“Tempted (joking) ... Etan?”
That was the entire note above a forwarded job posting for a wholesale coordinator at the Poughkeepsie Farm Project. I was supposed to pass it along to somebody else.
I wrote back that I would. Then I added, “Also I am tempted by this job.... the farm project is where I run all the time, Vassar XC course, its beautiful :).”
I was not joking as much as I probably should have been.
Amanda, Eva, and I had come to Poughkeepsie when New York shut down. The move was supposed to be temporary. By November, the old Victorian was home and the places around it had become my regular running routes.
Work was moving in the opposite direction. Apply was live. We were talking to people who might join the company, building a growth marketing deck, and working on the copy for a new product called Foundations. My photo roll had Apply artwork, sticker packages, a damaged bike helmet, and a quiet gravel path outside Poughkeepsie.
I had also just put myself in the ER on a bike ride. I was back on calls and apologizing for the delay to anyone I had missed, but I was still very obviously healing. A job at the farm project sounded simple in a way that startup work did not.
That did not mean I had a plan to leave Apply and start coordinating wholesale vegetables. I did not apply in the email thread. I forwarded the listing like I said I would.
Still, the temptation was real enough to write down.
I was living in a place I had originally bought as a giant renovation problem. I could run out the door and reach the Vassar cross-country course. Somebody sent me a job at the farm where I ran, and it sounded pretty good.