Sugar and Dirt
I want to write about the satisfaction of gardening. Not that I’ve experience any vast quantities of said pleasures, but today I witnessed the possibility.
Tending soil, pulling weeds, learning the flora, today was my first day working with GRUB. A local volunteer organization focused on organically Growing Resourcefully [and] Uniting Bellies. Driven by dedication and donation GRUB has already started six gardens, most of them in the backyards of generous community members. More gardens are planned, and there is already a long list of people who want to volunteer their time, land, or other resources. Eventually, the food grown will be distributed amongst those who donated, and other community members who subscribe (as with a CSA).
I’m excited to use my bike to deliver hay and trowels and vegetables. I’m excited to dig trenches and to arrange rows of broccoli and okra. I’m excited to be amongst people who work towards a solution.
My last post wasn’t very constructive, and again I find myself torn. On one hand I can look at something like that Vogue article and say “well, they’re doing it all wrong! There are much more effective actions they could promote, such as vegetarianism or having fewer children or giving up your car or seizing control of a government that sells out it’s own population!” I can get really frustrated. If it’s not part of my solution, then it looks like part of the problem.
But on the other hand, at least Vogue is talking about it. It may be under the pretext of advertisements and fashion, but neither of those are indelibly stained as evil. If progress is to be made I don’t actually believe it must begin with violent revolution or industrial collapse. If the right changes are going to be made they must be committed by populations, not groups, not individuals. It may take longer and the path may be paved with the sellouts of green consumerism, but it’s still pointing in the right direction.
But. But. But.
When you talk about the destruction of ecosystems, or the planning of hundreds of new coal plants, or mountain top removal mining, or the inbreeding of the USDA and big agriculture, or the radioactive “national sacrifice” areas of the midwest, or the spread of indomitable GMO crops, or the constantly widening gap between the the rich and the poor, or the fact that my children will live in the world we’re all building today, who can afford to wait?