Sunday, August 7th 2022. Week 31

There was no rain at all last night. Perhaps I am wrong. I haven’t gone out yet today. Maybe it’s at least wet out there and it’s just that I was sleeping when the rain actually came. I know it got pretty windy there on a couple of occasions and slammed a window or two. But as far as I can smell and from what I heard from an open window, it did not rain at all.

The weather report said it was going to rain several times during the night. I don’t know how many times I’m supposed to bitch at the weather report but it’s never correct when it predicts rain. We are in the middle of a drought. This drought has lasted 13 years. This is the hottest month of the year. My field is already starting to look like West Texas and all the grass and all of the weeds and all of the food that we planted that is even moderately sensitive is all drying out. And last night was the last chance for rain for the next while at least and we got nothing.

You can read or listen to anything you want about climate change. You can resist and be a denier or look for weird alternatives to believe in. People are prone to making the wrong choices when given options sponsored by people who make money off of their stupidity. But aside from my well-bottoming out, the natural history of the region, the sandy soil and the existence of a bog nearby, one would have to conclude that this has always been a pretty wet region and it’s not anymore. When the local weeds don’t want to live, this pretty much tells you that they are out of place and if the weeds are out of place, well, something drastic has changed.

Then there is the weather report. It’s not that the prognosticators are guessing. They are checking the barometric pressure, gauging the wind speed and looking at satellite images of cloud patterns passing across the sky and they come up with a reasonable guess based upon 120 years or so of information. If these numbers say this, it means that and if they say something else it usually goes along the same way. It’s a bit like gambling and it’s a matter of odds but for the most part, they should be accurate enough to have people continue to pay them money to do the job.

The thing is that normal parameters no longer apply. There is not enough water dropping from the clouds for some reason. I believe it’s the amount of pollution in the air. My best theory is constipated clouds. I’ve been talking about this all year. If the air has too much crap in it, it’s exactly like your colon having too much crap in it, there is no way for the system to relieve itself normally and the only thing it can do is have hysterical explosions. 

The second problem is that there is simply not as much water as there used to be. The groundwater is dissipating because of higher temperatures. That means more evaporation earlier and later and a drier climate than the world is used to. When I say used to, it means that all the plants and animals that exist in a region, exist there because of some darwinian adaptation over many centuries. What can live, lives and this is the way the world works. Radically change the climate over a short period of time and you take away the ability of things to live.

One of the arguments for the climate deniers and of course the people who make money in the current economic climate is that all things adapt and where one thing fails and new things will rise. They like to claim evolution as being a wonderful thing in this way. Personally however, I don’t think nature works that way. I don’t think nature works that quickly. I don’t think nature expects people to adapt within one generation to completely new stimulus. I don’t think we are built to explode in a single generation in a New direction and be expected to understand it. There’s too much information, too much stimulus, way too much change and everyone is asked to buy their way out of their Hysteria. And of course everyone has to have a car, everyone has to eat an exotic diet, everybody needs imported goods and everybody has to party all night under the street lights.

Maybe it’s just too noisy for it to rain. Maybe we are so interested in being loud and proving how alive we are, we drown out all the natural sounds the world actually has to offer.

Last year I went to see a hockey game on an invitation from an old friend of mine. His son was playing and he invited us to come watch. The parents were very loud and the game was a lot of fun. The kids were cool and his son was Gretzky. I’ve been calling him that ever since. My ex partner and I were hooked and we determined to come to the next game when the kids played.

We were at the ice palace and noticed a poster saying that a team would be playing. This team had the same name as the kids team so we thought this was definitely them and went to come watch. It wasn’t the kids team, it was the local pro or Semi-Pro team that just happened to have the same name. 

There were a couple of things different. Firstly, there were armed security standing around as if we were in the middle of a war. We were given free tickets by one of the security guys, probably because I was American, the kids game would have been for free and we didn’t have any money and then we were allowed inside. The tickets were not that expensive.

The moment we were inside though, we realized it was a mistake. They had a sound system in the tiny auditorium that was blazing it well over 100 decibels and The music never ceased. Apparently it was part of the show to have it be as loud and frightening as a war machine. This is exactly the mood here at the professional level. Hockey was war and War was loud. We didn’t make it even through the end of the second period. We’ve never attended another game.

