The Daily: 4 January 2024

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I have COVID again. So there may be illogic in the days ahead. Apologies…

On the other hand, I am not allowed to be at work, and there isn’t much work to do around the house. (And I can’t do much anyway. COVID and rheumatoid arthritis don’t get along. For example, my knees are swollen to the size of melons.) On the good side, I have time to read. But whether I can process much of what I read is another issue. (COVID doesn’t get along with brain things either…)

However with this down time, I found time to start a new project for 2024. I have taken Sophie Blackall’s Things to Look Forward To: 52 Large and Small Joys for Today and Every Day and applied those things to each week in the year. I rearranged some of them because I didn’t think things like “skinny dipping” should happen in the winter, nor was “first snow” applicable anywhere but when that might happen. I’ll put up a large or small joy each week. This week is…

the sunrise!

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The last week of December is my usual time to work on calendrical things. I write in all the birthdays. I note down the night sky things I’d like to see — and this year the day sky thing I want to see: the total eclipse of the sun on April 8th. (Which will pass right over my house!) I select a day planner that already has a lot of the information I want to remember printed in it, but there are still holidays or other special times that are missed. So those go in. Then I make a rough garden plan.

This requires that I read through my notes from at least the last year, usually the last few growing seasons, so I know what did and did not work in the recent past. As I was on this task, I realized that I am not doing what I think I am doing. I don’t actually plan out what will happen in the garden. Not with any kind of accuracy. What I am doing is reading about and remembering my garden. What I am doing is jotting down things to look forward to. I am laughing at garden mistakes, feeling the warmth of successes, and creating garden hopes and aspirations. These are not actual plans. What I’m making is a wishlist. One that doesn’t even have to come true. I am happy just doing it. This is not garden planning; this is garden dreaming.

Planning doesn’t work anymore anyway. Maybe it never did. But there is no way to plan for things that have never happened before, and we are squarely in the age of unprecedence. My garden journal from last year began with and cool damp spring, culminating in snow in May, and the resultant very late planting. Then there was a not altogether unusual dry spell in June, though it was more severe than other recent years. We had no rain between June 3rd and July 1st. It was not particularly warm, so if I watered the garden it didn’t immediately evaporate. But it was so dry that carrots didn’t feel it was necessary to germinate.

Then there was July…

After that, the garden fell off my dreaming list. There was very little dreaming at all… And the garden, being more or less able to look after itself, was ignored. I tried to keep the weeds from taking over, but there was just too much trying to keep the mold from taking over — and cleaning up all the other messes both at home and elsewhere around town. And there was no respite from wage work for me. This was both a blessing and a curse. Or maybe just a curse… because I had to spend 45 hours a week doing very little good to anyone and then try to cram all the remediation and my usual work, like cooking and house cleaning — and gardening — into the evenings and weekends. It was exhausting.

I also found out just how little good wages will do you when it is time and things you need. You can’t spend your way out of a disaster when everyone around you is enveloped in the same disaster. For days, nothing at all was open. No grocery stores. No gas stations. No plumbers. No pizza. (There still is no good pizza…) The hospital managed to keep going, but power was sketchy. For weeks, there was nothing coming into this town but the bare necessities. No parts, no replacements, no tools. And for this entire time, there was no labor. Everybody was trying desperately to clean up their own messes and help their families and neighbors. Most businesses were shut down through July. There are some just now opening back up and many that never will. Those that actually are helpful in the aftermath of a flood and that managed to be open were overwhelmed with work. You could not get on the schedule with the people who fixed the basement problems. In August, I had to wait a week to get my car’s back shock mounts fixed (after they rotted and cracked) simply because there were no people who could work on it. (I’m lucky the parts were actually here…)

In any case, that was a lesson learned… and now I know that planning is sort of silly if it’s an actual plan that you’re after. It is good to have a rough sketch of the time — for example, to know about when planting can happen and approximately when you need to take time for processing the fruit harvest, to have a general idea of when to make time for the things that will carry on regardless of unprecedented events. If you plant at all, then you need to plant when the soil temperature will allow for germination and most other plant needs will be available for the infant seedling. If you have apple trees, then you have apples to deal with in the early autumn. Similarly, if you have a wood stove, then you need to stack up wood somewhere near your house and see about cleaning the chimneys before it gets cold. If you have kids, animals, or other dependents, then you need to know when you’ll be busy with their needs.

These are not really plans, just a general framework for the time. A preliminary calendar of the solar year. Just like knowing when the holidays and birthdays will fall. But with the garden there are dreams added to that sketch of time. For me anyway. You undoubtedly have other aspirations. Maybe you have a rug to weave or a blanket to quilt. Maybe you want to work your body into better health. Maybe you want to learn how to play the guitar. Maybe you have all these dreams and more. I know I do…

This is the time to dream. I do know that I need to plant things that don’t need very much care from me when there may or may not be disasters. I also know that I don’t have much time in the autumn (in addition to not having good storage space), so processing a huge harvest is not within my capabilities. My dreams are somewhat limited by these realities. Or now they are anyway. In my younger days, I was the gardener who planted All the Things, who did everything… and did nothing to my satisfaction, as a result. Garden journaling helped me to grow out of that.

And that reinforces something I know I’ve said before on this blog. If you want to make sense of this mess, if you want to be able to see trends and maybe be aware of what unprecedented things may possibly happen, then keep records. One of the best guards against gaslighting and the human tendency to normalize the present is having a written account of what has happened. Preferably written in your own words, so that as you read, you remember writing those words and all the emotions and ideas that went into recording those thoughts and observations. You don’t need to write in any prescribed form. In fact, it’s better to just let your ideas flow as they come. Spelling. Grammar. Sentence structure. Coherence. None of that matters. What matters is preserving the memory in as solid a form as you can. Having a record to refer to in the midst of change is like going to sea with an anchor. It may not prepare you for anything that you meet in the future, but you will at least be able to latch on to a past that is firm and real and sensible… which is, in fact, the best — and only — preparation that you need.

The only way to anticipate the perils laid before us is to know what is happening now, what has happened in the past, how that has changed, and what that implies for the future. Just jotting down the weather helps immensely. But also write down what works, what used to work and no longer does, and what might work in the future, for any number of daily tasks and considerations and needs. Write down recipes and sketch designs. Write down how your harvest — whatever it was — was produced and how that did or did not work out as you expected. Write down things that are important to you— the rising sun, the falling snow, dogs, babies, flowers, and all the things that make up a life.

This is also the best meditative practice I know. It keeps you rooted in the now but allows you to remember the past and see bits of the future. It is a portrait of your thoughts. It is a map of and for your life. It is dreaming.

It is having things to look forward to…

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©Elizabeth Anker 2024