As a pagan, I am getting ready to celebrate the last of the harvest festivals at the end of the month. We've gathered in the last of the tomatoes, and had fried green tomatoes for dinner, and put up green-tomato jam. Right now the remains of the garden lie where they fell after we scythed them. This weekend, we'll spread composted cow manure and a thick layer of mulch to tuck it away for the winter.
We've winterized the house, got the furnace up and running, invested in a programmable thermostat and extra wool socks for me. We begin to build up the pantry again, just in case we get snowed in. It happens sometimes. I'm doing the fall deep clean, finding where we put the snow shovels and the box of gloves and scarves. It's just that time of year. And I'm looking forward to the celebrations coming up, of memories and family at Samhain, and of the magic of rebirth at Yule.
Anyone who knows me knows that I live with chronic pain from an accident. Some days, it's worse than others. Yesterday was one such. My husband, bless him, didn't ask me to cook, even though he was knee-deep in the process of putting in a new water heater. We went out to get a sandwich. We're a tad constrained by neither of us wanting to eat something that will annoy our IBS excessively, and by my fructose allergy, but I can generally eat Arby's without too many problems.
My husband ran into an old friend. I'd heard of the guy in stories, many of them of the "No shit, there we were, me and George,"variety, and had met him once before about ten years ago. He got a bad hand in life in many respects, but he has a good marriage and a secure faith, and that helps. He's currently two years in to applying for disability. We traded contact information.
And as we all talked, I felt a nudge. A conversation rose up in my memory.
"Oh, sweetie, you're on an abacus. Please. Let me build you a new one. Really. I've got more computer parts sitting around than I know what to do with." said my techie friend in Louisville. "I'll be coming up to visit sometime soon, and we can fix the old one while we're at it."
And so I said to George, "I'm going to be getting a new computer in the near future...would you like my old system when I do?"
He's never owned a computer, never really had much access. Poverty means that startup costs of buying a computer become ridiculously high. But for someone disabled, home computer access means the world opens up to you. I know it does to me.
We count as poor. Tomorrow I'll go up and donate plasma so that we have a little extra cash for holiday presents and parties. We don't go a lot of places, and we cut corners in a lot of areas. But it just means to me that I learn to appreciate smaller happinesses instead of something huge. I always got more from giving than getting, personally. Now I'm not anticipating the new braces I'm going to get as a birthday present in December. I'm thinking of the look on George's face when we hook up his computer. I think we can afford to get him a monitor, while we're at it. And the other peripherals are pretty cheap...just to do it up properly.
I think it's important to work for what we don't have. George and I both would benefit from universal health care. It would have saved his mother's life. I've been writing and calling my Congressmen, and talking to people when I'm out. But in the midst of this, I must balance my own personal scale by noting my abundance, and celebrating that abundance by giving. It's the season of harvest. It's the time of abundance. And in enjoying my abundance, I gain strength to go back and fight against the injustices and the systematic evils.
This winter looks warmer to me knowing that George will be online. I'll leave Firefox on, and the link to Daily Kos. I think George will fit right in. (grin)