Consequently
May. 20th, 2022 10:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormSeveral days ago I was reading elizapples.com (recommended) and came across a fragment to which I relate:
What was it all for? If I am to pursue my passions, will I always suffer like this? And how much more can I handle before it’s no longer worth it? As these questions floated by me in the darkness, I heard a voice whisper: “Eliza, you are here to love apples.”
It wasn’t the first time and I have a feeling it won’t be the last time that apples pull me out of depression.
***
I was at the farmer's market today. It's my social event here, though unfortuately it happens only during work hours. I was introduced to someone and had a good conversation with him: a conversation where he was thinking about what we were saying, evaluating it, being honest and engaged. It's been a very long time since I've had a conversation like that with a stranger. It was nice. I've been invited climbing tomorrow with them but...
***
I also got a letter today from the District telling me they'd had a complaint(s?) about the garbage in my yard. I've been making inroads since the roofers were here and I think it's way better than it was; it basically all went to shit when I got something like 40 boxes of food from the grocery store when their freezer broke down, then ravens ripped open all the garbage bags/cans and scattered everything and I couldn't pick up garbage and get to the dump after work fast enough so they just re-scattered. I have pretty limited inside space to keep this stuff. Anyhow, I had a chat with the bylaw officer, things will be fine if I plug away at it as I have been, my cardboard mulch is ok staying in place. There's no fine or formal complaint at this point.
So that's demoralizing and feels bad but isn't actually a problem. The bylaw guy was friendly. I'm curious though, obviously, who the complaint was from. I'm personally capable of recieving this as information/comunication, but I also know that for many people making a complaint is an argressive act. Is there someone who wanted to do this in an aggressive way? Was there a complaint against the new neighbours across the road blasting music and shooting a couple weekends ago, they assumed it was me, and they retaliated? Is there someone I have to worry about in the future?
To be honest I'm not actually worried about it, but I'm very curious and a little cautious.
***
I was going to pick up my tiller today but the co-op had sold out. I ordered one online but it'll take a week to get here. I took my little tiller to the engine guy to get it fixed but it'll be done sometime next week.
This means less planting this weekend and more next (during the pottery workshop and moving furniture) and it could mean I'd have time to go climbing with the folks from the farmer's market, BUT... I should spend time picking up my yard and de-pigging my house. But I can't suggest climbing next weekend instead because it's even busier, and I'd like to keep in touch with this person and have another conversation.
***
The other day I sent something to a friend about the distinction between feeling feelings, and doing actions. The difference between loving someone, for instance, and choosing to be with them: that's a big one. He couldn't relate.
***
The farmer's market person asked how I could care so much for plants but still kill animals. I told him when I killed my first radish to eat it I was really sad, and he said that was different. I'm here, now, to write that I disagree. The personal experience of killing what you love, of making that choice, is just that: personal. I talked a bunch about when and how animals die in nature for him, but I don't think that answered his curiosity.
The thing is, I am here to love things. I'm always killing what I love.
***
Imagine being killed without love?
***
At one point during my farmer's market conversation this person stopped, cocked his head, and said, "you think things through carefully, don't you? That's rare" and I agreed with great angst and rue that it was, indeed, rare.
***
I am here to love gardens, seeds, plants. My ring is in the mail: crossed scythe and wheat, and oak leaves. I'm here to love my tomatoes and my corn and the next thing after that. I'm often here to love people but that shouldn't win out too often.
***
I think I'll stay home and pick up trash and garden tomorrow instead of going climbing.
What was it all for? If I am to pursue my passions, will I always suffer like this? And how much more can I handle before it’s no longer worth it? As these questions floated by me in the darkness, I heard a voice whisper: “Eliza, you are here to love apples.”
It wasn’t the first time and I have a feeling it won’t be the last time that apples pull me out of depression.
***
I was at the farmer's market today. It's my social event here, though unfortuately it happens only during work hours. I was introduced to someone and had a good conversation with him: a conversation where he was thinking about what we were saying, evaluating it, being honest and engaged. It's been a very long time since I've had a conversation like that with a stranger. It was nice. I've been invited climbing tomorrow with them but...
***
I also got a letter today from the District telling me they'd had a complaint(s?) about the garbage in my yard. I've been making inroads since the roofers were here and I think it's way better than it was; it basically all went to shit when I got something like 40 boxes of food from the grocery store when their freezer broke down, then ravens ripped open all the garbage bags/cans and scattered everything and I couldn't pick up garbage and get to the dump after work fast enough so they just re-scattered. I have pretty limited inside space to keep this stuff. Anyhow, I had a chat with the bylaw officer, things will be fine if I plug away at it as I have been, my cardboard mulch is ok staying in place. There's no fine or formal complaint at this point.
