Our seedlings are mostly a failure this year. Justin hypothesizes that it’s because our potting up mixture’s chemistry was a little off. It’s interesting to me: the more I care about starting things from scratch, the more likely it seems that results are mixed.
So, for the first time in a very long time, I’ll be buying tomato plants for my little garden plot.
One summer in college, I had enormous success with starting tomato seeds. I want to say I ended up planting upward of 90 plants—my dad would remember for certain. In preparation for living as simply/cheaply as possible, I and about ten friends planned to rent a house together and practice college-level intentional living. Clearly, one needed as many tomatoes as possible to ensure this.
I’m in the middle of five books. I’m not totally sure why I do this to myself.
I checked this book (Miracles and Other Reasonable Things by Sarah Bessey) out from the library on Tuesday. I’ll be done by tomorrow. It’s easy reading—kind of like reading through one’s old journal entries. The chapters are both deep and simple, approachable and distinct.
Then there’s this tome (The Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler), which I’ve had for a couple months and maxed out the library’s renewal limit. The book was groundbreaking for its time (1988), and in many ways, still is. Eisler presents a more complex review of human history, the ample evidence for a Goddess-based “pre-history,” and the way such a worldview relied on cooperation and equality between genders. In other words, human history has not always been defined by dominance, violence, and war-making. I probably won’t finish the book before it’s really due back at the library, though I am trying.
The other three fall somewhere in-between. I actively read them—a couple pages from one in the morning, a few poems before bed. And lastly, there’s a draft manuscript from a congregant. I will absolutely finish it; it’s like an asynchronous pastoral visit.
In about a week’s time, we have a new housemate moving in. Justin and I have often lived with others during our married life, so this is nothing new. In preparation for this addition, however, we’ve really been stretched to get rid of more of our stuff to make room. We downsized when we moved here a year and a half ago, and yet it’s embarrassing how much crap we still have and how much we’ve accumulated since being in Madison.
It’s been a humbling experience, and I wonder how much is related to the deep-seated insecurity we have as white folks.
