The last 2 years (Part 1)

So, to bring this blog up to speed, I will give a short account of my life in the last two years, leading up to where I am now... (in two installments).

I.

As I returned to my Boston home, taking in that beautiful, sad, heart-warming (the outpouring of love for my Mom was quite something), profound experience… I had a lot of food for thought.

At the time, I was reading ‘In Defense of Food’ by Michael Pollan [link here to poem, reading list – coming soon!!], and it meant that I was quite literally very aware of food, and the ways we eat it, at that time. Friends of our family (and people from our Quaker community) brought us big, hearty, delicious meals – and my entire family, for the first time in years (well - ever really, if you include all the grandchildren and daughters-in-law that my Mom had acquired, as well as the aunts and uncles and our grandparents!) was able to enjoy many of them all together. My Mom felt present in a way that she hadn’t for some time, as she always cooked and prepared for those occasions – and loved them. The whole experience… felt quite wholesome, and made me less afraid of dying. If you have lived a good life, been true to your self and others, and loved well. These things, I realized, were the most important.

In thinking about being true, I realized that I was not happy at my job at that time, and really wanted to move on from it. I began jobhunting….needless to say nothing panned out right away… and then, after a little over a year of interviewing with no success, and realizing that I was not increasing my chances of getting the job I wanted by staying in the one I had - I decided that I didn’t just need a new job; I needed an exit strategy.

I have a condo that I bought when I moved up here from Virginia, about three and a half years ago. There was green space behind it when I bought it, that was taken away just weeks later by the management company, acting supposedly on behalf of a couple of owners who wanted to build a parking lot. My heart went out to the green creatures that were buried under the gravel that got laid down, but thankfully the parking lot hasn’t happened. It’s a long story (read more here - link to Lorax story coming soon!), but I met some other owner occupants and we’ve been doing what we can to fight it, through the City of Boston and its process (the work was in violation of City code).

Meanwhile, I became active in a local group working for green and open spaces in my area of Boston: The Allston Brighton Green Space Advocates (check out the ABGSA Facebook page here). And I gained certification as a ‘Master Urban Gardener’ through the Boston Natural Areas Network (BNAN)’s ‘MUG at Home’ program. For the latter I needed a home garden to work with, and, tired of the weeds, and having nothing but one nice tree (a dogwood, guerilla-gardened into the otherwise bleak landscape) behind my condo to work with, I figured that it could only be improved! I got the help of some other residents and owners, and the urban garden was begun! We got some freebies from BNAN events and friends, and some things cheap from plant sales… and figured that at least we could enjoy the back a little more for a while, even if it was doomed to be mowed down.

Still, after all that, I realized (back to my exit strategy… !) that having a mortgage was tying me down to a job that I didn’t really enjoy, that felt lacking in purpose and meaning in the lives of the people I was helping. Gardening was feeling a lot more enjoyable, and purposeful… SO. I needed to not worry about my mortgage, and I needed to have a date when I was going to be done with my job. And a dream - an idea, of what I would go and do, that felt entirely exciting and fun, and could also help me get the kind of job I wanted.

That meant I had to prepare to sell my apartment, set a date for departure from my unfulfilling job, and figure out what I would do next. I realized, in thinking about it, that I wanted to combine my love of cross-cultural, experiential learning – with my love for and newfound expertise in gardening, and working (in positive ways) and connecting with the natural world. It was going to be an exciting (= scary!), adventurous, complete leap of faith…