Last Friday, I had the pleasure of meeting Chris Condello in person, an urban farmer - gardener - magician - activist - mentor who lives on Whitney Avenue in Wilkinsburg. I mentioned him in a recent post. Chris and his landlady, Casey, took me on a tour of the street and the neighborhood nearby, showing me the work that Chris and his young neighbors had done together. As I told you earlier, Chris' street, Whitney Avenue, has about 10 abandoned houses out of 22 homes on the street. Chris told me that the word in town used to be - "Avoid Whitney Avenue at all costs." It was seen as one of the most dangerous areas in Wilkinsburg. Chris showed me houses where formerly broken or boarded up windows are now covered with colorful murals painted on boards by an art group and kids on the street. He and friends keep all the abandoned yards mowed, and have planted flowers and vegetables around the houses. The lots behind and beside Chris' rented apartment have been transformed into Eden - apple trees, more varieties of tomatoes and zucchini and basil than I ever knew existed, grapes, berries, onions, herbs, flowers, swiss chard, pumpkins. Under the supervision of Chris' young neighbor, Brandon, kids from the street work in the garden and often can be seen sampling the fruits of their labors. They also sell some of the produce at a stand on the front porch of one of the empty houses.

The peace garden, above, was built by Chris and others on the corner of a block where a young man was murdered. Again, the community came together to work on this, and continues to maintain it.

I will tell only a tiny bit of Chris' story, because I really want you to visit his blog yourself and, if you are in Pittsburgh, to meet him in person. Chris told me about his decade-long heroin addiction that was so bad that his family lived with a constant fear of a phone call announcing either his death or arrest. He said to me that he has put so much bad karma out there in his life that he is trying to return as much good karma as he can. I asked Chris if he considered his garden and neighborhood work to be part of his recovery. His response - "It IS my recovery!" On Friday, before he left to install a water heater in a neighbor's home, Chris gave me some zucchini and onions, which we added to our own tomatoes, radishes, and lettuce for a good meal that night.  

I encourage you to read today's post on Chris' blog for a sense of the substantive work that he is doing and the leadership he is demonstrating. In short, Chris' helpers discovered that some other kids had wrecked the garden, throwing veggies around and tearing things up. The police were called, the kids were found, and, under adult supervision, the kids gathered up the ruined vegetables and put them in the composting bin. It is touching that the young boys who had helped to grow the garden told the other kids that they had trashed food that would cost a lot of money in the grocery.

The only word that I can think of to describe an experience like this - to describe what Chris does in general - is love (Chris, don't know if you agree or not - but that's how I see it!). Love, laced with generosity, forgiveness, accountability, and responsibility. Not bad. I know Chris does not consider himself a saint, however - he acknowledged feeling frustrated when people don't always pitch in to take care of the flowers that beautify the street. But the generosity, enthusiasm, and caring are what came through when I listened to Chris.

Michael and Leah's wedding is almost upon us! It will truly be a celebration with so many families and friends gathered together to bless this union. Leah and Michael have love - lots of it. They are patient with one another, generous, forgiving, kind. This is a good way to start a life-time together. Please keep them - and Chris and his kids and friends - in your heart and prayers.

Pictures below - Leah and Mikey, and the garden and young gardeners via Chris' blog.

Home. Where is yours? Where do you feel safe, cared for, relaxed, able to be yourself? Where is your "place"? What makes it your special place?

My home is Pittsburgh, specifically the communities in the eastern part of the city - Regent Square, Squirrel Hill, Highland Park, East Liberty, Lawrenceville. These are wonderful communities, rich with history, striding confidently into the future with new ways of being together. 

What makes this place my home? I love the diversity of people and ideas and opinions that are here - I love seeing the bodacious bumper stickers on the cars, the older citizens who steadfastly stand at the four corners of the Forbes and Braddock intersection on Saturday mornings to protest the war, the quirky local restaurants, the vibrant houses of faith that serve their congregations and the larger community, the parks and the rivers. I love the friends that I have in this place who share many of my values and ideals, and who vociferously disagree with me on others.

