If that headline isn’t an old Devon or Cornish saying, it feels like it ought to be. I thought of it because these last few days, I’ve been watching a BBC Lionheart documentary called “The Edwardian Farm,” a “living history” year in which modern folks try to step back in time. It’s a retreat to my own past (the years I lived in Britain and rambled that countryside), and a welcome distraction before I try to sleep. Some nights, it even works.
Perhaps I heard Mr Mudge, the venerable farmer to whom the modern visitors (archaeologists Peter Ginn and Alex Langlands and historian Ruth Goodman) turn for advice about everything arable on their farm, say it. “Aye, lads, to turn a proper furrow, keep t’ hand to plough and run t’ horse straight.”
Or maybe it was the Methodist minister, thundering at his flock in deepest winter: “The Lord watches over the goodman who keeps his hand on the plough and fallest not into sinful ways.”
Maybe I made it up. Those familiar British voices — I’ve watched many of their live-in-the-past shows — echo in my ears as they talk about how hard it is for them to truly absorb Edwardian ways. After all, they know in their modern hearts the days of the horse and plough were numbered.
Persistence, that’s all
Wherever I got it from, this whisper in my ear, in that educated Oxford accent or the lilt of rural Devonshire, is saying “persist.” If you don’t, no harvest. If you don’t, no food. If you don’t, no profit from the work you’ve already done. No profit or income, perhaps no roof over your head, no opportunity for your children.
A month ago, “persist” also meant: Don’t let coronavirus get you. (Or if it does, don’t spread it about.) Persist in washing your hands, wearing a face mask to protect others from your cough. Persist in staying six feet distant from your elderly mother, your best friends. Keep donating to your local food bank, your favorite musicians or arts organization. Listen to your reliable NPR station; read the harrowing news from journalists who dig deep, the newspapers who fact-check their work.
My 95-year-old mother — a committed Bernie voter four years ago — even reminded me to persist politically, as Elizabeth Warren did in the face of Mitch McConnell’s senatorial shushing.
And now, our nation, and the world, persist in stating what communities of color have known for a very long time. More and more, we say what we see more clearly now: All is not what it seemed. The genial cop on the beat, the stern but wise teacher or judge, the bank promising “we’re your neighbors, trust us” — all these may be true pictures for some, but not for all of us.
Furrows wide and narrow
I hope and believe the furrows ploughed by my friends and neighbors, and the hundreds of thousands I don’t know around the world, will persist. That we will turn over change like fresh earth turns up from under the harrow.
I hope the people in power who have aided or abetted or encouraged or just turned a blind eye to the systemic racism we’re now uprooting feel just like Kipling’s toad beneath the harrow,
who knows where every tooth-point goes…
and serve them jolly well right.
My hand to my plough manages a far narrower furrow: to finish the book I promised to have complete by Timothy’s birthday on June 26. It’ll be a narrow squeak. I speed the plough of justice with donations and good will from afar, so I can finish the furrow I’ve put my hand to at home.