But Anyway
This isn't a story, so get that idea out of your head right now. A story has to have conflict, and I've lived a pretty nice life. I want to share that with you, so I guess this is just a description or so my teacher once called any attempt at a story without conflict. Since I moved to the city, I've heard a lot of funny rumors about Earth Ponies: about being ignorant bumpkins or too strong for our own good, and those all made me laugh, because it won't take you a day with an Earth Pony to know that's not true, but one rumor in particular really upset me. Somepony said that Earth Ponies don't cry, and that's just nonsense.
Now, I'll grant that Earth Ponies don't cry as often as the Unicorns in love novels, and certainly not for the same reasons, but we do, and we're not ashamed about it as someponies seem to think we are. I suppose it would be embarrassing if I told you about the times I cried from tripping and landing on my face as a foal, and believe it or not, I can remember back that far. No, I'll tell you about some of the times worth remembering.
There's a festival back home on the farms. We always thought of it as a city, but everypony who isn't an Earth Pony says it's spaced way too far apart. I'll have you know it's less than a days walk for us to get to the center of town, but anyway. I guess I was about three or four, still small enough to hide between my mother's legs when I wasn't feeling very social, when my folks took me to my first festival. I remember standing in what I knew was a circle among the whole town around a podium, where somepony, the mayor I guess, got up and told the legend of the town's song. I don't remember what she said that day, but the legend goes that back in the first times, tigers were chasing and eating the herd that would form our town. The herd hid in a cave in hopes that the tigers wouldn't find them. That part is true because I've been to that cave. It's not a very big place, but anyway, it was raining that night and the herd heard the tigers coming. They knew they couldn't out run them because the cave was in a ditch and the mud outside the city in that area is such that it turns to cement when wet. You think I'm joking, but the local museum has a chunk of that mud with one of those old nail-in shoes stuck in a hoof print, because when they yanked that pony free, “Gumshoe” moved, but his shoes and the nails that held them in stayed right put.
Sorry, let me get back to the story. So, these ponies couldn't run and were hoping that the tigers wouldn't find them, but it was clear they were getting closer. One pony there had a very young foal, and looking into its eyes she thought about how soon this foal would be on to it's next life having only experienced the fear of running away and the pain of being eaten, but she didn't want that foal to come into its next life embittered from a short life of nothing but fear and pain, so she started to sing to her foal, and something about that moment made every other pony join in and start singing with her. They sang louder and louder celebrating the joy that life has to offer and when they finally stopped singing, the rain had stopped, and they ventured to the edge of the cave to see if they had a chance to run away. It turns out the singing was so loud it scared off the tigers. The herd was filled with such joy that they sang again even louder and more joyous than before. Well as beautiful as that story was, I was too young to understand, so that's not what made me cry.
Somepony moved to the podium beginning to sing. The song was slow and thoughtful. In case you've never heard me tell this story before, the first pony to sing represents the mother from the legend, and she sings just the way that is believed the mother of that foal sang that first time, and then as I stood there I felt the ground shake beneath my hooves and I felt a thunder like no storm I have ever heard since, as the whole town and what felt like the whole world rush up behind me in an explosion. I was honestly too scared to scream, too scared to cry, I dropped to the dirt, my eyes darting around in panic and I felt horror that no one else was afraid, but just as fast as the panic came it left as I realized the whole town and what felt like the whole world was singing. What I feared would rip me apart was everypony I knew and many more I didn't, singing the same wonderful song. Music in the country isn't like it is in the city, you aren't given sheet music telling you how to sing, you just know the song and then sing it how your heart tells you. So there I was feeling like Equestria was about to shake apart all around me, when suddenly I realized how beautiful the song was. A thousand harmonies and a thousand more that sang off of those harmonies all without a single sour note and all without any of it being planned beforehoof. I felt like that foal in the story, afraid of being eaten, but so amazed by the music I couldn't bring myself to run, then these mares somewhere in the crowd sang an aria so beautiful, I wish I could hear it again or even remember it clearly, because somewhere inside something changed and I started to bawl.
