https://www.terrain.org/2023/nonfiction/a-rewilding/
"Dear America,
I think I might be a weed.
A weed is any plant that dares show its face in an unexpected place without the
gardener’s express permission. A weed takes up space that belongs to the tea
roses, sucks up water and nutrients meant for perpetually hungry heirloom
tomatoes. Weeds are ugly: too tall, too thick, sloppy, disorganized, utterly
devoid of charm. We are fecund hussies, as well: setting seed so copiously that
if we manage to get a foothold in your yard, this time next year, all our
kinfolk is sure to move in next door, play loud music at odd hours, barbecue in
the driveway, ruin the neighborhood ambiance, and drive down property values.
Twenty-plus years ago, I fetched up, a newly minted Ph.D. in southern Illinois
suburbia, not because 1,300 square feet of a 1970s suburban ranch house was my
dream home, but because the 120-foot by 90-foot lot was fenced for my dog. The
roof didn’t leak, its concrete slab wasn’t cracked, and the monthly mortgage
payment was less than my student loan payment. I bought it, and told myself,
“Self, just thank God for small favors.”
The neighborhood, at the time, consisted mostly of working-class retirees. It
looked (and still looks) the way baby formula looks. And tastes. It’s white.
Very white. But its whiteness has never been my primary objection. My objection
has always been its grinding architectural and landscaping homogeneity. The
homes are neat-as-pins ranches tucked on professionally fertilized and
manicured lawns. The landscaping consists of cookie-cutter foundation shrubs,
featuring obligatorily sterile flowering specimen trees, or perhaps a
fast-growing shade tree dying of the power company’s arboreal butchery. The
trees and shrubs, all of them, are trademarked versions of about two dozen
species that many homeowners and most gardeners know by name.
The one saving grace, I believed, about moving to Similac suburbia was the
opportunity to plant a vegetable garden, some raspberries, and dwarf plum
trees. I remember my grandmother’s plum trees. She was a stern, deeply unhappy
woman who certainly loved hard but did not always do so kindly. Rather, she
communicated love in the products of her own manual labor. And she was a
gardener’s gardener. As a toddler I would ride on her hip through the garden,
skin tingling from the heat of the sun. She would reach up, pluck a plum from
one of her trees and hold it to my mouth. I would just gum, gnaw, and suck.
Plum juices burst from behind that blue-black skin to pour hot liquid summer
down my throat. That’s what her love tasted like. I wanted to give that love to
my child. To myself."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
