Blight

I joined my Irish ancestors in spirit yesterday as I uprooted all our potato plants riddled with blotches and yellowing with blight. No potato famine for us, though, for I was surprised to find a wealth of well-formed and healthy potatoes buried in the ground like hidden treasure, enough to fill 2 plastic milk crates. This morning though I saw that the blight had indeed traveled to the upper end of our garden and gotten our tomato plants too, so today, into a heavy black construction bag the plants will go and all of the green tomatoes, heavy on the vine, will have to sun ripen on window sills. We’d been hearing about the blight for months in conversations ranging from Epsom, Indiana to Thetford, Vermont. We’d also known that the wet and humid conditions we’ve been having this summer weren’t helping matters any. That said, I thought we were going to escape it, stay out of harm’s way. But there you go; it’s here, we’ll deal with it. And now I understand that we can’t plant nightshade plants in that soil for, well, the stories vary, anywhere from 3 to 5 years to EVER. Now there’s a range for you. It’s nature’s version of a toxic landfill. But taken all in all, not planting tomatoes or potatoes or peppers or eggplant or petunias is not such a blight for us. I don’t really eat many potatoes (a nutritionist once told me to never again let a potato pass my lips for I was getting plenty of starch and carbohydrates from other sources) and Richard eats tomatoes and eggplants sparingly otherwise his arthritis flares up. So there you are. And now we will have 2 huge chunks of garden to plant other vegetables, even spring vegetables again that will be ready to harvest before the autumn frosts begin.

Summer has finally found us. For the past week the weather has reminded me of the dog days of summer in Indiana – hot, sunny, the air thick with humidity. Frequent dips in our pond have been the order of the day. I wish our geese would stay in and swim with us when we dive in, but they quickly hasten to the safety of the bank and observe the weird, splashing creatures from afar. Because of the heat, my daily 4-mile walk down our country lane comes late in the day, sometimes not ‘til around 7. I slather Skin So Soft on to keep whatever bug happens to be around at that time of day away and shoulder my ramshackle pack diagonally across my chest, making me feel like Johnny Appleseed. (Trivia: Johnny Appleseed nee John Chapman also has an Indiana/New England connection – he was born in Leominster, Massachusetts, and is buried in the town I grew up in, Fort Wayne, Indiana.) My shoulder bag is not filled with apple seeds, however. Most often nowadays it has a copy of Ted Kooser poetry in it, as well as whatever paperback I might have a hankering to read along the way. Also, always, there’s something to write on – a legal pad or small steno notebook or several large index cards. The walk is a combination meditation in motion and walking work place. I’m amazed what comes through that might have been blocked or not even thought of working at home, sitting at a desk. And the walk sets me right with myself. It keeps the blights of inertia and over-seriousness at bay.

It feels as if there is an over abundance of blight these days, both real and imagined. I’m so glad we don’t have television, especially with the ongoing health care harangue. Just the tastes of the “debate” I get over the internet are enough. I would think it would be next to impossible to distinguish between what is a blight and what is a boon with all the talking heads and “experts” and newscasters and plain screamers frothing up the waters. Being an actor I know how easy it is to chameleon into someone else’s passion or agenda or life drive. Some times in “real life” I unwittingly do the same thing and am won over by the sheer surety of someone else’s take on anything without taking the time to question whether I really feel and think the same way. It’s seductive. And so often issues are presented as if they should have a simple explanation, black and white, “this is it”, succinct enough to fit into a sound bite, and then NEXT. It encourages one to be a bully; no matter what side of the debate you are on, the other side has to be full of unevolved, pig-headed idiots. “If only they would see (definition: “agree with me”) then the world would be a better place, God damnit!” Being a recovering bully and black and white person of MAJOR PROPORTIONS I speak from experience. Today, much like the geese, when the splashing of controversy occurs, I often opt to head for shore to watch at a safe distance. The geese head for shore out of instinct, to keep their distance from any potential predator. My predators are old ways of acting, a kind of knee jerk “oh yeah?!!” attitude left over from long ago teenage battles with my dad where even if I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about I was going to stay in the battle to WIN AT ALL COSTS. There’s an aspect of that that, sadly, sounds very American. Just win, that’s all that matters. And when the “other’s” viewpoint blotches my skin with rage, it’s very seductive to go on the attack. Again, speaking from experience, living by that kind of blight leads to many airborne infections that take years to heal. With the health care debate and with many issues, I recognize that I need to educate myself. I don’t know the issues thoroughly. I’d love to just take others word for it, many of whom are heroes of mine, but I need to check the facts for myself, no matter how much they may move and inspire me. And I need to take the time it takes to know how I feel and think. This is easier said then done. Sometimes I feel out of it in Vermont and wonder if we’ve decided to move here to keep our distance from any controversy. I don’t think that’s true. It’s just where life has seen fit to plant us for now. And it has afforded me time to reflect on things that I wouldn’t have given myself time to do so otherwise.

It’s nearing noon and heating up. I’m on the front porch with a couple of napping cats, listening to a hen back in Stony Coop push out an egg. Labor pains. The geese are conversing atop our pile of top soil just to the side of the house. The wind’s picking up. And I’m trying to figure out how to bring either the Irish or Johnny Appleseed back into the wrap up of this blight blog. This is going to take a little thought.