I've been thinking a lot lately about the contrast of this lush, green landscape and the desert of my childhood. After some eighteen years I'm fully acclimated, more Southern than Western. I've taken on the identifying marks of another tribe and abandoned my former allegiance. Or have I? Nothing's ever black and white, it would be easier if it were. Truth is, I mourn the loss of those untamed places of my youth. It's beautiful here but there's a certain complication that comes with this beauty. Take our lawns and gardens for instance, they must be constantly maintained in order to keep the ever steady approach of bamboo, wisteria, and other clinging vines at bay. In the desert our gardens were equally beautiful, but in a wild sort of way. Vegetation strong enough to endure the heat and dry months would flourish when the rainmaking clouds returned. And out of a kind of respect we allowed our gardens to become what nature would make them, not what weeding and hoeing and fertilizing could make them.
It's so much more than just how a garden grows. And I haven't got the fancy words to explain it. Maybe it's all to do with this change of career, going from government work to an organic kitchen. I've come to understand things about myself I didn't know before. Simple things mostly, but profound in curious ways. Strange how long it takes to grow up. Terrifying how little we can do to reverse the affects of mistakes made along the way.
In the first few moments of waking I almost remember who I am. But one step into this damp, green world and it's lost again.
5:10 p.m. - 2005-04-25
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