Let’s get down to the dirt.
Once I clock out of work for the day, I head to a tiny slice of paradise that I own in Stardew Valley. “Fram Farm,” as I’ve named it, cost me five dollars.
I’ve already sunk a season’s worth of hard labor into my startup farm. I’ve adopted a dog, three chickens, and made friends with a wizard who lives in a decrepit lighthouse. I’m wooing a pretentious poet named Elliot and a Ruffalo-esque ruffian named Shane, but I have my eye on Harvey. He might be a catch. Oh, and I’m fishing too. Not that I’m any good at it.
I was inspired to pick up the game by many factors, not the least of which was the rediscovery of the word “alluvial”. (An alluvial plain is a fertile one, thanks to the nutrients and textures gifted to it by neighboring running water.) Where I found this word, I don’t know—I do know that it brought me back to the year I spent learning about hydroponics from master gardeners. It brought me back to those summers my mom would run her fingers through her compost telling me this is free gold. It brought me back to those late nights I played away sadness with Harvest Moon on my GameBoy SP.
I’ve half-tried to analyze why I want to play a game that requires work and to-do lists, why I feel the need to manage my finances and balance my relationships in two different worlds. I’ve come to no conclusions, and I don’t think I want to just yet.
Instead of building levees to keep out the analytical flood, I’m going to try and let this experience flow through me. Maybe it’ll wash me out. Or maybe it’ll leave some sediment of a lesson behind it.
Either way, I’m having fun. And that’s what my little plot needs right now.
Next Steps: Drink a glass of water, go outside and touch real grass, and collect a clipping of a succulent so you can grow something real.
I have a second life