I spent several hours this morning weeding in a community garden for United Way’s Day of Caring, with other volunteers from work. When I woke up, I was PMS-y and irritated and didn’t want to go, but it turned out to be just what I needed.

I had forgotten how much I love digging in the dirt. It was some amazing dirt too: rich and dark brown, full of old decaying mulch and white fungal threads, supporting a full quota of insects and plants. (”Weeds”, of course, being a human distinction.) All this in a lot that had been simply an overgrown weedbed two years ago, filled with trash and a hangout for drug dealers. Now it is a community garden and park with 6 raised vegetable beds, as well as other edible landscaping, plus fruit trees, art, and these beautiful planters made from concrete pipes. (Or something. I’m not sure exactly what they were. Some form of reclaimed industrial “stuff”.) I saw vines loaded with green cherry tomatoes (which may not ripen because of the cold), a giant sunflower taller than me, a praying mantis egg case, a butterfly chrysalis, and the head of my department at work pulling weeds. I’m not sure which was more entertaining. After all the rain we’ve been having lately, the weeds came up easily - though I always hate pulling dandelions.

The seed is there. I think this is what touched me the most, that it shows that any place could become that - that our cities could be that, if we had the courage and wisdom and deep love to make them so. Full of places where kids could run around playing, without fear of strangers or of traffic; where women could come and pick fresh vegetables for their families; where neighbors could meet and actually talk to each other, have a place to gather that wasn’t wholly defined by commerce.

This is what I want. This is what I want my city to be like.

What to do about it is where I tend to get stuck. I feel like I don’t have the connections, the resources, the knowledge, the people skills to do something about it. Or I just don’t know where to start.

(That particular organization, Urban Tree Connection, focusses on West Philadelphia and their model is built around volunteers from the neighborhoods, to build buy-in and a sense of ownership. Which makes sense to me. Otherwise I would just try to start volunteering with them.)

I’m thinking of City Repair in Portland, and the wonderful things that they do. Intersection repair, reclaiming public spaces and building places where neighbors can get to know each other. I’ll tell you one thing, Philadelphia is one of the better-planned cities I’ve spent time in (compared to, say, anywhere in the South or West that developed after the automobile), but still, there is a lack of public space and communication. I don’t know any of my neighbors. I’ve never even seen the people who live downstairs from me, to my knowledge. And then I imagine, what if every block had an empty lot that its residents were responsible for taking care of, and could make into a park or garden or whatever else they wanted to?

Now there’s a thought to consider.

All this is purely selfish on my part, of course. I would love to know my neighbors, and I like digging in the dirt.