Everything Must Be Remade

Sometime, in the garden or washing dishes, I hold onto certain phrases and, for the life of me, I cannot get them out of my mind.

"Everything must be remade" is the one that's been on me for months now. When I look at it, what my mind is really thinking that is, I can see it's really about the world being remade.

None of this comes as a surprise since some of my immediate family and friends have remade their lives, homeschooling, devoting themselves more to religious lives, etc. Somehow I've always skirted the issue of radical change, perhaps due to my Air Force Brat upbringing and always carrying a longing to "just get along", regardless of my personal feelings. (Perhaps I'm really Asian and was adopted into my family...)

As I look at the world around me and see in so many ways, what it's become, I do in fact realize what it could be, at least from a ecologist's standpoint.

Pulitzer prize winning author Jared Diamond wrote a book called Collapse, which studies how great societies fall into ruins. That book and that title have stuck with me. Especially in these times of incredible change. Will one of the world's richest and powerful countries overextend itself and end up in ruins? Is the world, in its global economy and global pollution, heading the wrong direction?

Well, some people say that you shouldn't wish for things you don't really want, and I guess the same could be said for thinking about things you don't really want. Over the last 6 months my office has undergone massive changes and, once again, I don't know if I'm in a good leadership role for it. I got a new manager in January, which was okay, as I know her really well and she knew what I did on a day-to-day basis. But then, 3 months ago, 50% of our HQ and 30% of the offices worldwide were cut. Friends I've know for years (10 years, some of them), were given severance packages and told to clean out their desks. It was heartbreakingly awful I mean, I realize business is just a reflection of what's going on in the world, but to have it all fall down after so many years of working together was in so many ways, more than my heart could bear.

Three months later, the whole company is being reorganized and my manager now is someone across the country and I'm not quite sure what my role is in this first week of the reorganization. Sadly, lots of people are confused over the details and the unknown is making everyone frustrated and nervous.

But here it is exactly: the old way wasn't working and everything has to be remade. People who did one thing will now do another. Certain ways of doing things will have to be rethought. There will be retraining.

My old boss, who is exceptionally smart, told me that with change like this, you can either just ride the wave under the radar, or use the opportunity to do something you really love. The problem I see with this is if what I start doing what I love, if it doesn't jibe with what the company loves, I'm going to be out of a job at a terrible, terrible time. But if change was easy, or if everyone could do it, the world would look a lot different than it does now, I suppose.

We know how evolution works, correct? The environment changes and whoever is adapted best to that change flourishes. This is really no different, except that this change can be exasperating, especially for people like me, who aren't incredibly comfortable with it. But then again, it's time to say goodbye to what was and move onto the next thing. I've done it before. When we moved into this house 14 years ago, I knew little to nothing about gardening. Now I take care of hundreds of plants on a small 1/8 an acre using less water than people with 4x that acreage using no pesticides or fertilizer. It's all possible. We've learned to live with less water, use less electricity and gas, create a compost pile, go organic, invite animals into our yard to live, and grow native plants in our yard.

It's not bad.

But even though this change at work isn't like working in a garden (the aloe doesn't complain when I cut in back by a third and the squirrels don't bitch when I move their feeder), I think I can do this.

If I really want the change, I'm going to have to.

Fairly Corny

Though I grew up in Nebraska (from 11 to 22), I never grew my own corn.

Being the son of two Philadelphia natives, I was taught to not even think that much about it, as it paled in comparison to Sweet Jersey Corn. According to my parents, anyway.

We've grown corn in our own little sad way for a few years now, only getting three or four pieces from the stalks. Yes, we are not farmers. We're not even really good gardeners. We are Frustrated, Puzzled, and Many Times Amazed Gardeners.

Ryan's so proud of the ones pictured up top, and he should be, as he grew them from seed.

What's so strange to me is how much we are taught about this stuff when we are young and how faded it becomes in adulthood. Every classroom I visit seems to be hatching eggs, growing beans, or releasing butterflies, yet we moved as a society farther and farther away from nature and agriculture. I don't really have an opinion whether moving away from the family farms is good or not, there's so many valid points on each side, but nature has become such a valuable part of my life (and seems to be a valued part of a student's education) I'm surprised to find so many adults are more caught up in the current state of American Idol rather than what's going on in the world which we are so much a part of.

I shouldn't be shocked, especially considering I've worked at jobs (TV, Marketing) intended to distract people from reality in a sense.

I still have so many thoughts outside while gardening and I often sit up and think, "Hell, I should go in and blog about this," but I usually don't.

The other day I had a mild revelation about this.

I was weeding Wendy's Garden (lavender, roses, herbs) and I got an idea to blog about. I was going to get up, but something stopped me. I looked up and saw the hummingbird at the feeder, I heard the songs and chirps of the birds in the distance, and I looked, from ground level at this beautiful world all around me and I realized this place, right here, right now, was where I wanted to be. So often I spend time on my place to somewhere else or thinking of somewhere else, like a G.I. on the Greyhound Bus headed home after war.

I haven't had that feeling in such a long time, and it really seems, as adults with so many responsibilities, we move further and further away from this kind of peace.

Speaking of which, the children are finally coming out to the office and Wendy is up and getting her first cup of coffee. It's time to post this puppy and go back inside.