Somewhere Outside Glasgow, Scotland

I had a bad feeling the moment I met Michael.  (One of my hosts at the pig farm, in case you missed it.)

Upon picking me up at the train station, he chose to forego the ‘hi, hello, how are you’ introduction starter kit, and launched, instead, into the two other ‘insolent’ volunteers who dared to cook in his kitchen and do things their own way.  And ‘the Mexican one can’t even speak proper English!’

Oh, boy.

what did i get myself into

Not wanting to read too much into it (because something- or multiple things- could have happened before I got there), I filed that first conversation into my ‘well, that’s weird’ red flag folder and tried to keep an open mind.

And now begins act one of a three-act play entitled HAMBONE: Good Until It Wasn’t.  (Optional titles include: A Midsummer Nightmare, Pork Poultry & Paranoia, Get Out 2: Get Out Again, Sour Patch Pigs, Field of Dreams: If You Build It Build It Faster, The Words that Rocked the Farm, and Oops: Patricia Did It Again.)

Act one opens on a two-story, Scottish farmhouse with pigs, chickens, ducks, two volunteers named Madison (NZ) and Isobel (Mexico), two hosts we’ll call Michael & Trudy, and 17 rats named Ratatouille.  The days went by fairly quickly, the work was fun & fresh, the volunteers were friendly, but somethinggggg felt off.  Not quite right.  The dynamic in the house could best be described as: tense, awkward, uncomfortable.

With not much love swirling around, the daily instructions were terse, the meals were eaten in total silence, and Trudy had yet to look me in the eye, three days in.  All I heard from the hosts were condemnations of the other ‘awful and lazy’ volunteers, but empirical evidence suggested that their assessment was 100% incorrect.

Madison and Isobel were extremely hardworking, and we had a lovely time pitchforking poop, carrying steel fence posts, and studying post-pregnancy pig nips (‘they’re unbroken pieces of chalk!’).  We even had stolen moments of genuine friendship when Michael & Trudy weren’t looming, toasting entire bags of marshmallows on the nightly bonfire (while I recited John Cusack’s ‘Cassiopeia’ monologue from Serendipity…… and scribbled on Isobel’s arm with a sharpie).

that’s not coming out for three weeks

The general consensus was that the hosts NEEDED volunteers, but they didn’t necessarily WANT volunteers.  Especially living in their house.  We were a nuisance to be tolerated.  Barely.  But then…… Madison & Isobel left, and the tension dissipated immediately.

ACT TWO.  For a week and a half, the hosts were nothing but nice to me.  Trudy chatted me up as we worked side-by-side; Michael pulled me out of mud pits with his cane; we functioned as a family unit.  Neither of them asked me many personal questions or tried to get to know me…… but Michael cut my cheese sandwiches into little triangles and stacked them artistically, so I know he cared.

They were both very passionate about their farm and the way things should be done.  Always listening from other rooms, always watching from inside the house, they weren’t shy about telling you what you were doing wrong or how you could do it better.  Which I appreciated.  Because I don’t know if you know this, but I’ve NEVER WORKED ON A FARM BEFORE.  Any pointers were welcome and appreciated.  But then…… something shifted.  And soured.

ACT THREE.  Things went downhill fast.  Two new volunteers blew in (Meghane from Belgium & Caitlin from Tahoe) and in a shocking plot twist, EYE became the ‘awful and lazy’ volunteer that Michael criticized in the train station pickups.  (‘She’s American.  That’s her excuse for being dumb.’)  Wait, what?  WHY?

Lit’trally nothing had changed in my work output, but my hosts turned ice cold towards me.  Those oh so helpful hints turned into passive-aggressive digs — ‘Empty it in the compost bins IF you can find the compost bins.’ — and those nudges and winks and thick buttered toast turned into a palpable disdain.  I tried to keep my head down and stay out of their way, but everything I did seemed to be bad, wrong, or slow.

Overnight, I had become the stupidest person to walk the planet.  My stupidity rivaled only by my laziness.

And it all started with the chicken enclosure.

the beginning of the end

the beginning of the end, different angle

Trudy asked Meghane and I to build a chicken enclosure for the 80(ish) chicks currently desecrating & overgrowing the indoor portacabin.  ‘Sure, no problem.  How do you build a chicken enclosure?’

Trudy drew a diagram, laid it out step-by-step, told us what materials to use (9 metal fences, 5 smaller metal fences, 3 sheets of corrugated wood, 1 swinging gate, red string and a boxcutter), bup bup bup easy peasy let’s do this.

And it would have been easy were it not for the busted and broken building materials and the comically uneven earth on which we were supposed to build.  Every time Meghane and I would successfully attach 2-3 pieces of fencing……… one of the fences would beeeeeeend over, crashing loudly to the ground and taking the other pieces with it.

The task that ‘should have taken 40 minutes’ took Meghane and I three days (three 2-hour blocks) to complete.  It was frustrating and a little soul-sucking, but we gave our best effort, wanting that darn enclosure to stand the test of time and be as sturdy and pretty as possible.  And we finished!  Hooray!  It looked great!

