At our last Buddhist meetup group we were talking about generosity and lack, the difference between martyrs and bodhisattvas...
One person commented "when you give it is important to be giving because you are already full - not because you'll feel full (or think you'll feel full by doing something good."
I've been feeling pretty full and fortunate lately - seems like a good time to contemplate the my nature of giving.
I just cooked the last two local vegetables in my refrigerator: cabbage and celeriac. They both looked kind of poorly and I think have been sitting in the bottom of my fridge since November or December. However, the celeriac wasn't even moldy and the cabbage only needed a few of the exterior leaves removed.
Amazing.
I once commented to a coworker that I had no idea how our ancestors kept vegetables through the winter since I can't seem to keep them for more than a month. She responded that they propably checked their vegetables a lot more often and had lower standards.
It was with this perspective in mind that I bought cabbage and 20 lbs of squash at the beginning of last winter. I checked the squash often and cooked whichever one looked like it was about to turn. Using this method I didn't cook my last one until last month.
And this month I finally worked my way down to the celeriac and cabbage. The lentil soup hasn't cooled enough yet or I'd mention out it turned out.
Three weeks ago I chopped the tip of my finger off. It was an accident - a result of being overly ambition with too little sleep. I was chopping chard at six-thirty in the morning (trying eat a healthy breakfast) and misjudged where my finger was buried in the vegetable. Before I even had time to say "ouch" my finger tip was bit shorter with a third of my nail missing.
I always say accidents, illnesses, and muscle soreness are all wonderful anatomy and biology lessons.
Things I have learned from this so far:
1. There is a little artery running up that side of my pointer finger
2. There are a lot of nerves in a finger tip
3. When you smash your finger the nail falls off but when you slice it off the rest of the nail doesn't even seem to notice (I've had to cut it once already) and it keeps on growing
4. The skin under the nail heals slower than the skin on the tip of my finger
5. At least some nerve endings are still alive
6. It takes about 10 days to learn how to do 9 finger typing at about 75% of the speed of 10 finger typing
Now my finger has healed to the point where I don't always want to keep the bandage on (it starts to smell) so unless I am doing some heavy lifting I leave it off and people can see the ugly black scab covering now a quarter of my nail (I mentioned how it keeps on growing). From a distance it looks like I have either bad nail polish or something nasty on my finger. I have a couple options to answer when people notice and ask:
A. It is the scab of dried blood from chopping my finger tip off (this one really grosses them out)
B. It is a natural healing patch aimed at maximizing my body's ability to heal from the trauma of cutting the tip of my finger off (I haven't tried this one or the following two yet).
C. The initial onset of leprosy
D. OMG! What is that? What happened to my finger?????
Have I told you yet?
I've got worms. Actually, I have had them for quite some time and have learned exactly what not to do:
1. Don't over feed your worms by a zillion pounds - especially not a zillion pounds of healthy organic locally grown squash seeds
2. Make sure you bury all your food deep below the newspaper - even if it is "just a few tea leaves"
3. Check on your worms frequently, even if you know you have over fed them and are trying to "just let them do their thing uninterrupted".
The result of my bad behavior was a ton of squash sprouts and a ton of fruit flies (if you can imagine how many fruit flies it would take to weigh a ton, you'll have a glimmer of how many were breeding in my apartment).
Anyhow, that was all weeks and weeks ago. I managed to get rid of the fruit flies (it felt like a second job for about a week), and I haven't put any new food in my worm bin for at least a month. I also left them at work for several weeks, figuring that fruit flies were less likely to survive and reproduce in an office space than in my kitchen.
I finally brought them home last week.
So today, since I was re-potting my giant bamboo plant, I found myself digging through worms, worm poo (looks, smells, and feels like really really rich black soil) trying to harvest some of this special "dirt" they produce. You know, it felt kinda like spring!
Okay, not really, but a girl can get desperate in the depths of February in Minnesota.
In the short time I have had my worms, they have been busy (overfeeding them probably helped). I could not believe how many eggs, little babies, and big worms I came across as I was trying to sort out their doo to add to my plant dirt. I knew from my worm composting class that the dirt would be teeming with life but it was still cool to see all the little critters (not only worms but also various little bugs) skitter and run about as I disturbed their cozy eco-system. I also pulled out quite a few more squash sprouts. Is it close enough to Spring that I should be replanting those in their own container?
The Carl Sanburg of my youth was silly and frivoulous but very delightful. I only vaguely recall my father reading about Gimme the Axe, Axe Me No Questions, and Please Gimee in his big booming animated voice. The plot lines all run together but the wonderful ridiculousness of the stories remain a favored flavor of memory, which is why when I saw a book of poetry for sale in the used book store I picked it up. Having never known Sandburg's poetry I was immediately taken in and amazed. It is like my super fun childhood friend grew up to be an incredible adult. Before picking up the poetry I knew next to little about Sandburg's politics, history, perspective, and life and who knows how much I would have cared before. It has been a long cold winter - my mind and spirit were ready for serious thoughts and words from an elder of a different but difficult time.
This is the first poem I read which still captures my attention:
I finally had my bike fixed and was able to ride to work yesterday.
After being crabby for a week it was great to have something real to gripe about - something that could take all the bitching I could throw with delightful passivity. The weather, the roads, the wind, and the random cars on the road really couldn't care less. It was exhilarating to be fighting against the wind again, to notice my frozen toes when I still had three more miles to go (about half-way).
And when I was all grumped out I began to notice all the beauty - the delicious sent of cold - the snow covering a group of rocks, the weak sun making what few colors around so much more vibrant, the frozen river, the pattern of slush on the road. There was/is no end to beauty when out in the world unprotected with no bubble of heat, glass, and metal around me, with no radio to distract me. And when I am traveling at 8 to 10 miles per hour I tend to notice more.
I need to bike more in the winter to stay sane - riding brings much needed adversity and struggle to my life.
I've been struggling with transportation. I've got two winter bikes both of which need work and a car, which also needs work. However, thanks to my ignorance, curiosity, and can-do attitude, I discovered what is wrong with my car.
For a month now people have been telling me that something is wrong with the oxygen sensor or something of that sort because, as I put it, my four-wheeled-motorized-vehicle is "idly challenged". Not all the time, but irregularly when in neutral it sounded like I was trying to race some one. My rpm meter would oscillate anywhere between a few millimeters and whole inch depending on lord only knows what. There were a few other weird symptoms that really made me want to call "car talk". Maybe I should still call them just to see if they can figure it out:
Occasionally revving engine (only when in neutral)
My heater would stop working
The engine temperature would go up
When in gear sometimes the car would act jerky - as if I didn't know how to drive a stick (which I swear I do).
Upon recommendation I threw some fuel-injector cleaner in the tank but that didn't do much (that I know of).
Have you diagnosed the problem yet?
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