Christianity

Gardening, Carpet Plague, Calves and Music

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Debora

I know, I’ve abandoned my poor blog again. Life is simultaneously busy and tranquil — my favorite combination! — and I haven’t felt the need to write in a while.

This time of year gardening takes up most of my time. One of the biggest reasons I’m shifting my focus to edible perennials is so I won’t have this frenzy of replanting every spring, but of course in the short-term it makes my spring even busier as I create new permanent beds and put in asparagus, sunchokes, currants, a bay tree, various perennial herbs and some unidentified “berry” bramble suckers someone gave me that I think are blackberries. But the strawberry bed I put in last spring is producing in grand style this year, and Saturday I enjoyed the first ripe strawberry of spring, and there’s a gazillion more coming along behind it. So that’s a good reminder that the results are totally worth all the work involved, even if it takes a while to see them.

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Another thing that’s been gobbling up a ridiculous amount of my time is The Battle Of The Creeping Spot.

Dude.

So three or four weeks ago our cats suddenly decided to spurn their litter box in favor of one corner of my computer room floor. We’re talking deep plush carpeting here, not some easy-to-clean laminate or hardwood. I ungraciously disposed of the piles of poop, but it gradually became evident that the real problem was the steadily-intensifying aroma of Eau de Cat Pee. I took way longer than I should have to attend to that (see: spring planting time, above), but finally one day I attacked that corner of the carpet with everything I could think to throw at it. Rug shampoo, spot cleaner, pure baking soda, a special “pet stain” removal product, the works.

The next morning that corner of my (very orange) carpet had turned a dark purple.

Clearly something had gone very wrong here.

I went back over the corner with more spot cleaner, and when that didn’t get rid of it I tried putting laundry detergent into my rug shampooer, and then I tried diluted dishsoap and then I just went over and over it with plain water until it was mostly gone.

But the next day The Spot was back, and twice its previous size.

I won’t go into all the tedious details of this battle. Suffice it to say that for nearly two weeks I used almost every cleaning product I could think of on this spreading purple abomination, alone or in combinations, and some days I would win and other days the Spot would win. It was like something out of Dr. Seuss, but evil. At its largest it was about six feet in diameter, and I was doing a pretty convincing Lady Macbeth impersonation.

Guess what the culprit was. Go ahead, guess!

Give up? It was the baking soda. Apparently when you put baking soda on my orange carpet and then get it wet, there’s some sort of freak chemical reaction that causes a dark purple stain to appear.

Guess how I finally figured this out.

It looked like I had just about defeated The Spot, there was only the faintest shadow left and I was confident that another hour or so of going over it with clear water would finish it off. But by then the carpet was beginning to smell just a bit mildewy, and I decided that the whole room could stand a nice deodorizing.

So, I filled my rug shampooer’s receptacle with clear water and a little baking soda, went over the whole room, and then focused on the spot in the corner — shaking some more baking soda directly onto it and scrubbing it in — until it appeared to be vanquished.

The next morning my entire computer room carpet was covered with purple smudges and the original corner was a solid, hateful dark purple swath.

I was ready to burn it.

Instead I spent most of another week going over and over the carpet, sucking all the baking soda out of it. As I type this I think I have just gotten the last of it out, but I won’t know for sure until tomorrow morning.

The good news is that the cats appear to have lost interest in recontaminating the war zone.

Or possibly they’re just waiting for the carpet to finally dry out so they can start over.

BUT my computer room doesn’t smell mildewy today, it smells WONDERFUL, because yesterday Luke and Elizabeth gave me the best Mother’s Day gifts I have ever received. They made them in Sunday school. They are apples with lots and lots of cloves stuck into them and silk ribbons tied around them to hang them with, and now as I write this the air is perfumed with the heady scent of apples and cloves. I LOVE it!

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In other news, a third calf has been born at Trinity. I need to buy some livestock panels so I can set the branding pen back up and set a date for my summer roundup. I may also spring for a calf table, since none of my new friends know how to rope (and neither do I) and it seems like a useful thing to have anyway if one isn’t of the Large Strapping Male persuasion.

