goings on

I spent the morning working at the Greenside Out Garden, the physical home of my umbrella organization Bountiful Brookline. I love organizing things, taking stock of what is present, and cleaning as I go, so that is what I did to the shed there. Its like loading a dishwasher to maximize the use of the space and also ensure everything gets clean. Along with Laurie, a volunteer with BB, I harvested the last of the garden's bounty for this season. This included over 5lbs of kale, 1 lb of salad greens, 1 pound of assorted collards and chard, a few stubby carrots, and big bunches of parsley and chives. I planted garlic in 2 of our beds, and then I covered all of the beds with a nice blanket of leaves. I composted the stalks and roots that we pulled out with some leaves. This kind of work is really enjoyable, especially because it is such a refreshing break from my normal school work and reading assignments. Being outside in the crisp fall morning sun, rooting around in the dirt, whistling and thinking about everything and nothing. It feels really great, it just feels good to me. It feels right.

(It feels so much better than sitting here and finishing my resource economics problem set on fisheries, equilibrium harvest levels, marginal cost of effort, total revenue, comparative statistics, blah blagh. That is why I am writing to you!)

Tomorrow night the Hive is hosting a Shabbat dinner and get this: its free. An organization actually pays college students to host shabbat dinners for their friends and family, so that is what we are doing. Isn't it great? I don't even know what Shabbat is! This meal, which I am sure will be as lovely as our house meals always are, is happening after the first meeting for the Warren Towers Green the Patio project. I am excited for this to finally get started and to hear everyone's vision for this space. I hope to see a productive container garden with beds and pots that shows how easy it is to grow food in the city. And I hope that it will also become a lasting pleasant place that people can sit and enjoy themselves in for years to come, a little outdoor green haven away from the clutter of Warren Towers and the rest of dreary BU campus (its pretty drab, you must admit, and no amount of brick will change that) where birds and insects and people can interact in harmony. Sounds a bit cheesy, but oh well.

As if there wasn't enough excitement already, Saturday I will be biking to Salem to Roll Against Coal. It is a ride-to-rally put on by Greenpeace, Students for a Just and Stable Future, and Bikes not Bombs. We will be meeting Salem-based environmental groups for a rally at a church there, where the goal is to show our support for renewable energy and our distaste for the coal power plant there. It is an obsolete sixty year old behemoth, and there are many clamboring for it to close. Should be a nice little Saturday...

Also, my stupid glasses broke again. This is the second time in a year, and I swear it is not my fault. Luckily they are still (barely) under warranty, and I should be getting a replacement pair soon. For the mean time its nerdy taped up glasses for this guy.

Oh, and one more thing. There is a master urban gardener course offered by Boston Natural Areas Network that I am considering for next year. It is offered on 2 months of Saturdays from January-March, and it is free-suggested donation of 40 bucks. I think it would be a great supplement/contribution to my work with Bountiful Brookline, and it should provide valuable lifelong skills that I can more fully put to use after college. This year is great! Relinquishing my Saturdays is of course a bit of a daunting prospect, though when do I ever do much in the way of productive things on that day anyways. And it runs from 10-3:30pm, so the schedule is not too intense. We will see, eh?

a fresh start

November is a fresh start month.

It is really easy to succumb to my worries and fears, my nagging undertoads, to sad feelings sparked by all of the bad things that are happening all over the world. It is too easy to sit back and let anxiety about the future paralyze the present. No good will come of it.

There are so many situations in the world that I have no control over. There are a few that I do, and those are what I need to focus on now. Everything I am doing now is preparation for the future, when I can then apply myself more fully to different situations and contexts. A cursory knowledge of every problem in the world will not do any good. There is awareness, when a person has absorbed information and it contributes to the development of a new perspective, that develops after reading an article or watching a documentary perhaps. But what comes of it? Knowledge for knowledge's sake is important, of course. And awareness is the necessary first step. You don't know what you don't know. Being aware of a problem can inform a person's decisions down the road. Awareness tends to spread by word of mouth. Awareness can compel someone to take actions, to organize, to dedicate themselves to a cause.

