Vacating

Returning home from vacation can arguably be just as good as being on vacation.  That satisfaction of being back at home base.  Looking forward to routine and familiarity.

Well, living in Buckeye, in Cleveland, OH, does not necessarily provide that same scenario.  On second thought, maybe it does, but the familiarity and routine that one can rest upon is the routine of constant change.  Things are so very much in flux here.  The scene of people can be radically different, the feel on the street, what the activity level is like- all as variable as the weather these days & moderately as unpredictable.

Upon returning home this time, we discovered that the neighbors at the back of the lot, the ones I had written about on the "which path are you on" post, the family, had been evicted from their house.  But not only had they been evicted, but their landlord must have decided that it was cheaper to take all of their possessions- including their mattresses, dressers, clothing, shoes, trash, furniture- and drag it out of the house, through their backyard, through the opening in the fence, and dump it all in the back of the lot & behind the abandoned house.

Perhaps it was the compost bins that we had recently set up that were the most striking.  Here was a place that has intention to collect the waste and recycle it back into something useful for society.  In many ways, the compost bins filled with our neighbors clothes and trash from their kitchen, showed the real waste with which our society is dealing.
 Yes, this compost will eventually hold food scraps and grass clippings and cut-up leaves - even old newspapers; but at this moment it is filled with the remnants of, what seems to be what some consider, a disposable population.  It is shocking to see the extent of brutality and violence that is so common place in the lives of people here.  That this sort of way of treating each other is almost acceptable and perhaps even expected, because no one is held accountable, is unfathomable where I am from (what I hadn't realized before about where I am from was that though this sort of violence happening in Buckeye- though I never witnessed before, was a violence necessary to happen in order to keep the "peace" I experienced growing up in a white suburb.)  Maybe I am naive to think another way is possible.  Despite how nonchalant and even-keel the kids, the former residents of the house, seem when I see them on the street and ask them about what happened, I feel in my gut that part of them must wish that things were different.  It is too sad to imagine otherwise.

Whatever the case, The compost bin isn't for trashing things- aka dumping and burying in the earth as a giant pile - hiding your waste while it leaks toxic substances.  The compost bin is for repurposing, recycling, and transformation.  In that same vein, I don't plan to trash my neighbors' old possessions, cover where it had been with a layer of dirt and bury away the experience of witnessing such violence in my mind.  I plan to take this experience and recycle it in my mind.  Transform it into a greater vision.    With this garden lot there will always be an understanding that to be an urban gardener here in Cleveland, OH is to constantly encounter the brutalities and realities of the current society and capitalist system.  Hopefully, one day this image too will be transformed into disposing of resources and instead creating ones for the community.  With that hope, goodnight.