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Speaking of things my new friends don’t know, they are also all tragically unacquainted with the awesome thing of immortal beauty that is Star Trek. Not a single Trek fan in the entire bunch (except for Pastor Bill who can’t go see the new movie with me because he’s married and that would be a little odd). Hello, this is CULTURE, people!! I was going to have to go see the movie all by myself, but my friend Jenny took pity on me and agreed to go with. So I think that’ll be Thursday. I can’t wait!

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Being a part of my church worship group remains one of the brightest joys of my new life. It’s amazing how fundamental singing with friends apparently is to my general sense of fulfillment. I don’t imagine that I’ll let anyone take that away from me ever again.

The group is still kind of finding itself. We had a magical combination for a while — two guitars, bass, drummer, three vocalists — and it was heaven. But then we lost our best guitarist and our male vocalist within a couple weeks of each other, and we’re feeling the loss. But there’s this nice sense of fellowship among the rest of us, a sweet sort of feeling that we’re all in it for the long haul and that one way or another the people we need will find us and the group will eventually be complete again, and meanwhile we still have this wonderful core group of friends to sing and play and worship with.

Tell you what though, last time we sang in church it was a train wreck. There’s a young boy who is learning to play the bongos, and from time to time he likes to join the group onstage. It’s not been a problem before, but this last time two things went wrong. One, the bongos had just been tightened so they were louder than usual, and two, he set them up between the drummer and our remaining guitarist, so they couldn’t hear each other well enough to stay in synch. It…wasn’t pretty. We have learned our lesson. Bongo Boy is still welcome to play with us, but from now on he goes down at the other end by the vocalists.

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I wanted to talk about how the Sunday school teaching thing is going, but I think that’s going to get its own post somewhere down the road.

So I guess that’s it for now. Life in my little green corner of the world is blooming, and keeping me busy. If that Spot is still gone tomorrow morning I will have nothing much to complain about.

If it’s back I may have to rethink my decision to give up profanity, because I have nothing else left to throw at the blasted thing.

Categories: Animals, Cats, Christianity, Edible Perennials, food, Friends, Gardening, kids, Life, Self-Sufficiency, Star Trek | 6 Comments

By Any Other Name

Posted on April 21, 2009 by Debora

A month or two ago someone told me straight out that I would have to change my last name and the sooner the better, because I would never overcome the social stigma of being a Silkotch in this town. Everyone would just assume that I’m bar trash like the rest of them.

He had a point. When I first started going to church a few months after the separation, it was a relief to me that hardly anyone there had ever heard of the Silkotches, because a clean fresh start was exactly what I was looking for. I could instantly tell which ones had, though. They would get That Look on their faces as soon as I said my last name. Like they’d just bitten into a lemon…with a worm in it. It didn’t take me long to figure out that certain introductory chats lasted longer and were much friendlier if I only disclosed my first name.

Last night I was reminded of all this when a woman in my worship group asked what my last name is. I told her, and she made this sort of “ahhhh” noise.

“Don’t hold it against me though,” I smiled, only half-joking.

“Don’t worry,” she laughed. “I won’t think you’re a bad person just because you have a bad last name.”

This is an unavoidable issue, is what I’m saying.

I did very briefly consider changing my surname…but to what? I don’t want to go back to using my stepfather’s name, or my biological father’s. My brother legally changed his last name years ago, but he just chose a random one out of thin air and adopted that, which doesn’t really appeal to me.

And truth be told, I like the name Silkotch. I like the story behind it. It was created at Ellis Island when Steve’s great-grandfather got off the boat from Hungary (or was it Austria?) and the dude at the Immigrations desk didn’t know how to spell “Salkovitch.” It’s unique: there aren’t very many Silkotches in existence today, and they’re getting fewer by the generation.

