Monday, August 1st 2022
A little bit before 9:00 a.m. is probably a good time to think about the possibility of getting started. Yesterday was a wonderful day, the food was epic, the company was splendiferous and I don’t really have any more adjectives to say about that. Yesterday was a fine day and today, I have that “post wonderful weekend, don’t particularly have a job so I have no particular reason to get up” feeling of not-give-a-fuckedness. I have a glorious lack of ambition here this Monday morning. This is a feeling I wish to live with, cultivate, have a relationship with and look forward to on a daily basis. I feel good today.
As far as Monday morning worries go, there isn’t a lot. There are a few pieces of the puzzle that yet need to come together. One of these days I should actually get an opportunity to go to Minsk and this will improve my physical life at least somewhat. These people would have been a lot nicer to hook me up months ago when I had a lot of stuff to do. But I guess if your goal is maximum suffering, perhaps they are gold star fascists up there.
There’s also that extended inspection business. I don’t know why the Belarusian bureaucracy deems it fit to drag everything out to its maximum limits. Either the bureaucrats themselves have completely boring lives or they just can’t get enough of irritating me. I can’t speak for anyone else so I really can’t say.
I mean, I can be realistic about this. There is a war going on. I don’t know why they needed a war. I don’t know why they needed to shoot rockets at the ukrainians. I mean, I know exactly why. It’s about money and access to oil and natural resources and the need to spend money and generate human misery for the purposes of acquiring more profits generally. I understand all this, I just don’t understand why they do it because it’s a completely unnecessary thing. Well, to me it’s an unnecessary thing. I am a thinker. Maybe I am a global thinker. But I am a thinker and therefore I feel that all of this misery and pain is probably unnecessary. There’s probably a much easier way to do things.
After that, there is some work to be done cleaning up the lentil Garden. There is generally some work to be done out there that requires a little building and some material transport. It’s not a massive undertaking but it’s a genuine project.
The gardens need to get cleared of weeds, the barriers need to get rebuilt and raised in certain places. Some fertilizer should get tossed in there and then one of the paths needs to get dug out and the dirt used to level the garden beds. I wouldn’t say that it’s a massive undertaking. The gardens are 15 m long so it’s not that much digging or building. But it’s significant and next year, though we are going to have to do some weeding, I will have some decent meterage for food planting.
Clearing the weeds is going to happen this week. The rebuilding and the digging does not have to happen immediately or even anytime soon. It’s really nothing that even needs to happen this year to be honest. In fact, about all I really need to do this year is clear the weeds and then perhaps broadcast some ground cover to be plowed under later on. Well, not plowed under but dug in.
I guess I talk a lot about these projects. I probably talk about them because my legs are bad right now and just getting up and starting to do things doesn’t happen. Moving around hurts a lot right now and worse. I really need to stay off my feet and allow myself a chance to do some healing. Breaking out the crutches helps. But the point is that instead of just living here and doing what needs to be done, which is really all I wanted in the world, instead I’m stuck in my head and renegotiating all of these jobs based upon available help or personal strength. It’s sad.
Immediately, about the only things I am really thinking about are getting up and cleaning up a little from yesterday and maybe getting some breakfast together. I am not hungry at all. Yesterday’s food is still hanging around inside me. Very dense and calorie packed. I don’t really need to add much nourishment.
Or in other words, this is another typical Monday morning. I can feel the Monday morning energy around me. What neighbors I have that have regular jobs and of course my ex partner all have to put on their robot faces and head off to The killing Fields. I feel this energy, I just have no relationship or responsibilities for it. It’s just a wave in the ocean underneath me that reminds me that these dates and days mean something to other people.
Probably the only thing worth talking about is that yesterday gave me an opportunity to notice the difference in the quality of this blog between last year and this year. It’s difficult to say on a basic level whether this year or last year was better. I have been told that I’m more serious this year and I’m paying more attention to science or at least the physical sciences of the world directly around me and last year I was more opinion based and stylish. But from a practical point of view, I don’t edit very much this year and last night, I noticed how unsatisfying it must be to sit through some of my blog entries this year.
I tried to read yesterday’s words last night and I found three places that would have just made me quit if I tried to be a reader. There were also some foolish mistakes in syntax. Absolutely know the difference between last year and this year. I know exactly where the problem is but nevertheless, I just haven’t really felt the energy this year I did last year. I don’t have the desire to do everything I need to do to perfect this craft.
Arguably, it’s more of the same. If there are some abnormalities and mistakes along the way, perhaps you take the whole artwork as a whole. It is what it is. Last year every entry was reread and at least moderately edited. Sometimes the edit was more heavy-handed than others. Sometimes the edit took over and reroute the entire original entity and sometimes, especially later in the year, I just wanted to make sure that the original thoughts were understandable and I only added some words for clarity or removed some unnecessary paragraphs.