My house is part of this home. It was built in 1929 and has had, I believe, four owners since that time. It is a sturdy bungalow, built for another time with its very tiny closets, built-in bookshelves, scarred wooden floors. It has a tiny yard which is just big enough for a garden of radishes, lettuce, tomatoes, zucchini. My house is part of my home because it provides shelter and comfort for me and my loved ones. Last winter, Michael brought his fiancee Leah to my home and invited his high school buddies over to introduce them to Leah (by the way, the wedding is 11 days away!). I have known these boys-men for most of my son's life - yes, he invited only his guy friends, with whom Leah more than held her own - I left them at the dining room table around 11 pm, and went to sleep on a cloud of happiness, knowing that these people who are so important to my son were gathered in this home to celebrate Michael's next step in life.

Of course, my family is also part of my home, my place, even when they are geographically removed. Around my house are Julie and Michael's art projects, books, toys, photos, gifts, cards.... pieces of their lives and spirits that are shared with me, that find a home in my house. My home is shared with Steve a good part of the time - filled with his generosity, humor, and kindness.

Poet Gary Snyder says - "Find your place on the planet. Dig in and take responsibility from there.” I have found my place. I identify with my home - my house, my neighborhood, my city, my family. It is part of me, and I see myself as part of this home. I feel an allegiance to my home, a sense of ownership beyond the financial property sense - a sense of responsibility to it. My home includes both property owned by me and the more important commons - that which is accessible to all, not privately owned. I will protect it, take care of it, improve it. 

The Earth is also my home - this planet with all of its natural beauty and chaos, side-by-side with human-made technology and structures both wonderful and terrible. I try to stay connected and present to all parts of this home, as well as my smaller home, so that I am aware of how it is feeling and doing. I feel loyal to this much larger home. I have a sense of responsibility to care for it, not to hurt it, to heal its brokenness. I know that I am part of this larger home - embedded in it and dependent upon it - so that what is good for this larger Earth home is in the end good for me and my loved ones.

Tell us about your homes.

Eric Sanderson is a landscape ecologist who has worked for over a decade to try to discover what the island of Manhattan looked like 400 years ago - with flora and fauna that were relatively undisturbed by modernity. Through historical research and sophisticated computer geo-referencing techniques, he and his colleagues have been able to map out what the island landscape might have looked like when Henry Hudson arrived in the New World. They have re-created visions of what the "habitats" of the original island dwellers, animal and human, might have been - the habitats that provided food, shelter, water, and reproductive resources for the Native Americans and animals that first populated this area. 

Sanderson's renderings show us the original natural wealth of this island that today is so densely populated and concretized. His work is not meant to make a judgment about the Manhattan of today vs the Mannahatta of centuries ago. The work does, however, provide food for thought about how humans might live more sustainably in the future - it portrays one option of a dense, tall city that houses millions of people side-by-side with farmland and woods that have been restored. The landscape architecture students in class tonight suggested that this might be one way to handle things if transportation between large cities and far-off farmlands, or between suburbs and food sources, becomes too costly for the average person or community.

As we talked tonight about what it might be like to move from a relatively large suburban dwelling with a green yard into a super-high-rise dwelling with smaller residences and lots of people close-by, we bumped up against uncomfortable feelings. We often associate the "American dream" with independence, large spaces, privacy, private ownership, freedom to move and be at will. This dream is supported by our institutions and our economy, by the advertisements coming from Madison Avenue. What would it be like to live so differently? (I know that many people already do live this way!) 

I don't have answers for anyone else, but I do recognize my own discomfort when my "space" is cramped. As I traveled to West Virginia for the March on Blair Mountain, it occurred to me that I was moving a little outside of my comfort zone. For a couple of days, I would be following someone else's (strangers') schedules for activities, mealtimes, transportation, and so on. I would be outdoors for much of the time, with no car nearby in case it rained, or I got hungry, or I got bored. Moving into even the one day of marching made me realize how protective I am of my own time and space and movement - such a privileged and sheltered life I lead. 