I would posit a difference between awareness and being informed. It is easy to be informed about a whole slew of issues and situations. Today was a perfect example, for I watched two documentary films. I am now more informed about coal mining in West Virginia, and I am also more informed about the Nile Perch fisheries in Tanzania on the shore of Lake Victoria. Coal Country showed the effects of different kinds of coal mining, including mountaintop removal and strip mining, on the people and environment of this region of Appalachia. As they point out in the film, the industry's dirty practices, and the resulting effects on the health of communities, ecosystems, streams and lakes, and the air, would never be allowed in the Rockies or the Berkshires. The economic development of many places in the region is so limited that coal mining is the only way to earn a living (unless you want to be flipping burgers), and there is also a relative paucity of jobs in such a capital-intensive industry. Darwin's Nightmare is a very dark and disturbing snapshot of life in Mwanza, Tanzania, and the social, economic, and environmental effects of the booming export fisheries there. Rather than me trying to describe the power of this movie, it is better for you to see it for yourself. I wonder if any of the Europeans buying Victorian perch think about the street children fighting over food or huffing glue so they can sleep at night, many of them orphans of fishermen or HIV/AIDS victims...I wonder how many people are exploited in order to get my food to my table, or how many unseen and unknown consequences my actions and lifestyle create...I wonder why it is possible to mine the minerals or extract the biodiversity of a place, be it communities in Appalachia or Tanzania, and line the pockets of a few with the sweat and blood of others who are inadequately compensated for their labor. The workings, and continued existence, of the resource curse, this being one example, still mystifies me. No one is eating nile perch in Mwanza, and there was a famine in Tanzania when the movie was filmed (it came out in 2004) even as hundreds of tons of fish were exported daily. The resources of Western Virginia are trucked out, and the people who live there, who should be the true owners of these minerals and the ones to profit from their extraction, are the ones least likely to benefit from them and most likely to be hurt by them.

I don't know if this is awareness, or how long these movies will stick with me. I don't know if anyone will be motivated by my words to view these movies, or to poke further. I don't know if anyone reads this anyways.

But there are plenty of things I do know. I know that in this year, the culmination of three very transformative and wonderful and paradoxical college years, I will continue to learn and grow. I will continue to develop my 'worldview,' my interests, my skills as a scholar, a citizen, a gardener, a friend, a community participant, a son and a brother. I will contribute to my community, on the house and town level, because I believe in it and its power to nurture and guide and shelter (even if our living arrangement is technically illegal in Brookline-though I think a rousing family dinner would sway any inspector). I will slog through vague assignments and dry pages of reading and sleep-inducing lectures because I believe in the value of an education and I am shamelessly in love with getting good grades. Guilty. I will work to quantify and qualify the benefits of eating local and organic food which I already know to be true. I will ride my bike and take my hands off of the handlebars sometimes, and I will do my best to avoid the geese (sorry little fella). I will reduce and reuse as much as possible, so that there is less to recycle. It is not by chance that recycle is the third R, it is really just an intermediate stage until society figures out that we made a wrong turn down consumer culture road. How about "reduce, reuse, RE-PURPOSE, and recycle"?

I know that I will feel down sometimes, and that my undertoads will always be there pulling and nagging and croaking at my toes. And I know that this is ok. I am in a transition period, and it will be some time yet until I am over her. It is a gradual process, most things are. The long term benefits take time to materialize. Change will come whether we like it or not, and it is the ability to find the beauty in the process that is perhaps most important. I find solace in the prospects of the future, of the next great feast, of achieving that perfect ecstatic exhaustion, of being me.

More adventurous, more safe

I am happy to announce that I am coming to you live as the new program/garden intern of Bountiful Brookline, a non-profit organization working to promote local food production, community access to fresh sustainable produce, and strengthen the local food system. As it is a small and fairly young organization, my role will be multi-faceted and dynamic and I will be working in different capacities. I am most excited about the summer when I will be leading the Teen Grow program of a handful of youth volunteers from the community! This past summer was the pilot year with only 4 kids and a month-long experience, but I believe it will be bigger and more involved this time around. As I envision it, this is Camp Rotary meets my academic interests, or helping kids learn about the value and rewards (and trials) of getting to know your food, its source, and how to produce it. Freaking awesome, right?

