Field note

To be a caregiver, moments into days into weeks into years, changes the scale of life. My world becomes smaller, disconnected from the great out there.

Tiny, invisible, lost. But then you realize, what is small is deep, delicate, dense with meaning.

Last night, slipping strawberry tops and carrot tips with their tiny whiskers into the compost bin, along with scrapings from my husband's plate as his need for food diminishes, I think of the worms.

I just signed up for a service that picks up our food scraps, keeping them out of the landfill. Too much wildlife around us to compost without risking foxes and skunks eating rot. So our scraps will go to a worm farm to convert what we don't consume into compost that will grow new food.

It was sprinkling when the woman from the worm farm delivered my weekly compost bucket. She was kind. Our faces and hair, glistening. On a day that felt hard, such a blessing.

Now I think of the worms eating my offerings. All of us small, unseen, doing our work of turning one thing into another.