Which brings us to the biggest reason why I don’t want to change my name, except in the case of eventual remarriage. If I do it the kids will want to do it too (Luke has already said so with great conviction), and then I will very likely have a big court battle on my hands. Because the whole reason Steve, who couldn’t be less interested in being a husband or a parent, got married so young and put such intense pressure on me to have kids right away, was because his father put such intense pressure on HIM to Pass On The Family Name. Luke is the last of the Silkotch males. If he changes his surname the Silkotch name will end there, and even I who have no genetic stake in it can see that that would be unfortunate.

And the thing is, it hasn’t always been bad. Steve’s grandparents had a WONDERFUL reputation in this town. For their sake, but mostly for my children’s sake, I would much rather redeem the name than abandon it. I don’t want Luke and Elizabeth to ever get the idea that there was something inherently shameful about being born a Silkotch. Ten years from now when people hear that name I want them to think of things that Luke and Elizabeth and I have done to help make Anza a nicer community to be a part of, instead of getting that wormy-lemon look on their faces.

I want folks in Anza to know as well as I do that my beautiful children, by any other name, would smell as sweet. ;^)

Categories: Christianity, Family, Friends, kids, Life | 2 Comments

Lifted

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Debora

In the depths of winter I finally learned that within me
there lay an invincible summer.
– Albert Camus

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Several years ago I read an old novel called The Circle Of The Day, by Helen Howe. Basically it describes a single day in the life of an ordinary woman, but of course this day turns out to be anything but ordinary.

In the first few pages we meet our heroine (I like that her name is Faith) as she quietly reflects on her comfortable, stable life and her relationships with the people around her. And then she learns something that changes everything about the way she sees her life and her relationships. Naturally she’s thrown completely off-balance, and struggles to come to terms with this new perception of reality. But that very effort leads her to new revelations, new realities that she has no choice but to try and get a handle on, and trying to get a handle on them leads inevitably to even more revelations. By the end of the day (which is also the end of the book) she is almost a different woman, not because her life has changed (it hasn’t, really) but because her perceptions have changed so profoundly.

Extend the concept’s timeframe and you have a perfect summary of my past year.

I’m still living in the same house, still filling my days with the same parenting and gardening and housework that I’ve always done, but everything has changed. And that didn’t –couldn’t have — happened all at once. The passing words of wisdom that shone a new light in my mind a month ago might have meant nothing to me four months ago, because I wasn’t…you know, there yet. I had to follow the path, step by step, in order to understand the vista as it unfolded.

My most recent revelation was one of those things that seems ridiculously simple and obvious in retrospect, and yet it literally took me 40 years to grasp.

And now I’m sitting here trying to figure out how to explain it, because I don’t want to say it wrong, because it’s a profoundly important concept if one hopes to live a spiritually effective life.

Okay. I’ve never been one to stick neat, confining labels onto people, and I know that sweeping generalities tend to fail when you take a closer look at things, but I have come to understand that pretty much everyone in the world falls into one of two groups: the Holder-Downers and the Lifter-Uppers.

Holder-Downers come in two basic flavors: the ones who need to see themselves as (and be recognized as) superior beings and believe that the way to do that is to crush everyone around them; and the (much rarer) ones who have knowingly embraced the dark side and simply want to spread as much darkness as possible.

Lifter-Uppers feel that the way to make the world a better place is to improve the condition of the entire human race, one person at a time if need be. They freely offer a kind word or a helping hand to almost anyone in need of one.

Here’s where it gets less simple, and this is the part that took me longest to grasp: a Lifter-Upper cannot help a Holder-Downer in any meaningful way. Holder-Downers don’t want to be lifted up. They may want to use you for whatever they can get and leave your empty shell behind, they may want to take what you have because they think that if it makes you happy then maybe it will make them happy too, they may want to actively destroy you if you appear to be standing between them and something they desire, but they have zero interest in personal redemption. You cannot help them. Move on. They’re in God’s hands, and if He wants to reach into their heart and transform them He’s fully capable of that. You are not, so don’t waste your time trying. Most of them are spiritual vampires who will drain you dry if you let them.