Michael marched toward us (probably to join in on the celebration!) and stood over me as I tied the final bow on the swinging gate (after a quick slip of my finger ‘cuz he was standing very, very close & making me nervous).  Expecting a congratulations, Michael’s exact words were, ‘why has this 40-minute job taken you three days and oh…… you can’t even tie a knot now?’

sigh

I was over it.  I was officially over it.  All the subtle and not-so-subtle jabs.  The constant reminders that I was a f*cking idiot.  The exhausting one-way question and answer game during mealtimes.  Michael telling us to fight over a pudding cup parfait that fell on the ground…… or motioning to cookies on the table before saying, ‘I counted them’…… or questioning whether I’d read the house rules before pointing out that my curtains weren’t open…… or asking what I thought I was doing as I attempted to pour a few raisins into his famous (tasteless) porridge, shaking his head and whispering, ‘no’.

I thought I had thick skin but now I’m not so sure.  After five days of ‘if you can handle it’ and ‘if you can manage it’ and ‘every day’s the same, what don’t you understand?’…… I cracked.  And I made a catastrophic mistake: I came inside 30 minutes early because my contacts were on fire and after a 10-minute eye wash, I made the executive decision to hop in the shower instead of finishing out the last 20 minutes of my shift.

actual footage from outside glasgow on september 8, 2018

Big mistake.  Huge.

THE CONFRONTATION

After my shower, Michael knocked on my bedroom door and proceeded to ream me out for ten minutes.  What follows is an abbreviated transcript (verbatim) because the actual transcript would be too long.

• Michael:  What time did you come in?
• Taylor:  I came in at 12:05 because I was having an issue with my contacts.
• Michael:  Oh, so you think you can just come in early!?  Is that what you think?
• Taylor:  Well, I figured since we worked an hour and a half over two days ago and a half hour extra yesterday, I thought it would balance out.
• Michael:  Oh, so that’s what you figured!?  That’s how this works for you!?  You just look at the clock and waste time and twiddle your thumbs until it’s time to come in!?
• Taylor:  No, that’s not what I’m saying.  I work hard.  I work very hard for you.  I don’t stop.  I don’t take breaks.
• Michael:  Oh, so you think taking breaks is part of it?  You’re out there taking breaks all day?
• Taylor:  No, that’s not what I’m saying.  I never take breaks.  I work hard to make this place beautiful for you.  I’m trying my best.  For you.  And I’ve never done anything like this before so, yes, there’ll be a learning curve and I’ll make mistakes, but I’m trying my best.
• Michael:  It takes you THREE TIMES AS LONG to do SIMPLE jobs.  They are SIMPLE jobs.
• Trudy (storming out of her office in a huff):  I can’t listen to this anymore; I’m trying to get work done.  It should take you TWO HOURS to feed all the animals in the morning and then you should have TWO HOURS to help me with the rest.  TWO HOURS!  Do you know how much I could get done in two hours!?
• Taylor:  I understand that feeding all the animals should only take two hours and that’s how long it takes me.  Two hours.  Exactly the amount of time you say it should take, that’s the amount of time it takes me.  Two hours.
• Trudy:  Then WHAT DO YOU DO THE OTHER TWO HOURS EVERY MORNING???  Nothing seems to get done.
• Taylor:  I never stop moving.  I’m always working.
• Trudy:  What do you do!?  What did you do yesterday?
• Taylor:  I mucked out the chicken and duck houses and gave extra straw to the outside pigs.
• Taylor:  [tearing up]
• Trudy:  You’re crying now?  I don’t have time to deal with this.

And on and on we went on a merry-go-round of rage.  Me trying to explain myself and my actions in a calm, rational manner…… and a tag team of wrath & fury twisting the words out of my mouth and failing to really hear me.  I made a mistake.  Yes.  But that shouldn’t warrant the vitriol that was being spewed in my direction.  The hatred that I could feel all over my body.  I’m not watching the clock; I’m busting my ass and breaking my back because I want to.  Because I like the work and the animals and the physicality and I don’t understand the disconnect here.

One of those situations you just can’t win, I snuck out of my bedroom window and joined the other two volunteers in the portacabin (who were being punished for my mistake).  Told to use our ‘common sense, COMMON. SENSE.’ to ‘make the space how it should be’, we scrubbed the dirty floors with these little pickaxes we found in a toolbox for 90 more minutes.

Silently scrubbing that frat-house-sugary-cocktail-and-vomit smelling portacabin…… ponytails bobbing with effort…… we realized we were real-life Cinderellas in a f*cked up prison fantasy and we did what we’d been doing for six straight days: we started laughing.  About everything.

this is rock bottom.  post-shower and sans-wellingtons.

We laughed about not knowing if we would ever be called in for lunch…… about the off-putting things Michael said or did…… about my paranoia that grew by the day (‘they’re probably tapping our phones!  wait, are they listening right now?  do you hear something?’), the unnecessary negativity, the lack of trust, and the fact that we ate servant rations while the hosts would make themselves ‘a proper dinner’ later.

