Longtime organizers talk about how destructive this dynamic is to building strong political movements all the time. New people with little to no knowledge come into an organization and rapidly derail their efforts by trying to grab the reins of power, imagining that somehow they know better than everyone else already there who’ve been doing the work for ages. “Well if they knew so well, they would have gotten somewhere,” becomes the justification, never recognizing that a better explanation is “If they didn’t have people constantly undermining them from within at every single step, they would have gotten somewhere.” And as soon as anyone with a long history of the group protests in an effort to bring things back around, the new people get their feelings hurt at being corrected and immediately double-down, turning what started out as a flight of fancy that came to them over a cup of coffee into a full-blown power struggle. Everyone ends up dying on a useless, stupid fucking hill that had nothing to do with anything.

Ditch lilies are one of the first things I learned to forage. They’re easy to identify, prolific, and every part of the plant is edible depending on the time of year. Even if you think you aren’t familiar with them, chances are you’ve seen them all around you. Their orange blossoms are easily mistaken for tiger lilies, and you’ll find them growing wild along roadsides and streambanks (hence the name ditch lily).

Hidden behind some trees is a tiny, abandoned stone spring house that will make an excellent little writing cottage once I sweep it out and put in a desk and some string lights. It would be a delightful place to turn my dissertation into a book. The yard, meanwhile, is currently a holding pen for half a dozen uncompleted projects, rotting picnic tables, stacks of unsorted firewood, and overgrown garden beds. And yet. The stream that used to power the Mill burbles off to the side, its banks overflowing with a wild bounty of foraging opportunities. Wild grapes, day lilies, raspberry bushes, nettles, hostas, poke weed, and clovers spilling all over each other. Walnut trees and ferns off to the other side. A day or two of dedicated cleaning would turn the porch and yard into a tiny piece of heaven. The fireflies should be out any day now.