Food for Thought

Lunch and dinner from my yard, yesterday. Browsed through the snap beans like a rabbit. Yellow cherry tomatoes, dinosaur kale, four different kinds of basil, arugula, purslane, mustard greens, radish, Anasazi spinach, nasturtium flower, wild black cherry, western sand cherry and a pepper. Supplemented with organic kefir, bagels and peanut butter, from a nearby food-product outlet. Soon there will be potatoes, and eggplant.

It's about fifty-fifty, what I eat from the yard and what comes from somewhere else. That percentage isn't likely to change much, as long as I'm making a little money here and there. Forty from the consignment shop, forty-five from a friend I did yard work for, eighty pulling sod for a neighbor. That's the past two weeks income.

It looks like I'm going to lose the house. When I returned to Minneapolis, I was hoping a community would coalesce around my manuscript, in support of what I'm trying to do with the house and yard. The reality is, more than half the people I've given the manuscript to have not responded in any way; several of them are not returning my phone calls. Those who have read it have been less than excited. I am aware I have written a book that is a challenge to read. I am aware there is something in it to offend just about anyone. I didn't realize it would alienate me from my friends.

I'm not sure if it bothers people more that I call them Children of the Earth, divine beings and sacred, or that I tell them the way of life we have all grown accustomed to is coming to an end.

The second book is begun. Not much else matters at this point. The house, if I lose it, could go to a worthy family and the healing I have brought to the land would not be undone. It is a transition I support.

There are limbs further out than the one I've chosen, but this one's pretty far out. I'm as far as I can go before I have to leap. Tonight I'm bringing the swords and the horns to the Riverview Cafe open mic. Two new dances I'm not really comfortable with yet, but it's time. No point in putting it off. If it translates well on video, who knows what could happen. I'm hoping for viral. It's about the last hope I have of keeping the house.