Wednesday, August 10th 2022
Okay, It is Wednesday morning at 8:30 a.m. and I am having a nice leisurely start to the day. I can’t think of a single reason to get up and move except that it’s time to get up and move. I have a few basic chores here in the morning that include watering the field with some of the last water I have. Yesterday was cool, today I suppose might be warmer. Honestly, I might be better off not watering today. I mean, my field needs water but I just don’t have any water to give it. I have possibly 3 days of water left…
Okay, blah blah blah. Let’s get up and give a small drink to the plants. It’s mostly harvest time anyway and a lot of things just need to get brought in and eaten over the next couple of weeks. This is just damage control already. Welcome to 2022. I believe this is the 13th or 14th year of drought caused by global warming caused by human activity caused by greed and stupidity. We are drug addicts and we won’t stop until we hit rock bottom. Welcome to my reality show.
***
Okay, that’s better. It’s a little bit before 10:00 and I am underneath my cherry plum tree again acting like an ape. This is one of my favorite places to be and probably the closest I ever am to being my true self. I’m just sitting in the soft grass exactly where there is food to pick up and eat. My breakfast was sweet and tasty. Even a few of the red plums, maybe purple plums, actually tasted good today. Please were the first tasty plums from this tree I’ve ever had.
There’s probably a metaphor in my interaction with my neighbor. This would be the kindergarten teacher’s mother. She has hated me from the beginning. Hate of course a completely normal state of being for her and for many people here. Let’s start with anti-Semitism and then just choose any particular reason you want to keep it going. Nevertheless, I was in a fine mood and probably she was too for having time alone with her young granddaughter. My only thought at the moment was to add some happiness to their lives. I didn’t want anything from them. I wasn’t planning on any manipulations or games. I just wanted to say something to them because I noticed that they were not paying any attention to this particular tree.
I probably didn’t need to write 3 million words or however many words have been in this project to say that global warming is real and that we all have responsibility for it. I probably didn’t need to find the hundred or 200 or 500 stories to tell about why we have it, why we never do anything about it and exactly why we are the stupidest generation in the history of History. Nevertheless this particular tree is fed by two roofs and therefore there is abundant water only for this particular tree to make unbelievably sweet fruit. Maybe a decade or two ago, this region was wet enough that all you needed to do was put fruit trees in the ground and you would have Sweetness in the fall. Now it is a matter of logistics and geography only. Every other tree struggles including every single tree in the forest next door.
All I said was that she would derive happiness from wandering over to this tree and picking up some of the Cherry plums off the ground. She was not required to do any effort or farm work. She was not obligated to bring out a ladder and a basket or think about making jams. I did not suggest that she had any responsibility whatsoever except to enjoy the warm summer and one gift from God.
The last thing in the world she would ever do would be to listen to me. I don’t even know why she took a few steps toward me as if she would. There is no possible way she would ever agree to treat me as a human being much less a neighbor.
Up until that moment, I was sitting exactly where I am right now. I feel like one of those romantic era paintings where a young God basks in the sweetness of nature for a moment. I am a little too masculine to be of the taste of Renoir but the mood was there. Simply to be free. Free of work. Free of panic. Free of constraints. Free to relax and let the air touch your skin and nature surround you. Just to be one with nature for a moment.
When my daughter was very young, I used to spend time with her and we would always walk around admiring nature. That was how we ended up with a cat. That was how we ended up with a rock collection. We saw a great many things simply by walking around and seeing how nature worked.
You have to be in a mood. You have to be in a particularly free and open mood. You have to feel free to experience genuine sweetness. You have to be open. You can’t be fighting or hiding in fear. You cannot be waiting for an opportunity to exploit or thinking of ways to manipulate. You just have to be present, perhaps a little respectful and appreciative and be willing to let yourself go for a second.
They are just little yellow fruits. There’s not so much flesh on them. They are sweet but they have that acidic citrus taste to them. They go down well and they have a nice aftertaste. They have what vitamins they have inside of them along with the water. The sugar content becomes immediate energy for you. It’s just a little touch of life. It’s just genuine human food. And if you ever have the opportunity to find your place in an orchard under a ripe tree where it is possible to not only feel lovely in your environment but to have all the food you want to eat simply by picking it up and eating it, it should be tried. It is definitely something that should be on everybody’s bucket list. It is nothing to be ignored. These are truly moments of life worth living and recognizing for exactly what they are.
You just can’t give some people gifts. You just cannot be nice to people. You can’t be honest with liars. You can’t be kind to haters. You cannot share wisdom with trolls. Or all boiled down to its essence, you cannot reason with alcoholics. That’s just the way things are. You can’t reason with alcoholics.
This is the second time this week I have found myself in a sweet place enjoying the sweet moment and yet the only thing that comes to mind is the sickness of the people around me and how impossible it is to enjoy something while they are around.
It’s funny how simple it gets after a while. Sometimes there are people you just don’t really want in your life anymore because all they do is fuck things up.