This year I simply have done less work. I rarely do more than a simple spell check and often I don’t even go back to look at what I’ve done. Sometimes on the weekend I give myself a read but mostly I’m just keeping track.
I would definitely say the work I did last year was better from a production standpoint. But perhaps content wise, this year is more solid and rational. Last year I felt really annoyed by my neighbors and my relatives and it seems like something otherworldly was going on around me. This year I have at least tried to bring back or have access to some simple physicality that I didn’t have last year. But I have not had the heart to really care about the writing.
It’s really hard to say. It’s really hard to rectify in my mind. It’s hard to look back at the sheer amount of cruelty that people have practiced specifically towards me. I truly wish I understood why I’m so lucky. I mean, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand what the hell is wrong with people and I think I’ve done a pretty good job of identifying the key parts of the disease. But still, understanding doesn’t mean a goddamn thing. We still have to live in this shithole of a world we’ve built for ourselves.
This is the real point I think. On an incredibly microcosmic level, I’m trying to build a little world for myself that functions. I’m trying to interact with nature and allow myself an opportunity to have access to fresh food. I’m trying to live kindly in my relationship to the planet. I’m trying.
But I’m not trying to be a lifestyle model for other people. I’m not doing this specifically as a stunt. I’m just talking about making a transition from City Life to country Life and trying to make a transition from an existence based on money to an existence based on effort. Or at least I’m moving away from being completely cared for to taking care of myself. Something like this.
Anyway, I had a little breath of Life yesterday. Positive interactions and moments of kindness and intimacy with my ex partner, a field full of beauty and rather delicious fresh food all made for a shot of energy I haven’t had in a while. I enjoyed what yesterday felt like. I enjoyed what my body felt like at the end of the day. I enjoyed my evening and my night’s sleep and I enjoyed waking up feeling absolutely plastered to the floor. I haven’t felt this good in almost a year. In fact, this is as good as I have felt for a long, long time.
Anyway, time to get moving. Monday morning, up up and all of that. I’m thinking of brown rice, green lentils, some of the broccoli stem and the rest of the leaves cooked into that and the last of the hummus just to give it some flavor. Protein rich, calorie dense, filling and tasty. Perfect human food to start the week. After that, let’s hope we have a little bit more rain and let’s get the party started.
***
From my perspective, and I’m talking about an American living next door to the war, it’s very hard for me to ignore the accusations of war crimes or to believe that it’s an accurate description of what is going on. I’m saying this both because I am completely uninterested in any reasons behind this bloodthirsty conflict that may come from the Russian side. I see absolutely no reason for anything that they have been doing. But also it’s simply that I have availability of news that most Russian speakers don’t have access to. If they are older, perhaps they only really have access to television news and if this is the case, the ukrainians are fascists and the Russians are attempting to be heroes. This is all they hear and frankly, all they want to hear.
Perhaps there is another sub level of people who have access to both sides of the information but simply say what they must say to preserve their positions. This would be State managers or people who have taken the trouble to climb the ladder a bit in their jobs. People who have found favor in the hierarchy tend to have gotten there by whatever means possible, often to the exception of talent or hard work.
The web is strong and what I have found by living well away from town is that even a few well chosen bootlickers can do quite a bit of damage just by bending people’s ears. This business with Lena last week is just a part of things. It’s funny how many people already know all about me despite not my not lifting a single finger to make contact with them. I mean, if I don’t have business with someone, I don’t have business with them. I’m not a high schooler looking for friends to help me deal with my emotional problems. I have been dealing with my emotional problems just fine without any political help from the Russians, thank you very much.
“We are not Russia”. This is the essence of what quite a few people feel however. Yes, I know that people here are notorious for saying what they think you want them to say. I am well aware of this and I am not a fool. But it seems to me that when the war started and the actual bloodshed began, most Belarusian people were honestly against the entire affair. Most Belarusians grew up well aware of the dangers and horrors of War. It is ingrained year after year in their consciousness by holiday after holiday remembering how many people died and how many villages were burned by the Nazi fascists. People here are taught to hate fascism and to believe in a better way, a more peaceful way. At least this is always the education.
Perhaps it’s better to say that this has always been the education. Perhaps now it is illegal to speak of the atrocities of War in classrooms. Perhaps a teacher would be afraid to lose their job to speak openly about the war or to say anything against the Russians or the government and their choices. There has been no problem instituting martial law. In fact, martial law is all they ever want it to be. They are not interested in anything less than total control and total acquiescence.
So Life goes on here for the most part. Young people are still parading around taking pictures of themselves. The economy is completely corroding locally as almost all money is now funneled away to Russian companies. There is almost no way for people to communicate with each other anymore to help them solve their local problems. As long as they have enough money, nothing else matters.
