"You shouldn't have to move to a different neighborhood 

in order to live in a better one."

I think about this statement often as I garden in this neighborhood.  A woman told Daniel that once while he was walking around East Cleveland, a very down-and-out black neighborhood hit very hard by the foreclosure crisis (I believe East Cleveland has been called "the foreclosure capital of the country")- Daniel had asked this older black woman how she liked her neighborhood- and that is what she said.  

I think about it a lot, because most people move to a different neighborhood in order to live in a better one.  It's related to "progress" and a way of ascending the social and economic ladder.  And yet, these places that get left are still there- the core of so many American cities, left to rot- or at least, left & neglected.  I know for sure that this country is struggling, economically, socially- in lots of ways, and it feels so essential that we look at the core of the issues we are facing.  It feels essential to make our neighborhoods a better one, rather than moving to live in a different one.  

Who knows if one day the City of Cleveland Division of Real Estate will have their dream and bulldoze this lot and build a house on it, like they are currently planning, but it very well may take them over a decade for that to happen- considering there is still an abandoned house rotting on the lot next to us.  Where is the capital for all these plans, I wonder.  Nonetheless, in the meantime, I plant vegetables, but to me, what's perhaps even more important to me, are the perennials flowers, herbs that grow like weeds, and the fertile soil I'm spreading all over this lot.  Because even if I must move one day because I can't grow my food here- or if it really isn't a safe place for us- or for who knows why exactly- I dream of the patch of jerusalem artichokes growing tall along the fence- bringing bright sunflowers in the late summer and fall by the cut-through entrance; and the mint growing wild, spreading into every crack, going to flower, purple flowers everywhere, with happy drinking bees; and the calendula orange and yellow making so many good insects happy- and people's eyes happy.  I think of the chamomile with its sweet little daisy flowers growing along with the wild pink clovers.  And I dream of that soil, with all its organic material, clinging to all the toxins, hugging the heavy lead, so that it can't fly into the air and hurt anyone anymore.  I hope with all my heart that I am making my neighborhood a better one, and I do sincerely hope that I don't feel I need to leave here one day because we need to live in a better one.