Sure, when I was younger, we used to say if it’s too loud, you’re too old. I can understand that. I remember playing rock music and liking rock music. I don’t think it’s about loud music per se, I just think it’s about inappropriate use of ridiculously loud music. I mean, I don’t think you go to a hockey game for the music.

I have another story about this particular nuance from when I was very young and attending baseball games in San francisco. They had a habit of playing music over the intercom before the game during batting practice. I am absolutely sure that this is still the practice. But there were three instances that I remember where there wasn’t any music and I remember how delightful it actually was. Almost.

The first time I remember not being butchered by constant music was when we went to Fenway Park many years ago. I’m sure this is no longer the truth there but at the time, I remember how lovely it was to be able to hear yourself think and talk. At the time, I thought that the Boston fans were rather sophisticated baseball connoisseurs because all of the conversations were intelligent and worthy of listening to. I also remember that Roger Clemens was looking for his 20th win on the last day of the year and the moment he appeared from the dugout, the entire stadium went silent. Clemens was Jesus Christ at that time and you could feel the ridiculous respect that he got through this nuance of sound.

The second instance of this is when they had an Old Time theme baseball game back in San Francisco. The players wore old time replica uniforms, the announcements were made by a guy with a big megaphone and there was no sound in the park because this was from a time before such things. Quite delightful.

The last memory about this came from a giant dodgers game when for some reason, they forgot to play music before the game. This was one of the few times in San Francisco that I remember being able to hear people speak. The Giants and the Dodgers though have a long history of animosity between them and as people could suddenly hear themselves think and talk, the threat of violence actually started getting greater and greater. I know that Steven the players were starting to get a little scared. The tension was building as the remarks started getting sharper and more violent. Then they turned on the music, people couldn’t think again and settled down. Nothing else happened.

My last example is one of the reasons I don’t really spend a lot of time in town anymore. They rebuilt Lenin Street a few years ago, adding in decorative paving stones, benches and lighting. They closed it off to cars and hope to open it up as a festival / shopping mall. They started doing this all over Belarus and it’s all part of some massive beautification project. I’m sure it’s nicer if you like people watching or photographing yourself. It really is quite picturesque. The problem is that they never turn the music off.

I remember talking to an attractive lady one time and enjoying a little moment of intimacy. The vendor next to us was playing incredibly loud music and it really was starting to give me a headache. I asked him why he was playing recorded electronic music and he told me that it was conducive to sales. I don’t know who told him that. 

Maybe it’s an obvious thing that everybody is supposed to understand. Everything is supposed to come along with its own music these days. If you don’t have music as a backdrop to everything you do, I guess nothing really exists.

I just got sick of not being allowed to hear myself think. I got sick of the constant demand on my consciousness. I got sick of the soundtrack. I got sick of my brain being turned off electronically.

Maybe the problem is that the world is just too loud. Russian people have a habit of speaking very loudly. All of the women in my little village scream instead of speaking. Lena is a notoriously loudspeaker. The chicken woman tackles ridiculously loudly and pretty much everybody speaks with a cartoonish stage volume. It’s like everyone believes themselves to be actors on a stage. Children are taught to speak this way too.

I think that they’re just deaf. I think they’ve gone deaf from the constant noise. I think people who live in cities go crazy from the noise. Noise pollution to go along with the air pollution. I think people who work in factories go crazy from the noise pollution and the air pollution. I don’t think the world is supposed to be this loud.

America invented rock and roll. America was not the first people to invent amplified music I don’t think. But it had absolutely no problem making loud music the number one attraction, the music business became a billion dollar industry. Making noise loud enough to be heard over the den of civilization became an essential thing.

I got sick of it. I got sick of the noise. I got sick of the senselessness. I got sick of being manipulated. I got sick of the environment. The environment was too dirty and too loud and two false and too drunk I’m too violent and too stupid. The environment was too conducive for commerce for my taste. I didn’t like my environment reaching into my pockets all the time. I didn’t like being pushed for money all the time. I got tired of being raped.