So that's demoralizing and feels bad but isn't actually a problem. The bylaw guy was friendly. I'm curious though, obviously, who the complaint was from. I'm personally capable of recieving this as information/comunication, but I also know that for many people making a complaint is an argressive act. Is there someone who wanted to do this in an aggressive way? Was there a complaint against the new neighbours across the road blasting music and shooting a couple weekends ago, they assumed it was me, and they retaliated? Is there someone I have to worry about in the future?
To be honest I'm not actually worried about it, but I'm very curious and a little cautious.
***
I was going to pick up my tiller today but the co-op had sold out. I ordered one online but it'll take a week to get here. I took my little tiller to the engine guy to get it fixed but it'll be done sometime next week.
This means less planting this weekend and more next (during the pottery workshop and moving furniture) and it could mean I'd have time to go climbing with the folks from the farmer's market, BUT... I should spend time picking up my yard and de-pigging my house. But I can't suggest climbing next weekend instead because it's even busier, and I'd like to keep in touch with this person and have another conversation.
***
The other day I sent something to a friend about the distinction between feeling feelings, and doing actions. The difference between loving someone, for instance, and choosing to be with them: that's a big one. He couldn't relate.
***
The farmer's market person asked how I could care so much for plants but still kill animals. I told him when I killed my first radish to eat it I was really sad, and he said that was different. I'm here, now, to write that I disagree. The personal experience of killing what you love, of making that choice, is just that: personal. I talked a bunch about when and how animals die in nature for him, but I don't think that answered his curiosity.
The thing is, I am here to love things. I'm always killing what I love.
***
Imagine being killed without love?
***
At one point during my farmer's market conversation this person stopped, cocked his head, and said, "you think things through carefully, don't you? That's rare" and I agreed with great angst and rue that it was, indeed, rare.
***
I am here to love gardens, seeds, plants. My ring is in the mail: crossed scythe and wheat, and oak leaves. I'm here to love my tomatoes and my corn and the next thing after that. I'm often here to love people but that shouldn't win out too often.
***
I think I'll stay home and pick up trash and garden tomorrow instead of going climbing.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-22 12:43 am (UTC)And yeah, I've felt a definite pang about killing and eating perennials.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-22 03:59 am (UTC)Oh good, I'm not alone. :)
no subject
Date: 2022-05-22 01:33 pm (UTC)Eating potatoes, as long as I've saved some seed potatoes for next year, feels a lot like taking leaves off a basil plant -- I'm just skimming off the excess. But if I weren't saving seed potatoes, and just ate all of them, it would *feel* more like killing. I think there's some instinctual part of me that discounts clonal propagation as "less real" than sexual reproduction. It's just one single widely-divided individual, and there are at least two objectionable parts to killing: Pain incurred, loss of the individual, and loss of what that individual might experience, do, or become. And I've decided to not worry too much about what pain plants might feel; it's Too Much, and I'm not an autotroph. So it's just the loss of the individual that bothers me, with plants.
...except for trees, especially big ones. They *develop* individuality (in a way that I can see) over their decades. Not genetic, but morphological. A big tree also isn't just an individual, it's a part of the landscape -- it is habitat. And it's older than me. I should have respect for it.
That age aspect is a thing too. If I ate a carrot, that's killing... but not as much as if I cut down an apple tree. The carrot was already about halfway through its natural lifespan, and the apple tree probably wasn't.
Size is a thing too. I have a little bit easier time squishing small caterpillars than big ones, and not just because the big ones are messier.
I'm strongly swayed by: Genetic individuality, size, age, ability to experience pain. Not all of those are fair.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-24 01:40 am (UTC)Seed-grown annuals are especially hard for me, especially especially things like carrots or radishes where they're pulled up instead of just being cut off. If I have more of that type of seed from the same batch, or if I'm saving seed from some of that batch, it's less of a thing. I sometimes feel sad for store-bought radishes.
I don't mind eating oysters alive at all. I would be devastated (and am) if one of the kills of my animals doesn't go off perfectly. I can't stomach the thought of trailering them to an abattoir on their last day.
If I have three apple trees that were cloned from the same original stock I don't mind cutting one down - I might be sad for me and miss the tree in my landscape, but I wouldn't feel bad for it. If there was only one roxbury russet apple in the town? I'd be very sad to have it go, and very reluctant to kill it.
Something that's made it through many rough times, a survivor, is harder for me to kill than something that's done ok all its life. Likewise a particularly flourishing individual is hard for me to kill.