This inspiring book and flowers Lucie picked for me today.

"You are so young, so much before all beginning...have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and...try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

                                    Rainer Maria Rilke, from Letters to a Young Poet, 1929

This week was rough. A success, but hard, to put it simply. Often times, I wonder why I chose this way of life or why it chose me. I had all the comforts and freedom of a good car, all the attention of a close family, and all the city conveniences back in LA. Here in France, in a new country, in the beginning of a new life and business from the ground up, it's not the case. I forge on, though, breathe deeply and work in the present moment through all the uncertainties and challenges. From time to time, I pick up this book to remind me of why I am farming, why I choose to live close to nature etc. I discovered it last summer when I worked at Garden School Foundation and one of the kind interns mentioned this book. It's an anthology of different voices: farmers, chefs, writers, change-makers, in the field of agriculture, ecology and food. The essays inside continue to inspire me and I want to share some with you sometime.

I picked it up from the row of books on our desk held upright against the wall untidily by a little statue of Ganesh on one end and more stuff on the other end.  It was a Wednesday night before bed when I needed a pick-me-up myself. And, upon opening the first few pages of the book, I read that quote again which spoke to me so much last summer, and still now. It was a reminder that it's ok not to know all the answers. Most of the time I don't know the answers and wonder when they will show up. But we can't put life on pause just because we don't have all the answers. We just put one foot in front of the other...live everything...and maybe the answers will come one day, or maybe not, and either way, it's all good.

*photo by Tiffanie Ma.