All I can say is that this is reality here. It’s been reality here for a while but it has also been steadily getting worse and worse. The paranoia is real and genuine and if you ever really wanted to know what life was like in Berlin in 1932, you don’t have to go very far to get a very good understanding.
It’s not a humorous irony. It’s tragic irony. But really, nobody thinks about it that much. They don’t have time. They have to get to work because losing their job would be the end of everything forever. Even slowing down is against the law.
***
It’s about 20 minutes to 8:00 and I guess I’m closing up shop. Today was indeed a non-working day for myself. I didn’t get very physical with the world at all. My leg feels very good from the babying I have been giving it. I even walked around on crutches today just to keep the weight off it. I guess this is a practical answer. It doesn’t do much for my general physiology or overall health but I guess I have to do what I have to do. I am my only doctor right now.
There were two definite positives about today though. Firstly, Ghenna showed up in the morning and I let him in without argument and walked him down to the lower fields. He took a look at the job I was asking him to do and came up with a reasonable price. In his speech, he told me he did not want to insult me. I don’t really know what that meant but he asked for an extra five rubles over his original price and I agreed to give it to him. It really is a big job.
I told him that the quickest way that I would do it would be simply to chop out the weeds. I didn’t like the idea of using a scythe first and then digging. He wanted to pull the weeds by hand. He thought it was very important that the roots of the plant come out. Possibly this is true but there’s nothing to be done about the thousands upon thousands of seeds that the weeds have already dropped. We are pulling weeds out there next year no matter what we do. But I couldn’t stop him from doing what he wanted and eventually I just gave up and let him do his thing.
I did catch him smoking down there one time. When he heard me pop out of the he sprang to his feet and ran back out to work like a teenager caught smoking. I don’t really want the cigarette butts on the land and I could see him patting it out dropping it in his pocket.
Of course he came to me at the end of his first work session in the morning for money. I can’t get it through his head that I can’t stand people begging me for money. I will pay for a job when the job is done but I just didn’t have the energy today so I gave him 10 rubles towards the cost. I don’t know, sometimes it’s easier just to say yes I guess. This made him happy enough. 10 rules will buy a bottle.
He showed up later in the day, about 5:30 or so and immediately headed back down to work. He’s gone now, having taken yet another five rubles out of my hand for the incomplete work. He always likes to tell me the rules in case I don’t know. He actually wanted 10 but I gave him five and I guess he also felt it was easier to say yes than to fight.
He has actually done an excellent job on two of the roads. The Earth in those rows is basically sand. You can see that it’s lifeless. We can toss in some fertilizer next year or just before winter starts for nutrition. People have been doing this forever and ever which is probably exactly why there is absolutely no life left in that dirt. I still have time to think about what I want to do. Maybe I’ll just go with the trees and the berry bushes already and be done with it.
I did have a pretty cool idea though about a watering system. It was just a picture that came into my head about putting a sprinkler Tower around the garden boxes. I don’t think it would be too expensive to have out there especially if I made it non-permanent. What I liked about this idea was just a picture of a giant water shower happening next summer. I was thinking of putting myself in the picture and enjoying the shower as well along with the plants. I’m not convinced that this is the most efficient possibility but it was a pleasant picture to think about.
Tomorrow he will come by and do the last row and cart everything up to the compost pile. I’m really happy with the work that he did and when I told him so, it seemed to make him happy too. I am a necessary evil. I am an actual paying customer.
The other nice thing that happened was having a conversation with a former student of mine. I have known her since she was a teenager and now she is grown up, married and living in Georgia. She says that the people there are not as nice as she thought they would be. They tend to take life slower and drink a lot. She misses living in Minsk. I guess I can understand her point of view.
What I really like about her is that she’s just dead solid straight. She wears her heart on her sleeve and doesn’t bother too much with lies or personal politics. She’s never really been one to play games although I guess she gets jealous sometimes of people who do.
What I remember most about her is that she was one of the fastest learners I have ever had. She literally went from nothing to everything in my class. She told me that she had mentioned this to another English teacher who said that she was surprised at how much my friend retained.
It’s difficult to put your finger on something that makes someone special. It’s difficult to identify the underlying education or DNA that goes with such things. She’s just not a bully. This is what I really remember about her is that she just was there. Right there in the pocket, no matter what was being discussed, she was locked in as sharp as a laser. Not in the least bit flashy. Not in the least bit glamorous. Not really even raising a finger to be so and completely grateful to have a husband that she considers trustworthy. That’s the most important thing to her. More than anything, she just went with the man who she could trust.
So I got to say I love you to someone today. It’s been a long time since I have been able to say that honestly. Maybe I said it twice. Maybe three times. I got to say this to Ghenna and even my ex partner today. These were not from guilt, I meant it. I love you days are nice. Spread them around. We need a lot more of them.
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