Meghane and Caitlin are my blood brothers now.  They’re a part of my story and a piece of my heart.  We went through literal and figurative shit together and came out the other end.  We survived prison camp (and epic wipeouts trying to catch rogue chickens…… like the time I caught TWO, one in each hand, and yelled out ‘TWO FOR ONE!’ as I slipped on a mud patch).

i’m almost too smooth

After our portacabin cleanup duty and a late lunch of cheese sandwiches, we powwowed in my room and called up Caitlin’s Mom, who reassured us (on speakerphone) that we needed to politely and respectfully tell the hosts we were here to work and learn new skills and make new friends and feel a sense of fulfillment.  NOT to live in a passive aggressive (or aggressive aggressive) household where we were made to feel inadequate and unwelcome.  She suggested that we call a group meeting and sit the hosts down to discuss our grievances like adults.

THE SIT DOWN

Was a complete disaster from the start.  I made Caitlin ask the hosts if they could join us at the dinner table (because I was too chickenshit they still liked her).  Michael said ‘no’ he didn’t have time but reluctantly came out of the kitchen.  Trudy let out an extended, exasperated sigh before reluctantly coming out of her office, looking at the three of us, and saying, ‘well, I’ve never been sat down like THIS before’.  Oh, Jesus.

Clearly, directly, calmly and respectfully, we laid out our main points.  After Caitlin started the conversation (because I was too chickenshit they still liked her), I took over as spokesperson as I had the most points of reference.  It went something like this:

• Taylor:  It’s not the work; I love the work.  I love the animals and working outside and working with my hands and I love that I feel stronger every day.  It’s the…… tension and hostility in the house.
• Trudy:  Oooooooo.  Choose your words carefully.
• Taylor:  It’s the belittling and the constantly calling us stupid and dumb and worthless.  It hurts.
• Trudy:  When has anyone ever called you stupid or dumb?
• Taylor:  Michael.  Almost every day.  It hurts.  The comments build up and they hurt.  I work hard, and I’ve tried to do everything you wanted me to do.  I’ve tried to make this place beautiful for you.
• Trudy:  Yeah.  You said that this morning.
• Taylor:  Right.  Well, I just don’t understand why Michael hates me so much.
• Trudy:  Ugh, God.  And the words you used.  I’m concerned about the words you used because there has NEVER been ANY HOSTILITY in this house.

And on and on we went on that same damn merry-go-round.

Confrontations not usually my strong suit (understatement of the year), I wrote something on the inside of my wrist just in case I lost my words in the heat of the moment.

Right about the time Trudy was explaining how I should have used common sense to ‘make the space how it should be’ and ‘do what needed to be done’ without having to ask…… and how I should have known that pieces of metal were in the wrong place or that wood needed chopping or that the vegetable garden needed tending (without the hosts ever mentioning any of that), I looked down at my wrist, built up my courage and said

‘i’m past my breaking point. and i’ll be heading out tomorrow morning.’

On the morning of September 9^th, two days shy of my three-week commitment, I got the hell outta dodge.

Trudy kindly offered to drive me to the train station and despite being ‘scared of saying anything because I might cry’, she recommended that I read a book on perspective to understand that I’m the only one who decides who or what affects me.  She also gave me one, last opportunity to take back my ‘harsh words’ (tension & hostility) about her house and her husband and to warn me to be careful with the words I use because I can never take them back.

Holding my ground, I said, ‘That’s the thing.  I stand by the words I used.  I appreciate that you love your husband and that you’ve built a life together, but I do not take those words back.’  At which point…… she was completely done with me.  We arrived at the station.  I got my bags.  All the best, see you never.

Welp…… you win some, you lose some.

I should have known things would go sideways based upon the recommended reading material on my bedroom nightstand.

dead girl walking lol

I hold my head high knowing that I worked hard, did my best, and (most importantly) stood up for myself.  Nothing in life is worth tolerating that kind of negativity or emotional abuse.

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly that I’m the only one who can decide who or what affects me.  That I can choose how to approach, react to, and view the world.  I love that I have the power to create my own happiness by simply clearing, changing, or opening my mind.

But this is different.  That doesn’t apply.  There’s a difference between rising above & being in control of your reactions and state of mind…… and removing yourself from toxic environments where everything you do is bad, wrong, or slow.

I needed to move on and surround myself with positive things.  Things that make me happy and people who lift me up…… but I sure will miss those ducks.  And those volunteers.  And those black hens whose cluck sounded so spiritual.  (‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-llahu akbar.’)

Peace out, pig farm.  I wish you nothing but the best, but in the words of Taylor Swift, I hope we ‘never ever ever get back together’.  No regrets and no looking back.

shadow dancing with my ladies

lady love number one: meghane from brussels

lady love number two: caitlin from tahoe

no one picked us up because my outfit was hideous.  i live for fashion.

Expect some bonus material later this week on my daring escape and last-minute rescuers…… and please know this is but one side of the story.  Mine is the only story I have to tell.

I leave you with one of my favorite quotes by Viktor Frankl.  Happy Monday.  🙂

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.  To choose one’s own way.