Leaving space
Today I've been puttering around the house, clearing places for green tomatoes to live for the next month as they ripen. I have roughly 10 dairy crates filled about 3/4 full each from roughly 100' of row or just under. I'll be able to pick out what ripens and make it into sauce or dehydrate it as necessary.
The tomato seeds I've been saving have all gone into envelopes except the last batch that's drying. I have a set of tomatoes waiting to be de-seeded for when the seed fermentation containers come out of the dishwasher. Then the flesh will go into a spaghetti sauce with some homemade italian sausage.
I've been chopping hot peppers and putting them into a 2L jar to ferment myself some hot sauce. I'm excited about that; last year I fermented some carrots, hot peppers, and garlic together and they were delicious but got kahm yeast. This year I need to sort out how not to make that happen.
As I work I've been listening to a podcast: You're Wrong About has several episodes on the DC snipers. Now, I had never heard of the DC snipers and I had no preconceptions for them to destroy, but. There was an older dude and a younger dude, and the older dude was abusive to his wife in ways that were chillingly familiar. The younger dude was abused by his mom in ways that... Look. My dad is not a serial killer to my knowledge. My mom got out and has a pretty good life now. My life is better than I have any reasonable expectation for it to be, given everything. But I still have so much resonance and familiarity hearing the patterns of how these two serial killers interacted with their families than I can ever have hearing about normal folks and what that looks like.
And the podcast hosts don't-- I don't think they grew up this way. They can logic their way into understanding why, for instance, you would never have an emotional reaction to a situation before you see the emotional reactions of the people around you and crafted your own to support theirs. They can logic their way into learned helplessness, the way that what seems to be a way out is always only a momentary glimpse at what other people get but you can never have, and the way that it's always just a bigger trap to teach you never to get your hopes up. They seem to understand that being criticized in a million tiny ways and then having anger directed at you for the wrong response to the criticism is so much more pervasive than any one story of the criticism can ever be. They can even logic their way into the feeling of knowing someone doesn't feel towards you how you want, and so letting your emotions drive in that scenario can force them to fake it and perpetuate the whole thing. I can see the patterns. They can see the patterns, as if they were looking into my own childhood. And they have empathy for it.
So listening to it is a lot but it's a kind of being seen or being acknowledged that I don't often experience. These things are real. I didn't make the whole thing up. And real, real harm can be done. Usually real harm has been done to these folks too, but that doesn't excuse or ameliorate the harm they carry on and do to others. Propagating that harm is the American Way: if you hurt someone enough they'll stop harming you, right? But that right there is the heart of abuse.
Anyhow, these stories give me a lot to think about this morning. I'm sad that the world contains these stories. I wish there were fewer people living out these stories now; I wish I could do something about it.
At the very least I can donate a couple kilos of soap to the transition house or something, I guess.
The tomato seeds I've been saving have all gone into envelopes except the last batch that's drying. I have a set of tomatoes waiting to be de-seeded for when the seed fermentation containers come out of the dishwasher. Then the flesh will go into a spaghetti sauce with some homemade italian sausage.
I've been chopping hot peppers and putting them into a 2L jar to ferment myself some hot sauce. I'm excited about that; last year I fermented some carrots, hot peppers, and garlic together and they were delicious but got kahm yeast. This year I need to sort out how not to make that happen.
As I work I've been listening to a podcast: You're Wrong About has several episodes on the DC snipers. Now, I had never heard of the DC snipers and I had no preconceptions for them to destroy, but. There was an older dude and a younger dude, and the older dude was abusive to his wife in ways that were chillingly familiar. The younger dude was abused by his mom in ways that... Look. My dad is not a serial killer to my knowledge. My mom got out and has a pretty good life now. My life is better than I have any reasonable expectation for it to be, given everything. But I still have so much resonance and familiarity hearing the patterns of how these two serial killers interacted with their families than I can ever have hearing about normal folks and what that looks like.
And the podcast hosts don't-- I don't think they grew up this way. They can logic their way into understanding why, for instance, you would never have an emotional reaction to a situation before you see the emotional reactions of the people around you and crafted your own to support theirs. They can logic their way into learned helplessness, the way that what seems to be a way out is always only a momentary glimpse at what other people get but you can never have, and the way that it's always just a bigger trap to teach you never to get your hopes up. They seem to understand that being criticized in a million tiny ways and then having anger directed at you for the wrong response to the criticism is so much more pervasive than any one story of the criticism can ever be. They can even logic their way into the feeling of knowing someone doesn't feel towards you how you want, and so letting your emotions drive in that scenario can force them to fake it and perpetuate the whole thing. I can see the patterns. They can see the patterns, as if they were looking into my own childhood. And they have empathy for it.
So listening to it is a lot but it's a kind of being seen or being acknowledged that I don't often experience. These things are real. I didn't make the whole thing up. And real, real harm can be done. Usually real harm has been done to these folks too, but that doesn't excuse or ameliorate the harm they carry on and do to others. Propagating that harm is the American Way: if you hurt someone enough they'll stop harming you, right? But that right there is the heart of abuse.
Anyhow, these stories give me a lot to think about this morning. I'm sad that the world contains these stories. I wish there were fewer people living out these stories now; I wish I could do something about it.
At the very least I can donate a couple kilos of soap to the transition house or something, I guess.