***
The watering is done. It wasn’t that big of a deal. I don’t really need breakfast because the Cherry plums kind of did the job for me. I don’t have any pressing business today except perhaps to think out and get started on some repairs and changes that need to go into next year. I guess I’m planning on some movement and I’m going to need some materials. It is not absolutely necessary that I start throwing my money around right now but it is much better to have a clear idea in your head what you’re doing first. I am a planner. Sometimes I make plans that I simply never execute and this would kind of make me a dreamer. But that’s okay too. It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. All I’m trying to do is have a place I like living in and one that can feed me at least for a few months of the year if not more. Is that too much to ask?
I know I’ve mentioned this before and I feel a little like my grandmother going over things again and again. She used to do that just to remind herself not to forget. Maybe all old people do this.
I have a good place for compost and manure storage. I watched an amazing film about a community garden in Oregon started by a rather energetic fellow many years ago who had the means to buy an apartment complex. You can have a look at this here:
It’s kind of a long piece but he obviously has a lot to say. And of course he does everything from composting his own manure and urine to collecting rainwater to solar panels and soil enhancement through composting. He’s got community involvement and a waiting list of several hundred people who just want to come and live in this rather amazing apartment complex. In a lot of ways, I aspire to be this guy. I understand that I will never be this guy. Well, the odds of it are very slim because I don’t really have the legs for this anymore. Maybe I will next year and maybe I will be free finally to move around and do my thing. It’s doubtful but you never know.
The one word to me that describes this fellow other than energy is sentience. He is aware. He is aware of pretty much every nuance of his project. I don’t know this as a fact but one thing that I noticed about this project is that there were no animals. My guess is that this guy was vegan and has been for a very long time. There is no possible way anyone would have this much awareness unless he’s running clean all day everyday and without any restrictions keeping him down.
I just have a little property here with some free space and when I look around, I see some dreams of this place that are a little bit more green and lush. I see things growing and happy and food production going on all over the place. I see a much different place than I have right now but I can see that what I have might be a few steps in that direction. Of course it takes work and obviously some investment, at least in time but more obviously with some money. I also see that though this region should be exactly like Portland Oregon in terms of how much water falls here, we are located next to what used to be a swamp, I’m aware of how much of a fight it’s going to be to save water. Global warming is real.
Today’s chores are done. The sun is getting warmer now. I’ve got some light work to do. My leg is definitely getting better but it’s not completely healed so I’m going to stay on my crutches when I’m not absolutely doing anything. But I have some things to do so I guess I’ll get back to it.
Honestly though, you really have to know how good it feels to sit in the grass in the shade eating Cherry plums. Even as I wrote the last words of the last sentence, I had an Isaac Newton moment when a plum fell just next to my left hand. I think it was God smiling at me. “Have a plum, Adam. Enjoy the moment.”
***
Can we talk about food addiction? Turns out that it is not only knowable and understandable, it is also part of the grand tapestry known as reasons why we fucked up and lost our world.
An unironic connecting thought about this is that foods that are most easily addictive to us seem also to be the cause of our most nefarious diseases. I wonder if we can get the DC comic book heroes to fight colorectal cancer for us. Let’s put up the bat signal!
You know what, let’s ex[plor this thought a little more. How about some more YouTubes on the subject:
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
And yes.
You may notice in this group that there appears to be too dissenting groups. Or at least two dissenting videos. I only want to make one statement about those two videos. In both of them, they quite clearly quote that the science says yes but then make an argument offering plurality. What this means is that their opinion is that there are other opinions. They are saying that the argument is moot and therefore unsettled.
I spent some time the other day discussing the idea of plurality as a propaganda for the end of the planet. Whenever someone tells you that it’s too confusing to be understood, they are not scientists. They are not telling the truth, they are not working from a mathematical basis of fact and mostly, they are selling something. Let’s go with the math. It’s healthier.
Meat causes cancer, cancer is very bad and therefore meat is bad.
Be kind to yourselves. Go vegan.
***
The weather report says it’s raining right now. It’s not. The weather report says it will rain today at 5:00. It won’t. I have nothing further to say on the subject.
***
You know what? It’s raining. Not a lot. Not an enormous amount. Probably not even enough to make a genuine dent in the water storage. But water is falling from the sky and therefore the air is very sweet. I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it. It’s become my favorite sound in the entire world. A little rain is actually falling from the sky. It’s 3:00 by the way. I don’t know what this is supposed to mean and I hope it keeps going for a while but for the moment, we have rain.
***
It’s 7:00 in the evening and we are enjoying our second reign of the day. There is some thunder and a few flashes of lightning but the rainfall is reasonably gentle. No storm winds, just a steady Fall of rain. Exactly, exactly, exactly what we need. Well, maybe it’s a matter of better late than never unfortunately. But in any case, we have some rain.