Now, I'm not going to dwell on what happened right after that moment, because you know how it goes, getting smothered with hugs and kisses and being told that everything is alright. I was embarrassed at all that, but I certainly wasn't the only little colt crying that day. The music really was beautiful, and I wanted to make music myself, so it wasn't long after that I joined a choir and then took up violin lessons. It was my dad's violin or fiddle as he called it, but as fun as it was to jump and kick to the fast beats of the country I wanted to make that music that touched me like that day at the festival. Funny enough, even the unicorns back home teased me about playing a violin. They said I'd break it from playing it too hard. I'm not upset; I think it's funny really, that foal unicorns tease me about playing the violin and years later, here I am with my name advertised in lights, heh. You know, I remember when I wrote my first piece. I preformed it for my family and their friends. I guess you could say that was my first recital. It's fallen out of practice, but I had my first piece cast into a song egg. Song eggs are solid eggs about the size of your head with sheet music spiraling down them. Mine was just a rock, but I filled in the engraved notes with silver. I gave that to my mother because she liked it so much.
Anyway, that was the first time I remember crying. The second time happened, well several years later. It shouldn't come as a surprise that as Earth Ponies we did our own farming, and I'm a little shocked everypony doesn't know this, but turning crops isn't anything like flipping tacos, no, what we would do is plant a certain veggie in a plot and as it grew it would take certain minerals out of the dirt, so after a while you can't use that plot for that same plant, instead you plant something that uses some other mineral and that puts back what was taken out before, and what you do is have four plots and three crops and plant them in such a way so that they appear to turn like a clock over the seasons. Anyway, We kept one empty each season, and when I was about twenty or so, I asked my parents if I could plant some flowers to make a garden in that field. My parents wanted me to be happy, but were worried about what I might do to the field, when I told them I wanted to plant Rabbit's Paint and FoxFires they smiled and said alright.
FoxFires were my mother's favorite flower and Rabbit's Paint is mine. My dad was such a strange pony, he never said what he liked. He just seemed to be happy with whatever. So I went through the whole process of planting these seeds just like we had done for all our other crops. It was planting season, so I didn't think anything about it really – dump the compost all over the fields and till it under. Yes, we used our own poo, but only after it stayed a season in the compost heap. It's not something you think about in the moment, just sing the work songs, do the work, and clean up afterward. I've heard ponies complain that the life of a farmer means not having a social life, but you just don't understand that when we work together work for us isn't a chore, it was a time to come together and make something as a family. I don't have any siblings, but if I did something tells me, we'd fight and argue far less than the city folk who seem so bent on going their own way they're all walking away from each other... Anyway, the garden was to be my responsibility alone because I had asked for it, so I planted the flowers myself, six seeds to a hole – three Rabbits three Foxes, and I got so caught up in thinking about how wonderful it was going to look when they bloomed, I ended up covering the whole plot without even knowing about it. I had to water them every day, and sometimes that led to almost forgetting and watering them later in the day. My parents had been farmers for as long as I've known them so they wouldn't let me forget about watering them, well, they were disappointed when we both forgot and figured it out later. I really started to get tired of the extra work, and almost every day I was angry when I had to go out to water them, which let me to put it off later and later into the day until one night past dark in late Midsummer, I went to do said chore. When I walked out past the plot of sunflowers I saw a sight I have never seen before. I was stunned for a moment and ran all the way back to the house to get my mom and dad to come see. You see, Rabbit's Paint is a bright pink flower that gives off a lot of pink pollen, enough to turn the bunnies who love to run through it solid pink, and FoxFires are yellow with yellow pollen that glows in the dark. The two together turn a shade of blue that made the ground look exactly like the starry night sky. My parents were impressed, but they thought I knew what was going to happen. I really didn't. Then a strong wind blew across the field. I've never seen the ocean, but I'd like to imagine that the ocean at night looks exactly like that with the waves moving the image of the stars above. As that wind rolled to the back of the fields, I tried to follow it with my gaze, but it just seemed to go on forever. Suddenly, I realized that I did this. Ignorant to what would happen other than trying to plant a garden for my mother, here I stood watching a beauty that didn't seem that could ever be the product of mortal hooves, and certainly not by mine and all my carelessness of nearly forgetting to water these flowers, sometimes actually forgetting to, and for weeks being angry over having to do it. I remembered that I started all this for her, my mother that is, and started to cry. I was a bad pony. Something this beautiful shouldn't have come from a pony who didn't love every moment of making it happen. A gift this beautiful shouldn't be given from somepony who was so selfish as to not want to give it. I nearly killed that garden several times throughout the season and I didn't deserve to see it.