This is not to say that all Holder-Downers should be avoided completely. For one thing that’s not even possible: there are too many of them, they’re everywhere. For another thing, many of them have something useful to teach you about the life-destroying forces of greed, selfishness and malice. A good long look at the empty lives of spiritual futility that Holder-Downers inevitably lead can be a powerful motivator for keeping your own moral compass calibrated in the right direction.

Sometimes it takes a while to figure out which camp a person belongs to, and sometimes it only takes a conversation or two. The Holder-Downers are usually the ones telling you all about what’s wrong with you, or what they want you to think is wrong with you. The Lifter-Uppers are the ones searching out what’s best in you, your most redeeming qualities, and nourishing those.

That’s not to say there’s only room for praise in a Lifting relationship. A few weeks ago I was with a group of friends, and at one point me and a couple of the others made some humorous comments about the personality quirks of someone else we know. I don’t think we were being mean-spirited, and we certainly meant no harm, but we were in fact laughing and joking about the foibles of an absent friend.

Then another girl said very gently, “I know I’m the youngest one here, and I don’t know [that person], but they’re not here, and I think if they were here their feelings would probably be hurt.”

We all instantly felt the truth of what she’d said, and the jokes stopped. This is the kind of company I delight in now: the ones that like and accept me just as I am while inspiring me to be better. Lifters.

Happy Love Thursday, everyone. May we all do our best to be Lifter-Uppers, and not let the Holder-Downers get a toehold on our souls.

Categories: Christianity, Friends, Life, Love, Love Thursday | Leave a comment

Sharing The Wealth

Posted on April 3, 2009 by Debora

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
~Howard Thurman

I was maybe five or six years old the first time I heard the story of Johnny Appleseed. I’m sure it was a watered-down version of John Chapman’s life that had been vastly oversimplified for young children, but I remember well the way it lit up my imagination and filled my dreams with new, childishly idyllic ambitions. THAT’S what I was going to do when I grew up! Just wander across the country, communing peaceably with wildlife and planting stuff. Perfect.

(I was also going to marry Bambi when I grew up. Life’s possibilities are very flexible when you’re six.)

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In February I started getting together with the Pastor of my church once a week over lunch or breakfast at the local diner. It’s sort of a spiritual counseling session, and it’s been more helpful to me than I have words to express. I’ve been sitting here just now trying to think of a way to explain the whys and hows of the profound value these talks have had for me, but I’ve finally decided that it would take up too much space and I probably wouldn’t get it right anyway.

During our very first lunch together the Pastor said something that I quite frankly wasn’t ready to hear. He said I was a healer, or was destined to be one. At that time I was firmly in the grip of a personal upheaval, and my own spiritual (and mental and emotional) health felt as fragile as an eggshell. The last thing I wanted to think about was being around other unhealthy people on purpose.

I told Pastor Bill as much, and then pushed the whole idea to the back of my head, where it sort of dug in and put down roots and started to grow, and maybe a month later I realized that I did in fact feel a desire to help others who, like me, were seeking wholeness. But I couldn’t picture myself doing what the Pastor does: talking to spiritually needy people about their spiritual needs day after day, week after week…the mere thought makes me feel like crawling into bed and pulling the covers over my ears.

And then one morning a couple weeks ago I woke up from an intense dream with the answer filling my head and heart with absolute certainty, like the voice of God Himself. I’ve forgotten the dream (I guess I should have written it down), but the certainty is still with me.

Johnny Appleseed was onto something.

Of course, Anza already has more than enough apple trees. You can’t throw a rock in this town without hitting an apple orchard. But I look around at all the scared, struggling, unemployed or soon-to-be-unemployed people in this town, people who can barely afford to buy groceries anymore, and I think, “That would be me if I didn’t have all this food growing on my property.”

And I realized: they should have it too. All of them. There should be grapevines and strawberry patches and raspberry canes and sunchokes in every backyard.

