Archive for September, 2010

Uprooted


We rented, but we cared.
It seems against our nature not to care. Caring for ones shelter is surely innate. But it wasn’t ours, and this became more and more obvious as the years passed.
We planted a peach tree the first year on Second Street. The next spring we raised chicks to chickens and turned our lawn into food.
“You need to cut down that tree when you leave,” my landlord said as I was moving out. “I don’t want to have to take care of it, and it’s too hard to mow around.”
Today I bought someone else’s eggs for $3.50 and ate a peach from the freezer.

The Space Between

At The Shore of My Soul © Jim Korpi

The Koran was too heavy. Not in a philosophical sense. It weighed about four pounds. The limit for baggage going to Saudi Arabia is 50 pounds. Of all the items Annah will find problematic replacing when she arrives in Rhiyad, a Koran will not be one of them.
She’s half-way there by now and half-way away from me. “Distance makes the heart grow fonder,” I’ve been told, but I’m not consoled by the coldness in the truth that my wife will soon reside distantly.
Consolation resembles confusion when it means allowing the person you care for most in the world to leave your presence and seek fulfillment. But it’s often this going away that allows for us all to become more ourselves.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. – Kahlil Gibran

The Slow Movement

Ocean View © Jim Korpi

The Official Slow Food Manifesto

Our century, which began and has developed under the insignia of industrial civilization, first invented the machine and then took it as its life model.

We are enslaved by speed and have all succumbed to the same insidious virus: Fast Life, which disrupts our habits, pervades the privacy of our homes and forces us to eat Fast Foods.

To be worthy of the name, Homo Sapiens should rid himself of speed before it reduces him to a species in danger of extinction.

A firm defence of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life.

May suitable doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-lasting enjoyment preserve us from the contagion of the multitude who mistake frenzy for efficiency.

Our defence should begin at the table with Slow Food. Let us rediscover the flavours and savours of regional cooking and banish the degrading effects of Fast Food.

In the name of productivity, Fast Life has changed our way of being and threatens our environment and our landscapes. So Slow Food is now the only truly progressive answer.

This is what real culture is all about: developing taste rather than demeaning it. And what better way to set about this than an international exchange of experiences, knowledge, projects?

Slow Food guarantees a better future. Slow Food is an idea that needs plenty of qualified supporters who can help turn this (slow) motion into an international movement, with the little snail as its symbol.

Space… The Final Frontier

Hotel Wyoming © Jim Korpi

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me
– Woody Guthrie

It defines us. Land. Why do we drive such big cars? Why do we have such big houses? Why do we eat so much? Because we can.
I zig-zagged across this giant country over the summer. I was struck by the fact that because we can we have without a thought for if we should.