My First Garden

This summer, for the first time, I am going to plant a garden. Not just fruits and vegetables, but native plants scattered willy-nilly about the front and side of the house.
I have often looked in amazement, how beautiful these gardens are, with their stone paths, tall grasses, and clumps of flowers.
When I was ten years old, I remember the ChemLawn truck going through the neighborhood, spraying everybody’s yard. Row by row, every house with a perfectly green lawn, without a single weed. What a miracle! Children played on these lawns. Nobody worried whether there were chemicals leeching into the water supply. It was just a miracle of modern technology; a Walt Disney dream of urban perfection. And, of course, it was easy. Nobody had to spend any time getting dirty, and there were no judgments from your neighbors; we all had the same lawn.
Think what if every home in these suburban neighborhoods had grasses they could juice. What if they had bushes of blueberries and raspberries growing right in their front yard? What if the people living in these houses were outside every day planting and picking their fruits and vegetables? Nobody would feel disassociated from society. There would be a sense of community most of us have never known. What if everybody was composting, and eating vegetables that didn’t come in cans and plastic?
Think of how much water we use to grow grass we don’t consume! At least the grass on an environmental disaster of a golf course has a purpose.
Most people have good intentions. Even the companies, who make the poisons, may believe that what they produce is a benefit to society. But hopefully, we are finally moving into a new consciousness.
My new conscious is telling me to plant a garden.