So how was it? To be honest, it probably helped that I knew the experience would last only a day or so, that there was an end-point in sight - that helped for sure. I have to say, however, that the mild discomforts that I did experience, the heat, the waiting, the fatigue (good grief, what a wuss I sound like!) were far outweighed by my experience of being part of something bigger than myself and by watching all of the wonderful people who came together for this cause.

I occasionally get emails from a Pittsburgh environmental group - Transition Pittsburgh - one of many local groups of very cool people who are trying to better the world one garden, one project at a time. Today, I read about Chris Condello, a resident of Wilkinsburg, a pretty poor community nearby - poor in economic terms, that is. For example, on Chris' block, 10 out of 22 houses are abandoned. He and others are transforming this community vacant lot by vacant lot - planting vegetables and flowers in a variety of public spaces, gathering the neighborhood kids in and teaching them how to wield a spade and to sell the lettuce they grow. Wilkinsburg, in the middle of Pittsburgh - maybe not super-high-rise buildings but definitely urban - greening up with all hands on board. 

I think about Chris' work - it takes courage to step out into the public, out of our private spaces, to engage with relative strangers and create something new, something that has no certain outcome. It takes courage to offer help to and to ask for help from people you don't yet know well. I hope to visit the Whitney Avenue Garden in Wilkinsburg and to talk with Chris about the project. I wonder if projects like this can be transformed for Sanderson's futuristic Manhattan - the extra tall city with farmland all around. Can this kind of community-building work there? Can we get used to living closer together, sacrificing some personal space and time for the common good? Would our lives have a different kind of meaning - a different definition of "the good life" or "happiness" under these circumstances? What do you think?

Derecho de no Migrar - the right to stay home. One question might be - which home? Remember these posts? Jose Antonio Vargas and the morning-after follow-up? Here are some follow-ups to the follow-up... as always, please chime in.

In this NPR story, Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, believes that Jose Antonio Vargas should go back to the Philippines. His thinking is that, although Jose was a child when he arrived in the US, he was an older child of 12 whose identity had already been formed as a Filipino. In Krikorian's mind, the movement to grant amnesty for immigrants who arrived here illegally as children would therefore not really apply to Jose. Krikorian also pointed out a difference between someone who is undocumented and someone who has used illegal documents (Jose falls in the latter category). What do you think? Where is Jose's "home"?
 
On another note, I read some interesting news about the changes that are being noted in numbers of immigrants, undocumented or documented, from Mexico. NY Times writer Damien Cave reports that the number of people coming to the US from Mexico has significantly decreased in the last few years. He cites many different causes for the change -- which are interconnected in complex ways. First, the birth rate and average number of children per family has significantly dropped. What might that mean? Parents in families with fewer children are better able to financially support their children, teens, and young adults through hard times. In addition, there are more educational and occupational opportunities in Mexico, and living conditions have improved - AND, related in part to the economic situation in the US, the difference between wages that could be earned in the US and those that could be earned in Mexico has shrunk. Remember David Bacon's story about "the right to stay home"? Sounds like more families are able to do that. Two other factors at play - democracy has strengthened in Mexico in the last decade and the  processes required to legally visit or move to the US have been simplified. Check out Cave's online article for details, and also for some cool interactive features.

It is a complex world we live in, eh?

Just started teaching a new class - Psychology and the Environment. We are about 20 students strong - about 2/3 master's counseling psych students and about 1/3 landscape architecture students. I know very little about landscape architecture as a profession but how neat is this? The American Society of Landscape Architects has the following statement in the preamble to its ethical code: 

The policies established by the Board of Trustees relative to environmental stewardship, quality of life, and professional affairs are summarized in the ASLA Code of Environmental Ethics. Members should make every effort to enhance, respect, and restore the life-sustaining integrity of the landscape and seek environmentally positive, financially sound, and sustainable solutions to land use, development, and management opportunities.

I am looking forward to learning more, so stay tuned. Next up, I think - all about sustainability.

