The Ithaca Farmers Market opens its summer hours this Saturday, April 1st and I cannot be more excited. For many college students, the farmers market is a place to buy fresh veggies and artisan goods directly from their farmer or producer. For me, it’s all of this and more.
Freshman year, while I was really excited about being in Ithaca making new friends and finding my place here, I inevitably was homesick. This wasn’t originally apparent to me, as the dynamic of being an underclassman kept me busy enough to not process this. It wasn’t until a month into school, when my RA arranged for our dorm to take a trip to the farmer’s market, that it really began to hit me.
Mid/late September in Maine is the Common Ground Fair – an agricultural fair put on by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardener’s Association, or MOFGA as it’s more commonly known. I had never missed one of these fairs in my life. It was so woven into the fabric of my being that I never thought about what life would be like without it. In essence, the Common Ground Fair is like a farmers market on steroids, with the added bonus of animals and demonstrations.
As freshman me got off the bus in Ithaca, NY with my peers at the Farmers Market, I was instantly overwhelmed. Walking down the alley by all the food stands and artisan booths I felt completely at home. As I got to the end, I heard two fiddle players. While the rest of my dorm ran around taking in everything in a different way – mostly checking out all the individual booths and taking pictures – I stood in front of the performers and started to cry. It was a good cry – bittersweet. I simultaneously wished I was at the fair, while knowing that everything would be alright because Ithaca had a farmers market like no other farmers market I had ever seen. This was the weekend that I knew my four years at Ithaca College were going to be great as I now had a home away from home.
I do not expect everyone to have the kind of spiritual experience that I had that day. Even so, I encourage everyone to check it out.