So much good stuff in this one, going to have to think about how my ambivalence about my own childhood of privilege growing up in a white middle class suburb in the 1950s has played out in my steady refusal to care about my yard or garden throughout my adult life. I know my attempts to challenge that childhood (fostered by my own parents acts of rebellions-for example their support of the Civil Rights movement-and efforts to help integrate that all white suburb) explain in part my decisions to take summer classes on African and African American history at Howard University in 1969, or my stubborn resistance of any signs of patriarchy (keeping my own name at marriage in 1972 and refusing to have a ring or use standard vows, etc). But, never the less, I did end up with a middle-class profession, living in suburbs (no longer completely white, but certainly not the diversity of a city) but I steadfastly refused to care about the yard or living up to the neighbors expectations. Until recently, when frankly the double whammy of Covid and age have made the vistas out my windows and what I see when I walk daily, ever more important. I just never saw that refusal in terms of my other minor acts of rebellion. So, as ever, thanks for making me think more deeply on such issues.
Oh, so interesting to think about how all this might be connected. I think a lot of people who grew up in the burbs felt stifled in various ways because it is a very artificial way to live. All of it. The nuclear family. The detached home. The "nature" around you that is all landscaped. The manufactured homogeneity. It doesn't feel right because it isn't right.
I also love walking through a neighborhood and seeing all the different styles of landscaping and yard care. Sometimes the messy yard is just as interesting as the manicure one.
Where I live here in the arid Intermountain West, lawns aren’t a thing. In my very rural county, people are judged by their winter wood stacks. The type of wood, the craftsmanship of the stacking, and the quantity of wood. Folks with lawn longings have a tough time fitting in here.
And if you have some small success growing a lawn, the elk paw through the snow and eat it in late winter.
So much good stuff in this one, going to have to think about how my ambivalence about my own childhood of privilege growing up in a white middle class suburb in the 1950s has played out in my steady refusal to care about my yard or garden throughout my adult life. I know my attempts to challenge that childhood (fostered by my own parents acts of rebellions-for example their support of the Civil Rights movement-and efforts to help integrate that all white suburb) explain in part my decisions to take summer classes on African and African American history at Howard University in 1969, or my stubborn resistance of any signs of patriarchy (keeping my own name at marriage in 1972 and refusing to have a ring or use standard vows, etc). But, never the less, I did end up with a middle-class profession, living in suburbs (no longer completely white, but certainly not the diversity of a city) but I steadfastly refused to care about the yard or living up to the neighbors expectations. Until recently, when frankly the double whammy of Covid and age have made the vistas out my windows and what I see when I walk daily, ever more important. I just never saw that refusal in terms of my other minor acts of rebellion. So, as ever, thanks for making me think more deeply on such issues.
Oh, so interesting to think about how all this might be connected. I think a lot of people who grew up in the burbs felt stifled in various ways because it is a very artificial way to live. All of it. The nuclear family. The detached home. The "nature" around you that is all landscaped. The manufactured homogeneity. It doesn't feel right because it isn't right.
I also love walking through a neighborhood and seeing all the different styles of landscaping and yard care. Sometimes the messy yard is just as interesting as the manicure one.
Where I live here in the arid Intermountain West, lawns aren’t a thing. In my very rural county, people are judged by their winter wood stacks. The type of wood, the craftsmanship of the stacking, and the quantity of wood. Folks with lawn longings have a tough time fitting in here.
And if you have some small success growing a lawn, the elk paw through the snow and eat it in late winter.
I love this, that there's still something you can be judged on and that it's your wood stack!
This is good stuff, Robyn, and spot on in so many ways.
Thanks, David!