Why I'm here

So in the late Spring, I was telling a professor of mine that I was coming up for a "life experience" summer. I wanted to see what it was like to live on a farm and do manual labor. I wanted to see how I liked getting up early, taking care of animals, and living in a rural place.

I'll admit something, though. I was wrong. I had no idea why I was really here.

Turns out, this is all about the people.
I guess I should know this by now. Where you are is really just the context of who you're with.

So how did I come to this decision? Well, about 10 days ago, Bill, Emily, and I were riding in the 'vertible with the top down as night had fallen on rural Maine.
Usually, I'm the person asking questions in the car, but she said to me, "What more do you need to complete your Maine experience?"
I thought for a moment, and I said "I want an outdoor experience, I want to be able to ride a horse, and I want to leave having made good relationships with people here."

I was kind of pleased with myself. Relationships, which are normally the words of those clever spirituality people, had come straight to my mind.
But, the glory did not rain down here.
I immediately started thinking about people in Maine that I might have met for the first time (Bill excluded) and I realized that I didn't know that many people. I was kind of bummed because I didn't have much time then, and I have even less time now.

So the rest of my trip back to the farm was kind of down time. It wasn't until the next morning when I started to think: Oh my gosh, A) this whole thing is about enjoying the relationships I've created and B) I don't have to look anywhere for those relationships. They are right here. They are the connections (los legames, spanish: Los vinculos, italian) that I have with my family.

So here you have it.
this is why I'm here: to be in and grow through my relationships with others and it just so happens that those others are by and large my Maine Mitchell family.

So when, during that same conversation with my professor, he told me to get out of my head, stop thinking that life is just about fly-fishing (referencing a book he is making me read). He told me to get a girl and go for a walk along a creek for a few hours.
So maybe I haven't done that, but I think I got the gist of it, and if my Maine version of that scenario will be to walk slowly as I take a horse out the pasture, or play with my little cousins or talk to my older cousins, then I'm going to appreciate and love that time as the reason that I'm really here