Shabby love
Mar. 7th, 2022 09:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormNowadays people apologise for loving me in the way that I love other people. Thy say, sorry I don't contact you more. They say, sorry it went so long when we didn't talk.
Before people said to me, if you really loved me you wouldn't see other people. If you really loved me you'd ask for permission before you kissed someone. If you really loved me you'd set other people aside (I guess that's the test of "real love", being willing to give up the fake ones)
That's all a work in progress. But before all that there's another love.
In the last little while I've found community on the internet. People I'd only read about, people who had put their hands on the genes of my favourite varieties, are there forming communities and posting in forums and making podcasts. Today I listened to a podcast where someone wrote in and asked, how would you advise a high school student to become a plant breeder? He answered, at length, listed some books, said to hone observation, said to get started. He was not condescending. He was straightforward. The whole time I thought, where have you been all my life?
Later on I read someone's post on clearing out their spare room and setting up a pepper grow station. Somewhere else a commenter mentioned the beauty of a particular tomato's blossom. A celebrity in this kind of thing said he breeds, among other things, because he's an animal that likes certain tastes and he wants to be able to experience them. The whole time I was reading I thought, I love you, I love you, I love you.
My whole life I have never had the right kind of love. Love is my animating force; it is a holy gift; it is what I was made to do. I notice things and I love them.
I've always loved plants; I've never really been around people who also loved them. I've been around people who gardened because things were neat, or as a means to an end, or because it was relaxing. It's only recently, reading about how Indigenous seedkeepers bring the concept of relationship with a plant, of plants as relations, that I've heard whispers of myself echoed in humans.
And now there are people who do this and it seems to also be a part of their lives and of their hearts. Curiosity and love and exploration and the joy of creation move them. They also give up chunks of conventional life in favour of this work.
There's no way for me not to love anyone who does this. For so long I couldn't love anyone in this way. But.
So much of my love is turned away because I'm not doing it right. Love is a supposed to be channelled in a particular way in our society. This isn't about sex. It's not about children, honeymoons, getting married, whatever it is that I'm not bothering to look up on the list of romantic relationship elevator characteristics. It's not ok to bring love to the table if I'm not bringing these other things; it's not real love if I don't bring these other things. I can't bring love to someone who's married, to someone I don't want to fuck, to someone of the wrong age or gender. And honestly I am complete shit at differentiating between how I'm supposed to love and how I'm not, let alone doing it properly.
So after whispering I love you under my breath I hesitate to reply to a message. I dampen the shining in my eyes and remove the heart emoji and the exclamation point from the keyboard. I sit the night to let emotion seep away. I don't want people to see how shabby my love is, how something so inconsequential lights me up. I don't want people to think I'm doing it wrong because I don't want them to go away.
I guess I've been trained well.
Before people said to me, if you really loved me you wouldn't see other people. If you really loved me you'd ask for permission before you kissed someone. If you really loved me you'd set other people aside (I guess that's the test of "real love", being willing to give up the fake ones)
That's all a work in progress. But before all that there's another love.
In the last little while I've found community on the internet. People I'd only read about, people who had put their hands on the genes of my favourite varieties, are there forming communities and posting in forums and making podcasts. Today I listened to a podcast where someone wrote in and asked, how would you advise a high school student to become a plant breeder? He answered, at length, listed some books, said to hone observation, said to get started. He was not condescending. He was straightforward. The whole time I thought, where have you been all my life?
Later on I read someone's post on clearing out their spare room and setting up a pepper grow station. Somewhere else a commenter mentioned the beauty of a particular tomato's blossom. A celebrity in this kind of thing said he breeds, among other things, because he's an animal that likes certain tastes and he wants to be able to experience them. The whole time I was reading I thought, I love you, I love you, I love you.
My whole life I have never had the right kind of love. Love is my animating force; it is a holy gift; it is what I was made to do. I notice things and I love them.
I've always loved plants; I've never really been around people who also loved them. I've been around people who gardened because things were neat, or as a means to an end, or because it was relaxing. It's only recently, reading about how Indigenous seedkeepers bring the concept of relationship with a plant, of plants as relations, that I've heard whispers of myself echoed in humans.
And now there are people who do this and it seems to also be a part of their lives and of their hearts. Curiosity and love and exploration and the joy of creation move them. They also give up chunks of conventional life in favour of this work.
There's no way for me not to love anyone who does this. For so long I couldn't love anyone in this way. But.
So much of my love is turned away because I'm not doing it right. Love is a supposed to be channelled in a particular way in our society. This isn't about sex. It's not about children, honeymoons, getting married, whatever it is that I'm not bothering to look up on the list of romantic relationship elevator characteristics. It's not ok to bring love to the table if I'm not bringing these other things; it's not real love if I don't bring these other things. I can't bring love to someone who's married, to someone I don't want to fuck, to someone of the wrong age or gender. And honestly I am complete shit at differentiating between how I'm supposed to love and how I'm not, let alone doing it properly.
So after whispering I love you under my breath I hesitate to reply to a message. I dampen the shining in my eyes and remove the heart emoji and the exclamation point from the keyboard. I sit the night to let emotion seep away. I don't want people to see how shabby my love is, how something so inconsequential lights me up. I don't want people to think I'm doing it wrong because I don't want them to go away.
I guess I've been trained well.
