Monday, May 18, 2015

Curmudgeon Lane or Community?

Which Do We Choose?
4.bp.blogspot.com

Suddenly atavistic and at the ready... Earth rips open; a train derails; grapefruit sized hail smashes through the ceiling of one's living room.

Awareness lurches from disengaged to heart-poundingly present, virtual to visceral.

Fear comes first. What on earth do we do with it?

Lash out? Control-freak family and neighborhood? Curl into a ball?

A relative lost a house roof to tornado and giant hail. No power, no water.

She and her little boy crouched in the teepee set up in his closet; wind whooshed around the house. The boy, brave munchkin, laughed at new experience. Wind roared louder; suddenly poof: no roof.

Trekker friends have been shaken by villages in Nepal, loved and held in memory, now buried by rock slide or avalanche. Prayer flags fluttering and enigmatic Buddha statues above the rubble.

What do we do about earthquakes, asteroids and coronal mass ejection, when we can do nothing?

Red-caped Superman may not soar out of a phone booth, but neighbors may emerge as community. Ready or not, what do we become, fear acknowledged and need around us?

Community has been much on my mind, and fear which may try to destroy connectedness.

I lived on a lane of predominantly wonderful neighbors, folks one could count on, two-footed gold.

One neighbor whose path stalked fear and violence essentially projectile-vomited those demons, his very own. He took to controlling and harassing the small community with nuisance lawsuits.

Saner neighbors paid up, hoping it would be enough. But, for fear-based existence, no thing is ever enough.

Two of us are leaving. Sane and kindly neighbors have already helped me to fertile valley, fruit trees and sound of bright water. A blessing rising out of the macabre of bad manners.

When dormant volcanoes come to life, how do we treat ourselves and one another?

My lane gone bad is a little story of fear turned outward and ugly.

A big story might be governments fearing loss of power and going rogue, unrestrained by law or decency.

Finally each of us will choose, to be neighbors or complicit snitches. What'll it be?

Today, I planted Hansa, a hardy Rugosa, fragrant, which forms great crimson rose hips in autumn. (See, "A Pocketful of Rose Hips" http://wayfaringtraveler.blogspot.com/2014_09_28_archive.html for recipes.)

To prepare the soil, my spading fork sank like butter into earth loved by a long-ago gardener, a quiet and enduring legacy.

I thought about the self-styled Lord of Wasteland on the lane, and of quick-buck-AgBiz, its cheap food and land laid waste.

That's one choice. The gardener I can never thank left me the richness of another.

southpeacearts.ca