I cried my eyes out, and my parents never knew why. I was too ashamed to talk about it. I never let myself forget about those flowers. I worked hard from that day forth. The field was easy, but when I cleaned my room or the rest of the house or did my school work or my violin practice – anything I did alone, I remembered those flowers and how something so great can come from just a little bit of constant effort. My violin and my love of music helped me get into the Canterlot Philharmonic Orchestra. I have no idea why you people don't sing as much as we did back home, but if you really are happy without it, whatever floats your boat.
Well... Now, we come to my last story. I was invited to preform at the Gala a few years ago, and that was such a big event that my dad waited until after it was over to send the letter asking me to come home. My mother had fallen ill with one of those country sicknesses that keeps a pony in bed for months, and my dad wanted my help with well everything until mom got better. Now, I've heard ponies ask why not ask for help from someone closer or pay for help, but this really isn't a matter of Earth Pony pride saying that we are too good for help, no – working together really is a social thing to Earth Ponies, so think of it like this: you like to eat while sitting with your friends, right? But you don't like it when you are eating at a cafeteria table and you don't know the ponies around you, well, that's what it's like when Earth Ponies work together, or at least that's how I feel about it. So I got home. Dad greeted me at the bus stop. He didn't say a word until we got home. I don't blame him really, I was happily chatting away about my time in Canterlot and at the Gala. He waited until we were already inside to tell me that mom had died shortly after he mailed the letter.
There's nothing like it, having that information dropped on you like that, but nothing could have prepared me for it anyway. It really doesn't feel any different than if she was out of the house visiting friends. Dad started to explain why he didn't even send another letter, but I understood – it would have been more painful if they arrived out of order. Her body had been cremated a week before I arrived, so there was no ceremony to attend. My dad and I tended the fields as we always had. Only two and three times extra, we'd walk them and shoo out the pests each day. I didn't feel like crying and neither did he. For months, I walked around and carried through the motions – there was my body, but I certainly wasn't in it. Then one day, I walked through the front door, I don't even remember why I was out front anyway, but there it was on the shelf to the right, the song egg I gave to my mother all those years ago. There was an emptiness in my heart that could not be filled, would no longer be ignored, and yet somehow felt like fire as it rose up and stole the breath from me. I'm not sure I could call what I did crying, because it sounded and felt like I was dying. I didn't have the strength to move. There isn't anything like it, having lost someone you love – knowing that you will never see them again in this life. I've never doubted the princesses when they said that those who pass are happy in their next life, but I wanted my mother back. I wanted this pain to go away. I wanted to write her a song. I wanted to plant her a garden. I wanted to be held in her arms. As I thought about how selfish I was being, my cries turned into wails. I couldn't convince myself to be the better pony this time. Dad had been sleeping, and came down when I woke him up. He sat there rubbing my back until I could stop, and then I started to tell him everything I've told you.
He told me that it was alright. I wasn't being selfish; I was just being sad. He told me that he was proud to see what I would do on my own; that's why he never asked for anything from me. He said mom felt the same way and would feel that way too even in her next life. Then he quoted Princess Celestia by saying, “Do you mourn those who sleep? Then mourn not those who die, for like the weary who rest, they shall rise again. And when they do, shall they find that you have made the world more beautiful through your acts of love or more callous from your pain of loss? In this way, you control the future, not I.” It's taken me a long time, but I've decided to make beauty again. Anyway, I just wanted you all to know that yes, Earth Ponies do cry, because back before any of this there was one of these embarrassing times of falling on my face, and that was the first time I was told a quote from Princess Celestia by which I have always lived my life, which is “The heart is like a garden watered by tears: too many and it is washed away, but too few and it will dry up.” Sometimes, with rumors like Earth Ponies who never cry, I fear everypony is close to drying up. Anyway, without further ado, I would like to present to you an arrangement of my first composition with the traditional song of my town, “Here Comes the Sun.”