New Faces, Ideas, and Energies--and Knowing When My Role Has Changed

I swung through the decorated-for-Christmas doors of Home Depot, made a right and headed straight for the back of the store, to the rebar.  

I searched through the 1-foot metal bars, choosing the ones with neat cuts on the top so the thin-walled PVC pipe I had cut with my hydrolic cutters would fit easily over them as I constructed yet another little hoop house over one of my garden beds at home. 

Keeping the Garden Going in the Cold from Pattie Baker on Vimeo.


That brings me up to five productive, over-wintering beds, with lettuces, cilantro, arugula, rutabagas, radishes, bok choi, mizuna, kale, broccoli, mustard greens, leeks, and more, growing in them.  

But as I stood there, the smell of cedar and pine strong from the wood aisle (and knowing the difference between them now--their rates of weathering, their costs, their advantages and disadvantages), it hit me.  How much I've learned.  Rebar!  Hydrolic PVC cutters!  I even own a sledge hammer now.

I thought of my friend, Van, who helps harvest as part of Team Food Pantry, who said to me this week that he is surprised, as well, by how much he's learned.  

"What have you learned?" I asked him, and he paused a moment before replying, simply, "I've learned who I am."

And yesterday, there, in that store, and then as I spent the day visiting many of the gardens in which I've had a hand these past two years, I thought of his words.  

"I've learned who I am."

"I've learned who I am."

I kicked off my rounds at the Latin American Garden in Norcross, the remnants of tomatoes still evident, the poles still wrapped with bean vines. Twelve families, apparently, had tended this garden all summer for low-income children attending a camp. It is now cleaned out and cover cropped for winter.

At our new greenhouse operation, two of the eight food pantry beds are ready for their first harvest next week, in time for Thanksgiving.  

More than 20 pounds of lettuce heads and a variety of greens have been harvested from the St. Pat's garden already, most of it by the food pantry clients themselves.  

The Georgetown Community Garden has cute signs and other details that show it is clearly loved, and a food pantry bed still in production.  

The school garden bed which was recently converted to organic growing methods is exploding with crops, and more than one child has sampled lettuce and radishes for the first time in their lives, with turnips, carrots and broccoli soon to be ready.

The main Dunwoody Community Garden shows no sign of slowing with the seasons and, in fact, is more robust than it has been in awhile as many new members have recently gotten off the waiting list.  As I stood there yesterday, talking with Robert Wittenstein, a city councilor, about the soil results he just received back regarding Garden Isaiah, where he has somehow become one of the garden leaders, and Rod Pittman, our beloved gardening mentor, I didn't think of who I am.  I thought of who I am not.

I am not the person needed here anymore.  I have done my job.  I have, perhaps, served as a catalyst and connector.  I have planted seeds, literally and metaphorically.  

And now, there are new leaders.  

New faces.  

New ideas. 

New energies.

What's more, my suburb of Atlanta, which is the newest city in the United States, turns two years old December 1.  That is the day that it will be presented with a plaque honoring its achievement of Atlanta Regional Commission Green Communities certification (see A New Road for Dunwoody for a post from two years ago about this).  A team of folks, many of whom I don't even know, have completed the requirements for this after I left the sustainability commission in March to focus more on access for all to healthy food.  A city-specific sustainability plan is on the short-term work plan for 2011. Councilor John Heneghan just accepted an award for the city from PEDS called the Golden Shoe Award for making sidewalk construction a priority, especially near schools. Master plans for greenspace, parks, and several character areas include many sustainability attributes. 

Will the 2020 vision I imagined for this city a year ago right now come to fruition?  It's not in my hands.

And so my other blog, the one that has been holding up a mirror to the creation of a new city and the sustainable choices it chose to make or not make, has moved on to follow the larger Atlanta metro area instead, starting in the new year.  Atlanta's new mayor, Kasim Reed, has made a commitment to move Atlanta into a top ten spot on the list of the most sustainable United States cities, and in fact just went to London to meet with Prince Charles for insight creating new urbanism communities here.  My hyper-local days have ended.

Where the seeds of growth take me now, I cannot predict. I know there are many experiences yet to have, and people yet to meet, and stories yet to tell.  And I know I will be telling them.

Now, it's time for my annual blogger break. See you in the new year, with new stories about food, and food for thought. And, perhaps, some new understanding of who I am.  Or, rather, who I am becoming.

New Faces, Ideas, and Energies--and Knowing When My Role Has Changed