And I can help make that happen, at least locally. I can give away cuttings and sprouts and suckers and roots and bulbs and tubers until the whole valley is supplied. It won’t cost me anything, other than a bit of time and effort. Most edible perennials are easy to propagate and simple to grow.

This isn’t something I can start doing, like, today. I’ve just started growing things like strawberries and sunchokes myself, and they need to get better established before I’ll have enough to give away. But just having the goal in my head makes me feel alive and purposeful. I can make a real, tangible difference in this town. Sure, growing conditions are less than ideal in Anza. The poor soil, the arid climate, the altitude…these are challenges that I learned to overcome by trial and error, and I can share all the things I’ve learned. I can turn my own property into a kind of test kitchen, to find out what can be grown here and what can’t, and let people come and see and taste the possibilities for themselves.

This is a purpose I can put my heart into. I’d been planning to turn my property into a self-sufficient Eden anyway, but the thought of helping everyone else who wants to do the same is what has really fired my imagination.

Next winter I’ll start handing out rooted grapevine cuttings. The first step in what I hope will be a new and productive journey.

It feels really good to have a solid long-term goal again. I can’t wait to get started.

Categories: Christianity, Edible Perennials, environment, frugality, Gardening, Life, Self-Sufficiency | 2 Comments

“You’re on a first-name basis with Lucidity. I have to call him Mr. Lucidity, which is no good in a pinch.”

Posted on March 12, 2009 by Debora

I’ve decided that when I can’t think up a clever title for a blog post, I’m just going to use a random quote from “The Tick.” It’s all good.

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So, somewhere around here is the One Year Anniversary of the day Steve and I first separated. I didn’t write down the date or anything, but it was during the week before Elizabeth’s tenth birthday and she’ll be turning eleven on Sunday.

This has been far and away the most educational and transformational year of my life. There has been so much new information crammed almost nonstop into my brain in the past twelve months that I wake up most mornings feeling like a slightly different person than the person I was the morning before. The last eight months have been especially eye-opening. The last TWO months have been…well, you get the idea: the more I learn, the more doors open around me to reveal even more stuff to learn. It’s dizzying and liberating and at times remarkably painful.

I do wish to clarify that this hast NOT been the most painful year of my life. Not even in the top five. Possibly not in the top ten, because I’m pretty sure all the “winners” in that category fall before 1996. Truth be told, every year since I first moved in with Steve has been a Disney-themed cakewalk compared to the soul-crushing horror that my mother delighted in inflicting upon her offspring at every opportunity. Just want to be clear on that, in case anyone is wondering why I stayed in what was obviously a dysfunctional marriage for nearly twelve years: it was better than where I’d come from, and it’s not like I had a point of reference for what a healthy home life was supposed to look like. (And I suppose in Steve’s defense neither did he. Bummer for both of us.)

Whoops, little digression into Bitter Country there. I’d meant for this to be an upbeat, cheerful post, because that’s my prevailing mood these days. As overwhelming as the unrelenting flow of Here’s Something ELSE You Didn’t Know! has been at times, I remain grateful for the ever-broadening perspective on life, the universe and everything that the past year has offered me.

Here’s to clarity. Here’s to moving forward.

And while I’m on the subject, here is the most brilliantly useful bit of wisdom that I’ve acquired this year. I’m going to share it because I wish someone had told me this decades ago:

The only people who demand forgiveness for the harm they’ve done, who go on and on about how good Christians are supposed to be infinitely forgiving of all transgressions, are the people who have NO INTENTION of ever changing their harmful behavior. They NEED to be forgiven by their victims so that they can go right on victimizing them.

People who have genuinely repented of their selfish, destructive ways and want to change do not demand forgiveness from the folks they’ve hurt. They just STOP HURTING THEM and start being productive, compassionate human beings and let nature take its course. They offer selfless love instead of abuse or neglect, and they understand that healing takes time and patience.

Believe it. Jesus never meant for you to spend your life suffering so that some self-absorbed manipulator can feel powerful.

You’re welcome.

Categories: Christianity, Family, Life, Marriage | 4 Comments

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