Gardening in a silk skirt

with a recipe for cabbage borscht

When I was sixteen, before I developed anorexia nervosa, I travelled around Australia in a motorhome with my dad and brothers and two or three other families. Somewhere in Western Australia, parked above a catholic church, I found myself on a football field with five or six boys in a long sleeveless button down dress playing cricket. I loved the feel of that dress against my legs. I loved the way the sun warmed my bare arms and shoulders. I loved the feel of fabric and hair moving against my skin, of crisp, wet blades of grass under my bare feet. And I loved the intense concentration of waiting for a ball, of catching a ball, of hitting a ball.

Remember a while back I wrote a piece called learning to drive about my meeting with the desert trees, Acacia Peuce? One of the things they taught me was that to have a body is to be sensuous, that the sensual experience is part of being embodied. Sensuality is what draws us into connection with our bodies and with life outside of our bodies. And yet those same trees asked the question how do we navigate these experiences of sensuality within our bodies into adulthood in ways that are life giving, especially when it comes to sex?

As a child the business of sensuality was easy. I danced to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, letting my body do its thing in response to what I felt inside. I drew Mickey Mouse over and over because I loved the repetition, the way my body felt and moved when I drew that particular set of rounded ears and curved nose. I slathered myself in mud leftover from building our house, feeling every pore in my body filled. I swam about in the dam for hours for the sheer delight of the liquid flow of water over my skin and the shivers of fear as things brushed my legs — yabbies, reeds, or other unknown, hidden things. I built cubbies, made pit hole traps, ran through the bush letting the underbrush scratch the skin of my calves, ran through the uneven paddocks letting my feet find the pock holes, the ridges, never letting me fall. I fought with my brothers, pinched, punched, shot arrows, and spent hours in the forest, not studying its plants or identifying scats — although I did that too — but just being in my skin.

How many times since then have I longed for that sensation of just being in my skin. Of being a body that rubs up against other bodies without the complications of sex. Out there in the desert, those trees with their rough bark and their jabbing needle-like leaves posed the question, what is all that sensuality for? What are you going to do with it now that you are becoming an adult?

I still don’t know the answer to that question. It perplexes me to be embodied and for this body to be so deeply sensuous. It perplexes me to be so deeply in love with sex.

A dear friend of mine, who goes by the name Maggie and is one of the most deeply sensuous people I know, gifted me a silk skirt. The skirt was made from squares of old saris — a very sensuous piece of clothing — sown together to form a new fabric vibrantly colourful and beautifully textured. The fabric was cut into a semi circle with ties attached to the waist so that it could be wrapped around any sized body and tied there with a knot or a bow. I wore that skirt often, preferring it over others for its drape, its vibrancy, and the soft warm touch of silk on my skin. And it did not register with me that it could be fragile in any way until I wore it on the day that I was invited to pick raspberries by my friend Marie Louise.

Marie Louise’s raspberry canes are tall, and grow in a dense thicket in a rectangular patch of red soil behind her house. She was away and invited me to pick the last of her raspberries so I drove over there with some containers and started picking. I love picking berries. Its so sensuous, don’t you think? The bright red stain of berry juice on the skin, the astringent aroma of raspberry leaves, the scratch of the short, stubby barbs. Those short stubby barbs that I did not consider when I wore my silk skirt!

I’m aware that its possible to be so wrapped up in a task that the sensuality of the experience and the interrelationships between things get lost or forgotten. That sometimes the experience of being alive and in my skin and in the breathing, pulsing, living, dying, crying, yelling, screaming, joyous, loving, playful earth, causes me to overlook the possibility of things going wrong, of fabric being torn, or hearts being broken, or bellies going hungry. There is a balance that must be found between the wearing of beautiful fabric, and the activity or task at hand, a carefulness in the interactions between people or between people and things.

Earlier this year I prepared and hosted a ‘Feast for Freedom’. It is the second time I have cooked for a crowd as part of a fundraiser. And what I love the most about doing it is the sensuality of the experience. The sensuality of the food, the sensuality of coming together to eat, the sensuality of listening to music, of the sounds of laughter and conversation and chewing and slurping, and clinking dishes and water being poured. I love the sensuality of bodies being fed, and hearts growing big with love for the joy of being together. This time I cooked Afghani food and we all sat on the floor and ate with our hands. I love the sensuality of eating with hands, of sitting on floors, of what it does to our bodies and hearts and minds when we do the same thing that we do so many times each day (eating), differently.

I do not regret the shredding of the silk skirt. Just like I don’t regret the wearing of a long dress on the cricket pitch. It did not affect my game, if anything, those sensual stimuli increased my focus and concentration, my ability to play well. Sensuality does not have to be contained to the bedroom. Nor does it have to be practiced outside of it in ways that are hurtful or harmful to self or others. Sensuality can be feasting others, sitting around a table or on the floor eating food that is made with love. It can be dressing in clothes that feel nice against your skin. It can be gardening — your hands deep in the soil, your fingers exploring roots, leaves, stems, soil, worms, life! It can be playing trucks with my kids and making that brrrmmm, brrrmmm sound with my lips that sends little droplets of spittle flying and eventually turns my lips numb.

Our sensuality is the way that we connect to life, and to all those other living things that occupy our spaces — trees, rocks, flowers, birds, houses, cars, concrete. But that sensuality must be well integrated into the experience of who or what we are or we risk spinning off, like I did, into places where there is no sensuousness for fear of what it might do to us or those we love, or where there is too much sensuality and it is not grounded into the daily practice of waking, eating, moving about, working, sleeping, playing, resting, and it does profound damage to our hearts or the hearts of those we love.

There are some good books about sensuality or sensuousness and life. Two of my favourites are: The spell of the sensuous by David Abrahms, and the story of the seven sisters, which is all about sensuality, sex and desire. What I would have done for a story like this in my youth!

And because food is very sensuous, the colours, textures, flavours, the cooking of it and the eating of it, here is a recipe for a very sensuous dish: borscht. I’m sure you’re wondering how borscht can be sensuous, but I challenge you to make it and tell me its not. It has the sensual sweetness of the bees in it, the tart sensuality of apple vinegar, the beautiful sensuousness of the colour pink, the sensuous texture of cabbage — take a look at the curves on that thing as you slice it — and the earthy sensuality of caraway.

I don’t know where I got this recipe from — I have a feeling its from the Moosewood Cookbook — but it is adorned with the most beautiful, ornate patterning around the title. I wish I could replicate it here, but I am not that computer savvy, so you will have to make do with the architectural sensuality of digital text.

Cabbage Borscht

1 hour to prepare… 4–5 servings

2 Tbs butter

1.5 cups of chopped onion

1.5 cups thinly-sliced potato

1 cup thinly-sliced beets

1 large, sliced carrot

1 stalk chopped celery

3 cups chopped cabbage

1 scant tsp caraway seed

4 cups of stock or water

2 tsp salt

black pepper

1/4 tsp dill weed

1 Tbs plus 1 tsp cider vinegar

1 Tbs plus 1 tsp honey

1 cup tomato puree

place potatoes, beets and water in a saucepan, and cook until everything is tender (save the water).

begin cooking the onions in the butter in a large kettle. add caraway seeds and salt. cook until onion is translucent, then add celery, carrots and cabbage. add water from beets and potatoes and cook, covered, until all the vegetables are tender. add potatoes, beets, and all remaining ingredients.

cover and simmer slowly for at least 30 minutes. taste and correct seasonings.

served topped with sour cream, extra dill and chopped fresh tomatoes.

Originally published at https://apeasantskitchen.substack.com on September 26, 2022.