaning we get almost all the food and water we need here. Yay for the harvest garden, freezers full of pork, and fresh eggs every morning!

For those of you who weren't lucky enough to visit for the Pig Roast a couple weeks ago, here's what a normal day at FPF looks like: wake up at 7am for chores, which is feeding all the animals and cleaning out feed buckets. After breakfast, we head out to one of a few stations to process the totes of waste that Philip delivers every week. In Lower Barn, we crack through boxes of pasta, crackers, Pop Tarts (true story), oatmeal, and other grain and oat products to make buckets and buckets of goat and pig feed. In Upper Barn, we open thousands of cans at a time of soups, vegetables, beans, tomato sauce (which always get hot and explode so it looks like we're covered in blood), and condensed milk to make chicken feed and Premium Pig Slop, yes it has a name. Other areas of work include the garden, the animals pens, and HTP, Hard To Process, when we use spatulas to scrape out jars of mayo, salsa, salad dressing and syrup into compost and more pig slop.

If you aren't already jealous of my twelve-hour days baking under the hot sun, smelling like moldy food, tending to animals and hauling 5 gallon buckets like it's no big deal, let me paint you another picture... We are a part of a cohesive food system that takes what others have deemed worthless and turns it into meditative work, food for animals we love (except the goat...I hate the goat.), three square meals a day, hours and hours blasting Brendan's record collection and singing and dancing, exploring 50,000 acres of prairie, telling stories playing games swapping sweat and growing together in a solid, spiritual community that would make our namesake proud. If you don't know who Teilhard de Chardin is, Google it. The happiness to be found in such a work place in this vast, glorious space is one I haven't experienced ever before. I'm reminded a lot of the ocean (home sweet home), if entire farm ecosystems could exist out at sea.

All this to say, I'm happy here. I love these people. I love the animals. I love the awareness. I love the space. We eat well, we never shower (well, we just finished building our outdoor shower, so maybe I'll start doing that soon...), I've developed weird skills like climbing fences very fast (when Mama Pig runs at you, she runs) and ripping open Top Ramen with my bare hands. On any given day, I've got slop on my face, sauce on my hands, mayonnaise on my pants... but God, I do really love this place.

Farms and weddings and DC this summer...oh my!

Dear friends and family! Sorry it's been a while since I've written, the past two weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind. A quick update on my summer so far:

After saying goodbye to not a few friends at graduation, I spent two weeks couch-surfing (couch-surfing, /kaʊtʃ/-/ˈsərfɪŋ/, v. 1.when you're homeless so you stay with whoever is willing to take you in; 2.Peace & Justice major real estate) in Denver working on a film project for the Center for Service Learning. For those of you who don't know, CSL is an awesome department at Regis that works with community partners and service sites in the Denver area to connect students and provide hands-on learning experiences. I have been very involved with CSL in my time at Regis, as an in-office work-study, a tutor for Somalian refugees, participant in multiple spring break service trips, and, as of next year, acting as the coordinator between service learning and the Honors Program. (Cue Hannah Montana: You get the bestttt of both worlds! Academia galore AND saving the world!) The final product will be a short film for prospective students on the role of Service Learning in university education.

In the middle of all this reflecting and filming, I decided to make a quick (surprise) trip home. So, surprise Bainbridge Island! As you could all guess, John was the most excited when I showed up at the ferry terminal last night. I now get to enjoy a few days with the family here in Seattle, and hopefully will get to see Kyle and Emily, my older bro and sister-in-law, in Portland this weekend! I've missed the coffee and the rain; it's good to be back!

And finally...I return to Denver next week to finish the film project; send off one brave but maniac friend who's biking across the country; visit the summer residents of Romero House, Regis' very own intentional living community; and have one last great get-together with all my Colorado friends before I leave for a new adventure, eight weeks in Rush, CO, participating in the Teilhard de Chardin Homestead Program. The program begins June 1st, and all I know now is that for eight weeks, I'll be living in southern Colorado, learning about waste management and recycling, working with marginalized communities, spending a lot of time in the sun, writing a lot (thesis, what up), and becoming family with the other members of this intentional spiritual community. I came across this opportunity in my work with CSL and I can't really explain why, but it feels like exactly where I'm supposed to see this summer. Let's pray God knows what He's doing.

I will return end of July just in time for a dear friend's wedding, a trip to DC with Mom (Happy Mother's Day! #favoritechild) a couple more weeks on Bainbridge, and to help Johnny Boy move out to school in what is becoming one of my favorite states: Colorado.

Until next time, happy summer to you all!

Always, Peyton

And so it begins!

Hey friends and family. For those of you who followed me in Chile -- I'm back! If you've been missing weekly updates on my Peace and Justice adventures in the world, you're in luck. This weekend is graduation at Regis University, which is making me a little nostalgic (already, I know) and all the more eager to make the most of my last undergraduate year. In light of my interests in writing and social justice issues, I decided a blog documenting this final year would be the perfect way to keep all my fans (aka John) updated on the fight for world peace going on in the Mile High City.

Things to look forward to this year include: a new multimedia project on service learning at Regis; a trip to Central America; a thesis on the role storytelling plays in overcoming trauma; living in Romero House, an intentional living community; and, if I'm lucky and get all those English credits done on time, GRADUATION!

If you followed me in Chile, you also know that I was born on Latino time, which means I'm sometimes running a little late. I'll do my best to post often this year, every two weeks or so, and after some summer photography lessons from the little sis, will hopefully have pictures of my wild life to share! Shout out to the grandmas, love you both. Peace and love to you all!

Always, Peyton