My family lived in the middle of a farm for a good decade. The large, old white house with crazy carpeting and character will always be home, even though it doesn’t exist anymore.

I ran around that gravel paradise, falling on my knees and busting them open at least twice a summer. Tamed the wild cats which was relatively easy to do, with food. On separate occasions, fell straight through the hayloft, and had an entire wall of 100 pound hay bales fall directly on top of me when I noticed it starting to lean, and immediately tripped trying to run away. Spent all day waiting for frog heads to pop up in what I am now sure was some sort of sewage drainage ditch, grabbing their slippery bodies, staring into their huge eyes. Lay on my stomach in the grass and pulled it up blade by blade, nibbling on the white root bottoms. Sat on the swing we had attached to a tree in the front yard, wound the rope as tight as I could, let it go and whipped around, falling over into the grass from vertigo. I would come home at the end of the day looking completely destroyed, proud of every smear of dirt, scratch, tear or tiny line of dried blood that I had accrued. The battle scars of a kid living her best life. I remember, though, one specific day when I seriously considered never returning again.

There was this one particular barn for the calves that separated them out in sections by age. In the outdoor portion of the pen where they could wander freely, the cement was angled gradually downward along the barn to allow for the pooling of their sewage. Walking past this on an ordinary day, I happened to notice a bee floundering around in this accumulated pool of shit. I remember thinking that would be a terrible way to die, and set out to save it. The little cows stood nearby, licking their pink noses and staring as I swung one leg over the fence, and then the other. I hung on to the metal with one hand, and leaned over as far as I could, reaching desperately for the bee. He was within my grasp, and I don’t remember what it was that ultimately failed me; if my legs had slipped out from under me, if my arm had given in. Regardless, I fell right in, straight on top of the bee (who did not survive) with exactly half of my body instantly covered in cow manure. This included my face.

I started to cry hard, not because I was in any way hurt; merely from the utter shame and disbelief that I was literally covered in shit. I stood there for a long time, both feet in the manure, contemplating my life choices. Leave and never return. Sneak back to the house and hose off outside before anyone could see me. Or, just be who I was and ring the doorbell, which I did. I stared down at my feet, admiring the contrast of the brown manure against the light gray concrete. my mother’s face appeared in the window of the door, and it opened slowly to the sound of explosive laughter. I was hosed off in the yard like a dog that had just rolled around over a dead animal, and brought inside to tell my story, my only solace was that I had a story to tell, and that’s never a bad thing.

Luciana, 29