Now I only have one neighbor who rapes me and my ears. Two really. I have two neighbors that believe yard work has to include gasoline powered instruments. I only have one neighbor with cars though. But they are old ridiculous cars without any particular emissions blocking gadgets in the engine. I don’t even think they have mufflers that work or if they do, they are limited in some way to make their cars even louder. And of course they scream instead of talking. They are in a constant state of Hysteria.

But when they are gone, the place grows quiet. When they are not at home, you can hear yourself think here. You can hear the birds talk to each other or the insects buzzing around. You can hear the wind blow. You can hear the rustling of the trees or the crickets at night. You can hear the nuance of the rain against the house when it bothers to rain and you can even understand the absence of rain because it also has a sound.

We have destroyed our environment. We have destroyed our environment for commerce. We have created an economic and social system that requires everyone to be starving and spending money all the time and in order to do so, we have destroyed our environment with pollution. We’ve polluted the water with our waste products and by demanding agriculture work at an unnatural level to satisfy economic needs. We’ve polluted our air by demanding the constant sale of internal combustion engine cars and constant importation of foreign products. And we have polluted the sound of our world with our constant machines. 

We have ruined our senses. We have been blinded and deafened and our sense of smells have been taken away from us. We have been told to become senseless so as not to see the damage being caused. We have been told never to think of ourselves as living creatures. We have been taught that we are somehow not of the planet that we are from. We have been taught hypocrisy and lies and coercion and hate instead of simple community values. We have been told to go against our nature simply because being insane is conducive for business.

Anyway, it didn’t rain last night. Maybe I’m wrong. I’ll go outside in a little bit and take a look around but I’m pretty sure I heard things clearly enough. I can see the rain barrel just outside my window and it certainly doesn’t seem wet. I know the wind blew really hard. It probably knocked all of the fruit off of my cherry plum tree. I know it beat the crap out of several windows. But I didn’t hear it rain. I didn’t hear it rain at all and that was the last rain predicted for a while.

So, I have maybe enough water in my tanks for three brief waterings. Maybe four if I take the effort to siphon the buckets from one place to another. But without any rain last night or any rain this week, that’s going to be about the end of about half my garden. I just don’t have any water for them and neither does God.

I hope I said that loud enough to be heard. I know everybody has so many things to think about these days. Everything is just go go go go. But it didn’t rain and I think this is about the end of my agricultural year. I guess I’ll just have to start buying my food again, right?

***

It’s 12:30 and I am in my current favorite place in the world. I am sitting in the grass in the shade under my plum tree eating Cherry plums and waiting for my ex partner’s arrival.

The garden is not in terrible shape today. Even though it didn’t rain yesterday and it absolutely didn’t rain, the temperature cooled down a little bit and most everything seemed reasonably okay for having the day off. Who knows? Maybe they get used to no water on Saturdays.

I’ve been doing some reading about raised bed gardens and warmer climates. There is some truth to it that although raised bed gardening would have been perfect in the region’s natural climate, currently we are at least one and possibly as much as three zones hotter and dryer.

Of course to keep going means adapting. I can talk until I die and I probably will but if I want to do any gardening, I should definitely try and pick fruits and vegetables that will grow. I mean, I could argue about the genocide being committed on people’s situated closer to the equator, whether or not you like my word choices it seems no different than the genocide practice against ukrainians or anywhere else in the world where there are oil wars. It does seem that white Christian conservatives are the one that needs the most oil and consequently hate nature the most.

All that clearly in my head but obviously without any power to do anything about this, I’ve been checking out drought resistant trees and things to plant from warmer climate zones. Maybe there are some interesting things that could come from this.

I’m not sure it’s really going to be dry enough for figs. Figs are definitely a desert food. But persimmons are possible. Persimmons are a beloved import here during the holiday seasons. I am also in love with the incredibly sweet fruit. From what I understand, I could probably put in a few persimmon trees in the lower Garden next year. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get some.

It also may be possible to grow pomegranate trees. These are also very popular imports right now. I don’t know, when I think of these imports right now, it seems that perhaps we are being trained to like fruits that are normally not available for this region. Might as well plan for the future because nobody is going to be getting out of their cars anytime soon. No reason to let the World right itself. Let’s just let the white people adapt and the black people die and that will be the way of the world.

