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Somewhere else
Jun. 7th, 2022 02:18 pmToday we spent the morning at work learning about pine rusts. I first was really exposed to them in the landscape context at this time last year. I had a little more emotional bandwidth then so I was even more awed by the intricate evolutionary dance that needed to occur for these constellations of organisms to exist.
Imagine, if you will, an organism that spends half its life on a tree and the other half on an herbaceous perennial, a plant that dies back to the roots every year. It goes back and forth, with a different set of spores -- basically a different body -- not just for each of the two host plants but also for a stop to have sex. So far so good, there are plenty of organisms that need to hop back and forth between hosts. Thing is, one of these hosts is parasitic on shrubs, basically. So now we have an organism dependent on another organism that is in turn dependent on (but also very robustly hosted by) yet another organism, which takes long-term vacations where it sometimes goes dormant on yet another organism (that's the tree).
It's a big and intricate chain of dependencies and this area hasn't even been out of the ice age that long to evolve something like that. I'm impressed.
It was good to get out into the field, to hang out in the sunshine with some folks, and to solidify some knowledge I had that was previously pretty shaky. I would never say my ID skills are now 100% but I understand what to look for much better.
As so often happens when I totally shift gears, on the way back I realized: I think one reason I've been reacting so strongly to the situation with J is that it's echoing the situation with A&E. Something appears to be on offer, but every time it gets talked about in a concrete way that offer gets smaller and smaller. With A&E it went from living there without needing to work, to not having my own space, to needing to work, and now it may be not on offer at all. With J it went from sex and connection, to connection and snuggles, to connection limited by a set of arbitrary and shifting monogamous boundaries, and depending on what happens next it'll be connection when there are no kids around, when no one is too busy, when there's energy, when there's not honeymoon feelings towards a new partner, all the normal things that happen when a monogamous person shacks up and disappears for a number of years.
I know I need to redirect my attention into some of my garden groups. Those reliably bring me a sense of connection and joy. I was planting late last night, getting the corn into the ground, and tomorrow I'm off work to do more of the same. Being able to share that with folks working at the same level, even if they're far away, is really good for me. I've never spoken by voice, even, to someone who really gets into that stuff on my level-- or really their own level. Then again, I don't need physical proximity for that kind of connection. Description of goals, procedures, thought processes: that *is* the connection.
But I also still need to find someone to just have dinner with and talk. There may be a window where J can do that with me, but.
So I'm looking into the Pride and Poly groups from the nearest big town; probably they're not what I want but we'll see. I'm importing people this summer. Tucker has mentioned maybe spending a chunk of time up here this winter; who knows, maybe we'll morph into a Persephone/Hades relationship, winters only. But also it may be time to start looking further afield and actually attending permaculture convergences and whatnot. I also -- hah -- seems like a significant portion of the people I really like may be PDAers, but a PDA conference would be the most ridiculous thing ever. Sign up to and commit to a thing in advance? Right.
In the meantime these are my planting days, days where the earth receives me and we build and learn together. 24 corns! New dwarf tomatoes! So many kinds of squash! Melons! Ethiopian kale! A rainbow of potatoes! Beans that are as much jewels as the corn is! A billion kinds of lettuce! Brassicas of every description! Soup peas! Regardless of what's happening on my human side I have a deep comfort and satisfaction I only touched on for the first time last year with my tomato trial.
And I keep telling myself that one of these days, probably tomorrow, I'll have the time to jump onto the bicycle either in early morning or on the line between morning cool and afternoon heat and remember what it feels like to fly.
Imagine, if you will, an organism that spends half its life on a tree and the other half on an herbaceous perennial, a plant that dies back to the roots every year. It goes back and forth, with a different set of spores -- basically a different body -- not just for each of the two host plants but also for a stop to have sex. So far so good, there are plenty of organisms that need to hop back and forth between hosts. Thing is, one of these hosts is parasitic on shrubs, basically. So now we have an organism dependent on another organism that is in turn dependent on (but also very robustly hosted by) yet another organism, which takes long-term vacations where it sometimes goes dormant on yet another organism (that's the tree).
It's a big and intricate chain of dependencies and this area hasn't even been out of the ice age that long to evolve something like that. I'm impressed.
It was good to get out into the field, to hang out in the sunshine with some folks, and to solidify some knowledge I had that was previously pretty shaky. I would never say my ID skills are now 100% but I understand what to look for much better.
As so often happens when I totally shift gears, on the way back I realized: I think one reason I've been reacting so strongly to the situation with J is that it's echoing the situation with A&E. Something appears to be on offer, but every time it gets talked about in a concrete way that offer gets smaller and smaller. With A&E it went from living there without needing to work, to not having my own space, to needing to work, and now it may be not on offer at all. With J it went from sex and connection, to connection and snuggles, to connection limited by a set of arbitrary and shifting monogamous boundaries, and depending on what happens next it'll be connection when there are no kids around, when no one is too busy, when there's energy, when there's not honeymoon feelings towards a new partner, all the normal things that happen when a monogamous person shacks up and disappears for a number of years.
I know I need to redirect my attention into some of my garden groups. Those reliably bring me a sense of connection and joy. I was planting late last night, getting the corn into the ground, and tomorrow I'm off work to do more of the same. Being able to share that with folks working at the same level, even if they're far away, is really good for me. I've never spoken by voice, even, to someone who really gets into that stuff on my level-- or really their own level. Then again, I don't need physical proximity for that kind of connection. Description of goals, procedures, thought processes: that *is* the connection.
But I also still need to find someone to just have dinner with and talk. There may be a window where J can do that with me, but.
So I'm looking into the Pride and Poly groups from the nearest big town; probably they're not what I want but we'll see. I'm importing people this summer. Tucker has mentioned maybe spending a chunk of time up here this winter; who knows, maybe we'll morph into a Persephone/Hades relationship, winters only. But also it may be time to start looking further afield and actually attending permaculture convergences and whatnot. I also -- hah -- seems like a significant portion of the people I really like may be PDAers, but a PDA conference would be the most ridiculous thing ever. Sign up to and commit to a thing in advance? Right.
In the meantime these are my planting days, days where the earth receives me and we build and learn together. 24 corns! New dwarf tomatoes! So many kinds of squash! Melons! Ethiopian kale! A rainbow of potatoes! Beans that are as much jewels as the corn is! A billion kinds of lettuce! Brassicas of every description! Soup peas! Regardless of what's happening on my human side I have a deep comfort and satisfaction I only touched on for the first time last year with my tomato trial.
And I keep telling myself that one of these days, probably tomorrow, I'll have the time to jump onto the bicycle either in early morning or on the line between morning cool and afternoon heat and remember what it feels like to fly.