I think so. Also, I would be lying if I said that a small part of me is not excited about being able to put something on my resume besides food service jobs. Mostly I am excited because this is stuff that I am good at, and interested in, and passionate about. I feel a renewed sense of vigor, and purpose, and a bit less anxious about the future. Of course, this opportunity, assuming everything works out, will conclude at the end of the summer. But there will be plenty of time to worry about the future then, eh?

When I got home from my "interview" (aka coffee date with Jenny, the head gardener for BB), perhaps in celebration, I potted up some herb seedlings to liven up our windowsills. I don't know if they will all survive because they had been suffering for a while in their little seed pod-lets, but at least now they have a chance.

ps- you can check out my organization here http://www.bountifulbrookline.org/

You are what you Love

Olive trees and windmills in the town.
Strange powerful wind with names and faces too many to count.
Smelly ride north (El Jadida) 60dh. Please keep light and air flowing to keep clarity growing, give thanks for bus rides and vacations;
grilled fish moments usually only alive in wish given depth and weight free of time constraint.
Rather it is granted to contemplate, working thought into filament splice with heartstringlined motion of feelings that overwhelm the ways of men.
broken magnifying glasses, life refuse of the night bus high and driving, line the pavement.

Mm hmm I want to linger (on), mm hmm a little longer. Make me fried eggs though the day and let the humdrum cradle my mind into the dark for tonight will be the night that we begin to ease the plugs out of the dam. Precious souls are comforted to sleep; others find clarity in its absence ̶ the drug of the screen’s fakesenseofillingconnection;
some find comfort in themselves with back scraped by rocks shelves.
Just sail belly up to the clouds breath and pulse and seethe and loosen the flood gate and be, the vessel. The sand and wind and fog buffet, they infiltrate between thought and expression to the most dear scale space and plate.

Clear the scraps palm the rudder ̶ we can find the way back under behind maps a place built by thoughts at work cemented with power potential and poise of deepfeel.

(Can you tell me the way home?)

Through the Window

I can smell fall through the window. It is creeping in to revive my sniffly nostrils. It comes and goes in waves, like my anxiety about the future.

As much as we bitched about the foliage tourists, we were just as guilty as them. The brash self-confidence of youth removes itself from the range of its own criticism. The weekend whirls in my mind, an extemporaneous exercise in escape from 'the city.' Returning to Russell Pond, where my family camped when I was a wee lad, brought memories of tang and Salamander hunts, leaking tents and water-tight spirits, coleman stoves and long drives, family, fun, and the idyllic natural getaway of the New Hampshire woods. Hiking most of Mount Lafayette just to escape the tree line, feel the icy rime of the Alpine zone, and see the view, was as taxing as it was rewarding. Leaving on Sunday night was a good idea, for we all had "lots of stuff" to do today. Also, the desire to avoid more leave-hunters was mutual.

I slept until noon:20 today, very soundly and restfully. One single night in a tent will make you fall in love with your bed again. One night in the woods will make your mind wander,make you question the importance of your cell phone, and make it hard to focus on your computer screen. One trek in the company of Brendan will help you identify Moose tracks and excrement, the difference between a Balsam Fir and an Eastern Hemlock, and the many forest microclimates that your feet take you through in a surprisingly short time. One whiff of the mountain stream that ambled along besides our trail will leave you wanting more. Or rather, how fortunate we were that our path wove through the trees alongside this majestic babbling brook, whose allure attracted the trail and who will outlive the trail, and ourselves.

The tree I see through my window rides the wind with style and grace, its green leaves rustle alongside the maple leaves that extend from the other tree, in the corner of the yard. Some of the maple leaves are tinged red or yellow, preparing to shed themselves in preparation for the winter. They are preparing for a great graceful fall down to the rectangle of fenced-in ground that we call the backyard. Such a great sacrifice deciduous leaves make for their trees. Perhaps that is part of the appeal of New England's fall foliage, some appreciation of such a brazen calculated strategy crucial for winter survival. The cycle of life turns on, and removed in the comfort of my elaborate shelter, I watch it through my window.