In 1973, I was invited to be part of a colloquium panel at Transylvania University - the topic was something related to changing social, familial, and sexual behavior. The question I was to address was whether the changes we were seeing in the mid-60s to mid-70s in the US were evidence of a social revolution. 

At that time, it certainly seemed that things had been turned topsy-turvy. There were frequent allusions to the generation gap, the sexual revolution, the decline of the family. Certain previously disenfranchised groups (people of color, women) were gaining a little more power, rights, and respect. Some of the silent people were finding their voices. 

Based on my limited memory, the 1973 cultural landscape looked different than it had when I was a young child. So were these changes revolutionary? Today, I don't know how in the world I thought that I was qualified to answer this question - I don't feel qualified to do so now. Keep in mind that in 1973 I was all of 20 years old, and that all I knew was what I had lived - a middle-class middle-sized life in the middle of Kentucky! And yet, I somehow gamely took it on.

My response then, as I recall, was that the changes, while perhaps experienced by individuals as revolutionary, were not evidence of a social revolution. A true revolution involves forcible overthrow of all aspects of an established society or government, and a replacement of what is overthrown with something new and markedly different. Power changes across the board are felt. Decisions are made using significantly different processes. New institutions replace old ones. A revolution, in my mind, is an intentional act, a focused movement resulting in pervasive change. What we were experiencing in 1973 felt more like social evolution, incremental changes within many populations and institutions that led to a sum greater that its parts - but these changes were occurring under the same government operating under the same Constitution.

Believe it or not, nerd that I am, I think about this question often as I watch what is going on around me, locally and globally. I think about it as I read and talk with others about environmental issues - climate change, global warming, sustainability, social justice. It feels like there is an accelerating rate of change on this earth in many areas - in information processing and sharing, in levels of consumption of material goods, in changes to the earth. 

Or is it my age, my stage of life, that makes me notice things in this way? I see bubbles of revolutions happening in different parts of the world - think of the spring of 2011 in the Middle East and Africa. But it all also seems gradual and incremental - an overthrow of a government does not result in the immediate establishment of the new government - there is lots to do to get there, if ever, if the old government does not come back and grab power.

In 2008, entrepreneur and environmentalist Paul Hawken wrote Blessed Unrest, his documentation of "the largest social movement in the world." He told stories of how millions of groups of people, from corporations to governments to small NGOs to community groups, were working to address the related issues of environment and social justice. Millions of groups and people across the world, not necessarily connecting with one another in any way, but nevertheless having significant impacts. I think of the recent March on Blair Mountain. Focused change, intentional effort - but not yet revolutionary in a large sense.

Others, like Bill McKibben for example, write about what will happen to the earth and human existence if energy policies, practices, and uses do not change - it is not pretty. Millions of people across the world are trying to do things differently, but the pace of change, of environmental degradation, is so rapid, that it might sometimes feel like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in it.

Are revolutionary acts required to mitigate or reverse climate change, to establish fully sustainable living practices that do not compromise the needs of future generations? What would those acts look like? Or will small but significant and cumulative changes make the difference - whether they be moving to local food production and distribution or dealing with corporate financial influence on the political process? Do individual actions matter? Can the small tremors caused by the millions of people involved in "the largest social movement in the world" result in a beneficent cultural earthquake? Evolutionary or revolutionary?

Another question - do hard changes come only when our backs are pushed to the wall? Like, when gas prices rise to $10/gallon - or when clean water is so scarce that communities fight over it. Or can we effect change when our lives are good?

I certainly don't have the answers. But I think about work done by Canadian psychologist Catherine O'Brien in 2008 about sustainability and happiness. She describes two conventional beliefs that present challenges to moving people toward more sustainable living - one, the belief that economic growth is synonymous with happiness and two, that consumption of material goods results in happiness. And I think about how pervasive these beliefs are in our culture and how they influence our daily thoughts and behaviors - mine included.

I don't think there are easy, black or white answers. I'm just thinking out loud and hoping to hear from others.

Oh. The radish. It's from my garden - just a little piece of my own tiny slow evolution - best eaten, according to Steve's mom, with a little butter, coarse salt, and a crusty baguette.