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The World, My Garden, pt 1

I’m reading a chapter or so every day or so on my loooooong new commute into town out of a book called The World Is In My Garden by Chris Maser and Zane Maser. The co-author bit is strange—it’s written in the first person singular in in the book is Chris, the guy, who actually talks a lot about Zane, the woman, his wife. Whatever. It’s a philosophical book, as you can tell by the title. Normally garden books that wax philosophical make my skin crawl. They’re typically just a half a skip to a greeting card. Just give me somebody bitching about fungus on their roses; at least that’s real. But the Maser book is actually getting me thinking.

Of course my big issue these days is a sense of displacement. When I first moved to Park Slope, the neighborhood was off the map. Abandoned buildings, a bustling drug trade, street crime. Practically the only restaurants were diners and the rent was cheap rent. It was fine. The neighborhood did have a strong grassroots activist tradition. It was known as a center of Lesbian culture—whatever that is. The Park Slope Food Coop was an integral neighborhood institution. But at that time it only had half a building, as opposed to the full two that it has now. No shopping carts, or even baskets. Instead, you grabbed a shipping box and kicked it along the floor. Wheels were for the suburbanites.

But the neighborhood gentrified, with rents shooting more and more quickly. I could have hung on, but by last year I was feeling like a scenic attraction in my own neighborhood. A specimen of Park Slope eco-activist. Wasn’t I quaint.

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