Blister

How long will it take me to walk across the United States all alone?

When the world caves in whatcha gonna do?

and how long would it take you to forget me? what about all of the pictures, where do they get filed?

How many times can the same idea be conveyed with words rearranged, thesaurus consulted, lick stamp stick send, repeat?

Live in the present? instant gratification?

Where does everything we learn go? What shelves do memories and words dwell on? does dewey have enough decimals for all of the times passed?

Books are a poor substitute for the human touch; can't we all have both?

9.15.10

Today is Saturday, September 25th, the year 2010, and I can't remember the last time I won a raffle. Before sunday, that is, when I won a basket of goodies from the Meat House and a book about gardening anywhere! Winning the raffle was great, and the tour of Brookline's Edible Gardens was even better.

Bountiful Brookline, a one and a half year old non-profit organization working to create/improve a sustainable local food system in Brookline, put on this tour of 8 private and community gardens around town. It was incredible and inspiring to see the ways that people are growing food, especially so much of it in such small areas. For example one gentleman has, over the course of many years and with the help of jerry-rigged poles, ladders, and frames, coaxed grape vines up the outside front two stories of his house! Another lady used the shafts from her daughter's old crew oars to make 10 foot tall bean trellises. There is also a 200 foot commuter garden along a strip of fence (around 99 Kent Street, Brookline, Ma), which started as an art installation/beautification project last year. It is tended and watered by rotating volunteers, and signs encourage anyone passing by to take a tomato or a cucumber, as long as you leave some for the rest of us.

All these examples show how you can grow food pretty much anywhere with some love and dedication. Intensive cultivation, in terms of labor and natural inputs required, produces much bounty per unit of land (or porch, fence, house, etc.). Polyculture and polycropping of complementary species, basically mimicking nature in the diverse variety of her landscapes, is where it is at.

I just returned from a fundraiser for the very same organization that I mentioned above. As part of the 30th birthday of Whole Foods, we were collecting 5 bucks a head for a tasty lunch and recruiting support for BB. Also, if anyone can get to Whole Foods Brighton on October 13 5 percent of the store's total sales will go to Bountiful Brookline. Spread the word and shop for a good cause!

Life here at 12 Verndale Street is going well. The community we have created here is something very special, in my opinion, especially considering our collective lack of cooperative living experience (only one girl had previously lived in a coop house). There is always something going on, someone to share your daily highs and lows with, and something delicious on the stove or the countertop. I have said it before and I will say it again: I am happy here. It is an upgrade from my last living situation in so many ways, and I am so glad that we went through with this grand experiment. I will also remind any readers that they are welcome to visit us anytime, especially for a family dinner sunday-thursday.

sunday: 50 mile bike ride through Boston!

The free beer tasting at the Harpoon Brewery last friday was quite enjoyable, but getting there and back with Matty P was even more so. The beauty is in the process, the journey, and sometimes the event itself is just a room full of strangers scrobbling for free beer (myself included, of course).

On tuesday I had to report to the Brooke Courthouse in downtown Boston. I was there to pay a fine from last fall when I was cited for trespassing on the Boston Commons. We were sleeping out in tents to protest the fact that our homes and dorms were powered by dirty (coal-fired) electricity, but apparently the Police weren't sypmathetic to our cause. But the citation is now magically off my record! The magistrate who handled us informed us that we were lucky because homeless people get arrested for this sort of thing. Hooray for being a priviledged white kid!

Court is a somewhat scary place, though I must say my overall experience was expeditious. This was all I could ask for, especially after hearing stories of long days spent twidling thumbs on uncomfortable benches. Or maybe that is just how I picture court. It was very easy to tell the people who were at work from those who would have probably much rather spent their tuesday morning doing other things. Not to imply that all lawyers love going court; I'm pretty sure some of them do, but I really have no idea. I imagine it is a job like any other with good days and bad, eager and enthusiastic lawyers as well as feet-dragging apathetic lawyers.

I will leave you all with a passage, from Ecclesiastes 3, that my dear Mommy shared with me recently:

"To everything there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down and a time to build up;
A time to weep and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing..."