Public spaces provide: feed, shelter, clean, protect.
Public spaces heal: harmonize, offer, allow.
Public spaces historicize: live, exist, become part of.
Public Spaces know: keep records, understand, caution.
Today is the 5th day of prompts from the National Park Service's rangers, and it took me a short bit to think how I'd respond. I don't like to argue. I know that the Common Core State Standards has been in tremendous favor for argumentation, especially with fact-based justification and reliability, yet as this movement has fogged the national education system, we've also arrived at a time in history where facts are ignored, people believe the unreliable, and the simulacra of factlessness is upheld as truth. C'est la vie (which is French, not English...but that's not my argument: although they're knee-deep in this crazy, too).
My discussion here, which is mostly for me, arrives 25-years after I was given a tremendous opportunity in Louisville, Kentucky. I was hired as the Beargrass Creek State Nature Preserve intern to write newsletters, to create educational programs, and to keep the preserve clean. Across from the Louisville Zoo, and within city limits, this green space was set aside to maintain a greenway along creeks and forest. I was an English literature dude with a passion for the written word, and this gig was incredible. I had my Birks, long hair, hiking boots, and optimism. I also had the most incredible mentor in the world: Barbie Bruker-Corwin. Also of note, I met my Louisville mom, life-coach, and host-teacher Sue McV when she was hiking in those woods. In that space, I saw my first flock of migrating cedar waxwings (so amazing), became friends with a protective mother raccoon and her kits, moved numerous box turtles out of harm's way, and had bark dropped on my head from an enthusiastic pileated woodpecker (as if Woody himself was laughing his wonky humor).
For several years, I led hikes, offered programs for urban, suburban, and rural kids, and learned much about how quickly people would take away green spaces for their own whims and fancies. I also chose to do a 2nd Masters with the Kentucky Institute for Education and Sustainable Development. As a result, I see green spaces as necessary:
Green spaces provide: feed, shelter, clean, protect. I don't have to go far with this one. Oxygen is good. Animal life: birds, insects, fish, mammals. They're beautiful. When they are plentiful, we understand the world is in good shape. I'll take a path (even if I can be chased by a mountain lion) over a road any day. There's wonder that comes from how sunlight trickles through varying leaves and hit the patterned trails. And it's exercise. Hello. Move.
Green spaces heal: harmonize, offer, allow. This is simply Zen and spiritual. Anyone who has ever gardened understands the therapy that comes with having one's hands in the soil. I need the outdoors, not only for my lungs and sanity, but for the earth's lungs and sanity. To be in opposition of the natural world (let's take, conquer, destroy) is to set one's self up for mental aggravation throughout life. Go with it. Be with it. It cracks me up, even as a home owner. Yes, I buy grass seed to sprinkle in my yard and I have grass. I own my house, but do I own the blades of greenery that blends with my neighbors? Does the grass see me as its sovereign? Nope. It's why I love every blade.
Green spaces historicize: live, exist, become part of. I'm not the historian, but the older I get I realize the importance for history. Land politics are world politics. See how land is destroyed and you'll learn the power-infrastructure of the globe. All trees can tell the same story (ask the Ents). It is a tale of humans losing their way, taking, overcoming, flexing, proving, and capitalizing. Funny how an economic structure has been built to claim ownership, when in the end, we all get owned by nature. I've told the boys bury me out back like a dog and let a tree grow out of me. That's what I desire when I, too, become history.
Green spaces know: keep records, understand, caution. Look at a tree's rings or ask the soil what it can tell you about human influence. As part of God's plan, perhaps, they narrate a better story for all of us when we enter St. Peter's gates. Wouldn't mind being greeted by Maude and St. Francis upon arrival and hearing, "Crandall, in favor of your entrance is all the work you did with kids to put nature on their radar and the attempts you've made to create butterfly and hummingbird gardens in the homes you've owned. Working against you, however, are all the miles you've put in your cars constantly on the go with a need to see the world; such hypocrisy doesn't bide well with us (and, yo! what's with all the environmental paraphernalia you've accepted from organizations trying to make you more green and conscious - have you not seen the silliness in this?). Note: Of course I have.
And that's my argument. It's simple. The more we preserve and protect natural spaces, the better future generations will be. Alas, I leave such argumentation to the ladybugs, wolves, cockroaches, and eels. Long after humans, nature will prevail. Perhaps our decisions will destroy us, but I have faith in the power of nature, itself. I'm a comma, semi-colon, and period in a Walt Whitman poem.
And it's okay if you give me a C on this argumentative essay. It was written on a Friday night after a full week of work and before a full Saturday of teaching. I'm tired. I'll let Blue's Traveler be my final statement. Whoops.
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