It is a rather interesting racial by-product of global warming that the people who are really going to be starved out are the black people. It’s kind of ironic when you consider the amount of persecution, genocide and enslavement white-skinned people have put on darker skinned people over the centuries. It’s almost like we invented progress simply as another way to kill black people. That may sound like a conspiracy theory but I wouldn’t put it past the illiterati. 

I remember overhearing a conversation when I was in New York between a vegan bicyclist friend of mine and one of the conservative courier company owners. My vegan friend stated some numbers about the inequality of firearms related deaths on how black people were much, much more likely to encounter gun violence than whites. The conservative friends said “we can do better”. He was also overheard to say something along those lines when Bush took the presidency over Al Gore. “Good, now we can get back in the business of killing people.”

Yeah, this is a lovely and shady spot. There’s really nothing like being in a grassy field where the shade tree over your head and incredibly sweet fruit just lying around all over the place waiting to be picked up. I understand that this is not an all year thing. I can’t do this every day and really, I can only do this for maybe two or three weeks every year. But still, this is one of those sweet moments you don’t want to spoil too quickly.

***

Well that was certainly a day. I personally didn’t do a hell of a lot. Mostly, I just stayed on the couch in my office. But my ex partner showed up on bicycle. Mostly on bicycle. The local road had too much sand to ride so she walked in the last two kilometers or so. There are positives and negatives to where I live.

We got along very well today. She was exceptionally delicate with me and I tried to reciprocate as much as possible. We both agreed that the idea of perennials is the way to go. I think she’s a little disappointed at the idea of putting fruit trees in the lower gardens but I think she gets the point.

Actually, this was the first time we both got as deeply into global warming as I believe is the truth. You never know whether someone is just telling you what you want to hear or it’s the truth. But this week she ran into a scientist and she asked the question about the local drought and why there is no rain in the whole region as there should be. He actually came up with a very reasonable answer. The bog has dried out. All of Pinsk was settled next to a very swampy area. But with the rise in temperature, a lot of what used to be wetlands has now dried out and because of this, there is no longer any water reciprocation. Because the clouds do not gather anymore moisture, they do not drop any. This is exactly one of the aspects of desertification. It’s nice to know that somebody of rank knows about this. I genuinely thought they didn’t care about anything but money.

I think part of the reason for her extra kindness came because she got spooked this week. She woke up in a panic about war coming to Pinsk. She was still mostly sleeping but tried to do the mental work to decide what to do if she had to leave in a hurry. She mentioned a few crazy thoughts. One would be to come stay up here. That door is open of course. We are not anywhere in the line of fighting here. But it really spooked her thinking about the possibility of something like what is going on in Ukraine happening right here.

This to a discussion about getting some medical help in Minsk. I called them last week to find out the situation and was only told that Moscow was to blame. everything in the supply chain needs to go through Moscow right now. I told her that there was a tone in the voice of the person I was speaking to. It was one of those knowing things. It was as if she was trying to tell me something. The head doctor also made a point of pointing out my job as being a translator. It sounded as if both of them were letting me know that Moscow was angry at me.

Today, this didn’t lead to any “I told you so’s”. Today we just generally agreed that the misery of being an agreeable colony for the Russians. They have destroyed everything about this place. They siphon off our money with their businesses, they demand payment and to be at the center of all coming and goings and they’ve even taken what was otherwise a bunch of extremely polite people and turned us into animals. The national anthem of the country starts out saying that we are peaceful people. All of that is now gone in a haze of necessary Auto fumes. All Insanity also pays Russia its due.

There wasn’t really much to do. She hand watered a lot of the plants, taking the water out of the bottom of the water barrels, water that the pump cannot get to. She is also coming to the end of her tolerance for caring for this Garden. We both agree that we are basically at the end of the season and it’s time to eat what we have. There’s no reason to save anything. Nothing’s going to grow to full maturity.

She brought up some black tomatoes which I really like and some local spicy chili peppers. I was definitely pretty happy about that. She also stole some baby corn from what was growing along the road on the way up. Don’t tell anybody. Do you like baby corn? You don’t really even need to bite the seeds off the cob because everything is soft. We both ate two of them raw. Very tasty sweet food. 

