Saturday, June 14, 2008

Maintenance and Growth

This year I moved into the bottom floor of the brownstone I've been renting and living in. Spending the last two years wondering why no one was taking care of the very fertile land in the backyard, I would fantasize about all that I could plant down there. This year is the year! However, digging up the yard I found all kinds of trash, just under the surface as this yard had not been cared for in years (I guess because it's a rental property.) I quickly realised that I had a lot of cleaning to do before it would ever yield.

Yes, I think I see what you mean about the daily cleaning of self, home, garden or green space, beach, street, and building as somehow like maintaining our composure in a world where consumption and speed are taking precedence. Maintainence is necessary and perhaps therefore, taken forgranted... "who has time for that now?" I suppose it's some psychological thing we do, compartMENTALizing public and private in order to cope with an urban environment. Being creatures of habit, we live almost like we're in seperate worlds even though it's all layers of the same. I wonder how this happens? A bit psychotic, don't you think? Or perhaps it's a lack of a feeling of ownership? Hmmm... then this get's tricky because our thinking spreads into everything; even how we see ourselves, and lack of ownership of self along with lack of connection with environment is enslavement.


Shall we do a street sweep soon? Maybe up in the midtown area?





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