Confessions of a Modern-Day Urbanite
As I sit here poised in front of my chrome infused MacBook, a glass of Merlot by my side, vintage Portishead filling the air with dreaminess and reflection in what could be the opening scene of any big city movie…I suddenly have a startling revelation. Is my self perception completely accurate?
Where we start in life and where we end is often a 360 degree journey. So, in that spirit, I’ve decided to make a confession. Here goes:
I haven’t always been the hip urban bachelor you see today (I can see you rolling your eyes!) Truth be told, I’m really a simple farm boy from the east Tennessee valley. Before I ever mingled with socialites in downtown lofts with exquisite red wines and Billie Holiday jazz…I was tilling gardens, picking home-grown vegetables, feeding farm animals, and driving tractors.
The reason I gladly share this with you now is to illustrate that things are not always what they appear to be. We all have experiences that don’t necessarily fit our person, but nonetheless, help shape who we truly are inside. I’m very proud of the quiet life I had growing up. It’s a source of comfort and inspiration in an often crazy world.
Our perception of the “green” movement may not be entirely accurate either. I think many of us view “sustainable” living and recycling as the new kids on the block. When, in fact, they have been part of most families for many generations, just under different labels. Most of our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents were conservationists and avid recyclers, before those terms were even coined. Maybe the motivation was different, but the outcome was the same.
My grandparents carried water in buckets from a nearby stream to water our gardens. We grew all of our own vegetables and preserved the seeds for future crops. We canned our vegetables for winter storage and reused mason jars for the process. We conserved water and dried our laundry on a clothes line. We shared hand-me downs within families and communities. Granted, these weren’t huge efforts. These were all small things that most families did to simply save money. But it was a start, and its reassuring to know that many ideals preached today have their common sense roots in our family traditions.
Yes, I’m a 30’s-something modern-day urbanite living a fast-paced life in the big city. But I’m also the proud son of a soft-spoken farmer whose greatest joy in his later years was to plant, grow, and share the fruits of his labor with his neighbors and friends. I’m all these things…and I still have a lot to learn.
This is a nice reminder, Dale, that most of us come from a rural background (my parents live in LaFollette, TN, undoubtedly not too far from where you were raised) and are only a generation or so from raising and preserving our food, cutting wood for fuel and walking almost everywhere. Thank you for the memory jog.
Though I didn’t come from a rural background, I can relate to the things that Dale wrote about, but more importantly, I’m impressed that HGTV has decided to do something about it, in it’s latest “Change the World” campaign. I’m impressed that they have decided to contribute to a worthwhile cause, like the Veteran city projects, we’ve been asked to vote for. While many of us (especially me) live a comfortable quiet life and dream of winning the 09 HGTV Dream Home, there are countless others who dream about a decent place to live, providing food on the table for their families and trying to find a (any) job. If my one daily vote on the “HGTV Change the World” can effect any one’s live positively, I’m willing and WILL do it. I’m encouraging my fellow bloggers to do the same.
I am from small town America, make that Texas! The daughter of farmers. Even after we moved to town from the farm, my dad had to have his hands in the dirt. He was as close to being an organic farmer as anyone that I know; he cleaned out stalls, had a friend with a team of mules who did the plowing of the city lots that he planted his gardens. He would make a deal with someone who had a spare lot – if he could garden the space, they could have anything they wanted. By doing this, there were a lot of elderly people that ate a lot better those years. And so did we, as we canned anything that we could.
I always got to plant all the seeds. I once asked him why. He said, “You are closer to the ground.”