The employee who can seem a little light in the head at times, while he admits to being a bit heavy of heart once in a while, accepted my explanation why I was ready to swipe my card for a second time while the payment had already gone through; I was trying out the new method of holding the card against the machine instead of inserting it in to the slit. My son recommends this as a faster and more efficient method (only requiring a confirmation pin number above a certain amount to be paid- still haven’t figured out which amount that might be, for I am forever still having to confirm with a number, big spender on lentils and cucumbers that I am).
The presumed Former-Farmer assistant, as I call him, suggested I was too impatient, which got me ruffled on top of the fumbling with my card. It seemed to me that I was quite patient actuallly, willing to try the card trick again. Flustered, I offered an alternative, that I get a bit insecure around such transactions. I meant with regards to whether the payment had gone through, but he instantly apologised with, “I tend to have that effect on people.”
He physically took a step back behind the counter and held up his hands as if to push me back into my comfort zone and set himself at a safer distance. I found this somewhat confusing, although I do love keeping my personal space to myself. I smiled gratefully but had to reassure him that it wasn’t him. “It’s me. I’m a very insecure person.” Although shy would have been a better word, I suppose minus the exaggeration, this could be said to be true in the company of others. Especially in shops. For if I pause for too long to think about it, shopping is the silliest activity I can think of.
If I look too closely I won’t ever go shopping again. How frumpy: pushing a trolly; how greedy: scanning the shelves with roving, coveting eyes; like some kind of show-game: piling in stuff one minute, taking it back out the next, putting it down onto the counter, then picking it up again, putting it into a bag, all within 15 minutes, if possible (parking any longer would force budget cuts affecting our Saturday Night chocolate mousse).
Then think of all those hands. Tins don’t care, the live-cultures in yoghurt are safely packed away, but the fresh greens and fruits are hustled and bustled quite some by the whole shopping experience, and it can’t leave them untouched. Seeing as they have lead a (bio-)dynamic life so far, the impact of life after the farm must still have its effects on these sensitive life-forms.
Ed the green-grocer department man is not the first to touch the goods, but let’s say that for the shop adventure of the veggies it starts there; then some other shopper may have fondled the bananas before I pick them up and put them onto the scales; then I put them into the trolley; and once more, there come my hands to place them on the counter top. Now the Former-Farmer puts his firm grip around them; the apples in their bag fare maybe a little better. The lettuce gets swung to and fro in its plastic bag; then me again packing them into my shopping bag, and once we get home, me again unpacking them; the aubergine has been thoroughly massaged by the time it gets to rest in the fridge. Finally, my hands, again, showering them under the tap, and peeling off their skins… no, enough of the torture! let’s keep them on and swiftly end their man(o)handling on the chopping board and like lobsters off with them into the pan.
See, that’s what happens if I think too much. It makes me never want to cook another vegetable stew again. I remember discussing around the time I was (bravely) turning vegetarian (at around 15; “Do you want to become further estranged from your father?!” my mother warned;) with my five year yonger sister what would be the perfect (holy) diet (this was well before ecological concerns lived amongst common suburban people like ourselves). That is how we spent bored Sunday afternoons. Or rather, that is how I pestered my genius sister with my loud and crazy presence, trying to engage her in something that might entertain me, lounging on her bed while she was studying world history or reading Le Grand Meulnes at her large desk.
↓ Nicolai Abraham Abildgaard (1790)
How did honey and milk fit into this diet, then, but nuts not? Well: nuts were bursting at the shells with life! They contained mighty trees! To eat a walnut was to abort a thousand other nuts; you were curbing the potential and right to life of the seed. But with mother cow and sister hive you could cut a deal (this perfect diet was of course reserved for priestesses in huts in virginal Hungarian forests, whose prayers created trade winds of peace).
One would share the milk with the calf (not simultaneously), it seemed perfectly harmonious to ask Audhumbla for a cup of her alchemical concotion as she prolongued her lactation period without losing her own health for it. The harvest of honey would only be done in the height of summer after profound meditations had been held by the high priestesses for three days and three nights by the light of the silvery moon. It turns out, now I know about bio-dynamic farming, that it is totally possible to share in nature’s bounty if you know how to farm with your senses attuned to the inter-connectivity of the land, the plant, the beast.
I never adopted my own High Priestess of the Hungarian Forest diet, but I do believe in tuning into nature and making sure you don’t tune her out. I do choose my food for its life-force and integral dynamic patterning. I do want to feel the time it has taken a plant to unfold and mature. It makes me jittery to eat food that has been rushed through the process and chased on its heels to become fat and glossy.
If I have not shown a grand enthusiasm for Permaculture it is because I am a little too old to become renewedly enthused. I was at the helm of bio-dynamic diets, educating people on the agricultural system that would keep the capital O in Organic. I don’t exactly know where permaculture comes from (who lent it its name?) but the book collection of #mountainjewel showed me there are many official books on the subject that would probably detail all this to me. But as I said, I’m a little tired now. People called me crazy for twenty years and now it’s a trend you can even steem with.I must admit when I see #sagebrush and #idyllwild setting up their own Good-Life initiative I do sometimes feel like I wish it could be me pottering about day in day out, with the land for your canvas (although I am not prepared to live off stinging nettle powder and dandelions endlessly till the first proper kitchen garden harvests abound!)
As I remember to put my card back in my purse and my purse back in my handbag, and my handbag back over my shoulder, and am about to lift my week’s gleaning away, the Former-Farmer man inquires if there is anything more he can do for me, regards my insecurities: “we aim to help our customers in any way we can,” he has taken a step forward to lean across the counter and put his face beneath mine and look up with his hands held up as if to lift great offerings to me.
He’s managed to do it again. My thoughts rush to the fore in a flurry, how to get myself out of this fine mess, again? I decide to play the lost-cause card: “Don’t worry, I am used to being insecure. I’ve been it all my life, I expect I’ll be getting over it once I go blinder and more deaf.”
The lectures I could give on the esoteric implications of my sensory deprivation I leave to one side entirely, trusting they are of no interest whatsoever to the shop assistant.
The Former-Farmer pushes himself up and dusts his hands off. “Jolly good, jolly good!” he applauds with one loud clap.
Cows in field, crow on post - Sunday last
Chives in flower - June 2017
Capuciner beans - 2016
This year's lambs
This year's tulips
Fuzzy Wuzzy Bee on mint - summer 2017
My altar bouquet - September 2017 - very out of season, but slowly slipping things in here I won't be able to post later on.
