Symphony

I'm pretty much in love with the corner my house is on.

We had friends over for dessert last night to celebrate my roommate's new job, and most of the party was dominated by an outdoor church service in the park put on by the AME church across the street. That park, petite as it is, gets used for jazz concerts every Friday, not to mention regular Food Not Bombs distros, punk concerts and the occasional surprise New Orleans Jazz Band or loan violinist. There's also the daily energy of individual kids and summer camps that use the jungle gym, the guys that hang out and play cards and chess, and everybody else who moves through on foot, bicycle, or scooter.

The diverse use of the park is a good representation of the collisions and coexistance that go on in the neighborhood. Residents in the general area include radical puppeteers, fancy choclateers, Penn employees, aged Black Panthers, and retired singers who have travelled the world, not to mention families totally new to the block, collective houses, and folks that have been there for decades. The punky cafe and bike shop, and sligtly less punky yoga studio that proceeded the decidedly unpunk brew pup that's about to open up across the street, communicate some of that coexistance and change too.

As the gospel music was wrapping up, the local punk band started rehearsing. I'm not sure who or where they are, but they're close enough to be pretty loud. Their often-rehearsed big hit starts out with a lilting, almost waltzy violin intro, and then intensifies into deep gutteral singing and moaning.

The rumble and clatter of the trolley punctuated the violin along with the sounds of people out and about and kids shouting on a hot summer night, I thought about how sometimes, SOMETIMES, this kind of coexistance with a subtext of gentrification can be sustainable. I often feel like the second advance wave of change in a way that makes me sad and conflicted, but last night I felt like part of a pretty amazing, if cacaphonous, symphony.

Pack your bag and put down roots

My yellow pear tomatoe bit it big time. I don't know what happened. I was dutifully pulling off an above average mount of yellowing branches, and it seemed like it might make a recovery, but then I went away for Yearly Meering and came back and it was nearly dead. The other tomatoes are doing ok though, and the pepper is chugging along at a slow and steady pace. The basil plants look a little shell shocked, though. If they could talk I think they would say "Shit, it's hot!"

The lavender and rosemary are so, so happy however. They're like coy little kids lounging in their pots, happy with their good drainage and periodic seaweed fertilizer.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how to garden when you're in motion, when you're not settled, and have been trying to balance a strong desire to grow more permanent things -- asparagus, black berries, a fig tree -- and a profound feeling of unsettledness, like I can almost see a new adventure on the horizon.