And then right before she left, I noticed that I have a wasp nest wanting to be formed underneath my roof at my opening. I noticed several wasps coming and going from a particular place. I banged on it with a stick and maybe five or six came out. It’s just at the beginning. We put together a spray of some kind of oil and shot it up into the area. I’m not so sure if it’s going to convince the wasps not to stay there. There are still a few hovering around but I think if I spray every day they might be convinced to go elsewhere to build their nest.

Right before she left, she helped me figure out a local food delivery service. It’s a supermarket chain unfortunately but they have decided to include my village in their delivery region. No, I’m not a fan of supermarkets or supermarket food but if it’s a matter of food security and I’m not walking, it’s good to know they can come right to the front door and the delivery fee is not so much.

Then it was time to go. It’s a decent bike ride back to town. I’m glad she still likes coming up here. I’m really glad that we got along. Then it was quiet again.

It’s difficult to say what the truth is about the two of us. It’s difficult to say what the Arc of the relationship is. I guess it’s difficult to understand our responsibility to each other. I think she is still my best friend and I owe her a lot. I also like her quite a bit when she’s not actively abusing me. I mean, you can’t really blame her. She’s been a part of a fascist organization for so many years. You can’t expect her to be able to turn all that off like a switch.

Anyway, the plants got taken care of and the day passed peacefully. After she left, Lena showed up at my gate again screaming at me to come out to see her. She brought me more food.

There were more pickles and some decent sized zucchinis. And also there was a bag of greengage plums. She was wearing a rather attractive sundress. She was also in a very good mood. My ex partner told me that when she arrived in my village, a man in a car stopped and asked her if she knew Lena. He told her that he was there to drive her to the cemetery. I think it’s the anniversary of her husband’s passing and the man had agreed to drive her to the cemetery.

I guess this is a scandal as far as the village is concerned. I don’t think it’s a scandal for Lena and I don’t think it’s a scandal for my ex partner. But if my ex partner showing up gets me free food and if Lena cleaning my floors gets me chili peppers and black tomatoes, I guess I shouldn’t complain. I don’t remember doing anything to work this game. I don’t even remember playing any games. However, in such moments where you have two women who love you a little bit, I think it’s a wise decision not to argue too much about it or to make too much about it either.

I’ll be back a little bit later this evening to button up the day but I think that’s generally about it. I think I’m going to have some dinner now. Something with a combination of black tomatoes, fresh chilies and zucchini. I’m actually not hungry at all. It’s just a shame to waste all of this food. Really, I keep telling people not to bring me food. I’m happy that they love me but please, I have more to eat than I can possibly need. 

That by the way is both factually and metaphorically true.

***

It’s 10:30 and I’m about ready to get settled in for the night.

I have a bunch of things that I put aside to talk about that I never got to today. Sometimes the day just has more actual life in it and trying to write about it gets in the way. This was a lesson I learned from my favorite writing teacher from university. She pointed out that the one constant about writing is that it is impossible to actually live your life while you are writing about it.

But then again, I wasn’t really that physically active today. I gathered some food in the morning for breakfast and then I went outside again to enjoy the Cherry plums. I guess I also had something to do with fighting the construction of the wasp nest. But basically, I was more of an observer today generally. I was definitely not a participant.

I would definitely say that today was a good day. It was a good day because it was gentle and quiet and my interactions with people were also gentle and quiet. There was never a single moment of Hysteria between my ex partner and myself. And even Lana calmed down to talk to me once I made it outside to the fence. There was no argument or drama. Just a couple of friendly moments.

I guess this is where I started today. I am not fond of a noisy life. I’m not fond of unnecessary drama. I’m not fond of scandal or violence. I’m definitely not fond of people who spend all of their energy trying to get people to pay attention to them. I understand that it might very well look like this is what I want but it’s not. I want people to pay attention to their actions and specifically to try and live in a more ecologically friendly manner. I do not want the attention from myself, I want the attention on the ideas that I try very hard to pass on.

We talked about something like this today. We talked about how we share responsibilities for each other and how we do things specifically because we care about one another. Trading gifts with loved ones is always nice. I personally think the giving is more interesting then the receiving but then they think exactly the same thing. Anyway, I think this is all better than selfishness.