Today in the afternoon I managed to finish our chickpea harvest. There was not so much, certainly not enough to justify the time spent. Today I went at it directly rather than looking for an easier solution. Basically, I just smashed the bean pods between the thumb and forefinger of either hand right off the vine and let them fall into a bucket. After going through all the plants this way, I then dumped all of the residue onto my scrub pan and simply picked the beans from the chaff. It took a little while but all together this second half took about maybe half as long as the first half when I tried to be clever. It seemed a bit monotonous but in the end the job got done and I have a clean jar of dried chickpeas. There’s enough there for a few servings of hummus. I will enjoy those I’m sure with pleasure.
With this evening’s rain, I will have two positives. First of all, I guess I don’t have to water tomorrow morning. Everything will have a nice drink here in the evening and should be well soaked come the morning. It was originally my plan not to water tomorrow. That was just about water conservation. The second positive thing is that there definitely seems to be enough rain to fill up my buckets. If the absolute maximum I have is 2 weeks, though we are a little late and things got pretty dry, I guess I will have enough water to get to the end of the season now. At least that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what I need going forward. Unfortunately, I’m not really sure I have a completely clear vision of what I want. I was actually more clear going into this year. I could have done a bit more but other than that, I stayed true to my idea and I am pleased. What I thought would happen happened and I at least was somewhat prepared. I was not prepared for physical problems on my part but as far as the planning goes, I am good with the results.
What I am not clear about for next year is where I’m going to get my plants and how I’m going to transport them here. One problematic fact still exists in that if I go outside any norms, I have no possibility of help. I seem to be free to talk about my ideas but unless it is something absolutely standard for the region and for this village, logistics becomes a bit of a nightmare. Add that to the fact that I am definitely not an expert on what I am doing and even doubt my hand as to having the Right touch. I do not really have a green thumb. For this, things are still a little murky. I’ll have to do what I always do and wing it as I go.
I spent A Little More Time on My feet today and though I was able to perform, I am a bit afraid that I might have injured myself. I won’t know until I turn in and take a look. I am hoping for the best. But I guess that is my biggest problem. It’s been my problem for the longest time. I am completely worried about not being physically competent enough to do the job I want to do and relying on others is never satisfying. I just can’t really trust anybody to do anything unless I make the request as simple as humanly possible and stay as close to normal as I can. I cannot rely on any voice for help unless I agree to remove all creativity.
This of course brings up the subject of ambition. It’s the middle of August and I have not done a single thing to advertise my availability as anything for anybody. For years, August was exactly the time to make sure the people on the social networks knew I was available. Last year and this year I did nothing. In fact, I haven’t even finished any of the online things I was talking about at the beginning of the year. I have no heart for web work Believe it or not. I know how to do it, I just don’t have the desire or the discipline to sit and do it.
As to why, I think it’s pretty simple really. I am not sure I want to do the work anymore. I’m not sure I want to make the compromises with the people that I would get. Perhaps I have gotten old and this is a problem with all things when mixing generations. But this new world is too fast and too insulting and too dismissive. It’s not just that the generation grew up on TV and movies as my generation did. They grew up with a telephone in their hand. They grew up inert and with every possible thing absolutely for free, effortless and endlessly and perversely annoying. They do not understand anything about working. They do not understand anything about discipline or social interactions. They are just too fast.
They also do not believe in any way shape or form that they have any responsibility to anyone or anything other than themselves. Of course there are the ass kissers who understand that they have to be pretty to get a job with a company. This is true for men and women. There are plenty of people who believe that being good looking is all you need and unfortunately, it’s often too true to laugh at.
There was a time when I was free to be friends with my students. There was a time where I was free to talk and they were free to talk with me. There was a time when we could read stories and scenarios together. There was a time when I could expect them to care about their homework and even having something like a Carnegie board available to give a competition to let people know that homework wins was enough motivation. There was a time when the kids cared.
I have a few ideas but perhaps might work but it is a matter of doing all of the labor to create it. It isn’t a matter of my ability, it is a matter of my desire to spend the time and do the physical effort. Those things are investments. Investments are more than money. And the trick to investing, in my personal opinion, is to not do it unless you absolutely know you will win.
I don’t Gamble. I don’t take chances unless they are absolutely calculated chances. I do not stick my neck out for anything unless I know that even the losses will benefit me. I am not incapable of doing complex things, I just am not interested in putting out an effort that will come back as nothing. This is the main reason most of my web work has been absent. I do not believe in it as being worth the effort.
You can also hate me for saying this but the same is true for the students. I don’t believe our modern young people are worth the effort. I don’t believe it because I do not believe that they will put up the slightest effort to help themselves. We are to passive and stupid and entitled as a species and this particular group might just be the worst of it. This group has got bloodthirsty propaganda telling them to continue posting bikini pictures of themselves on the social networks. This despite the war, the death, the absolute chaos of the region and the perpetual misery.
No, I’m okay with where I am and what I’m doing. I’m glad I got to write about how my little pot of land relates to global warming. I hope I have made sense. But other than this, I am doubtful anything else will come. Sorry, it’s not worth it.
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