Domestic Projects: The Abandoned Garden

Besides cleaning toilets, yard work is my least favorite thing to do, mostly because yard work, like cleaning toilets, is a never ending job. Grass is a pernicious weed that always needs mowing and is good for next to nothing. But if you don't keep the grass manicured, then neighbors complain and municipalities get involved.  I have one neighbor who mows maybe twice a season; the neighbor on the other side mows twice a day.

The truth is, I'm not a good homeowner. I'm just

not. manicuring lawns that serve no purpose other than giving me something to do and judge my manhood by hold no interest for me. It's not for the lack of trying. The futility of it drives me crazy. It's reflective of the futility of middle class pretensions, the futility of the so-called American Dream, the futility of living a life defined by a collective notion of success that's convinced us we're exchanging time in our "working years" for a well-earned "rest" when our working days are done. It's chasing a commercial... a manicured, curated, and fabricated lie.

Lately, I'm starting to think there may be art in maintaining a relationship with the space where you live. As it happens, I've wandered into home ownership. Amanda and I have had fairly successful vegetable gardens in the past and we are going to take a run at it again this year.  I keep thinking, though, that there has to be more I can do with the bit of space I've been given stewardship over besides the bare minimum to keep the city off my back.

So I've decided to create a garden. A real one. But since I don't have piles and piles of disposable income around, I've got to do it on the cheap. 

I'm calling it The Abandoned Garden.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to posting sketches... probably not good ones, since I can't draw for shit... of my initial plans. My goal is to use materials we have on hand, things we can trade for, and materials that are other people's leftovers, or things that are found or abandoned.  My goal is a garden... and a yard... that is both beautiful AND functional -- and something representational of the life Amanda and I are building together.

The core of The Abandoned Garden project:

• a simple but well planned vegetable and herb garden;
• a rain garden along left fence;
• small red clover instead of grass; and
• a demarcated stone path.

We're also going to be tearing down the shed, which is barely a shed at this point, anyway.

I hope you keep reading and follow the journey. I'm starting with very little knowledge of the process, but I'm a good researcher and not afraid of work I care about. 

Poetry is found in all kinds places, in all kinds of forms. I hope you'll come along as we work to compose this one.

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A Tip for Traveling Well (Back in the Tall Grass)

Top of Iroquois Park, Louisville, KY: an Olmsted Designed Park

The top level of Iroquois Park in Louisville, Kentucky is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. It's only open to motor traffic one day a week, and most of the time it looks like the city has all but forgotten about it: tall grass, hidden brambles, vines, and flowers. The path through the tall grass eventually disappears and even though the earnest saunterer isn't that far from the road or from civilization, the wildness of the place takes hold and for a moment, it's possible to forget the nearness of  what has come to pass as civilization.


One of the blessings of my life is that such a place, and others like it, are so close to where I live. I've taken this for granted in the past because, well, my head wasn't quite turned right. I'd allowed myself -- with all the best intentions in the world -- to get distracted by work, by the demands of building a business that I built for what may have not been the best reasons, and by the trappings of a civilization and system that I'd spent years avoiding and actively fighting against.

But as I find myself back in the tall grass, having wandered off the marked path in favor one that I

have no choice to have faith in rather than the sure thing I can see, dictate, and, to a limited degree, control, I feel more free than I have in a long, long time. I was so busy trying to make up some kind of professional life after the one I loved (education) seemed to have left me behind... or, to be more accurate, filtered me out... that I missed the opportunity to really step off the path. Yes, I tried a few creative things until I put together some sort of business plan. But the business took all the energy and left me little room to breathe. And you may point out, Isn't that just the way it is?

No. It's the way I decided it was. That doesn't mean it was true. And no one had any control over it but me. I'd trapped myself in a maze of my own creation, with a monster of my own creation to whom I ceded all control of my life.

When I was finally able to see... or I was blessed with the chance to be able to see... what I was doing to myself, I knew that I had to get back to something basic:

PACK LIGHT.

On any journey, the things you carry are the things that can both help sustain you and make your life miserable. In some cases, the thing you're lugging around will kill you if you let it. So let go of what you don't need. Hang onto what sustains you.

The real bitch of it is that only you can figure out what those things are. But once you do, the tall grass is calling.

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