Looking out my window, directly across Westmorelnad Street, I can see into the window of my friends at The Simple Way. That’s what I think first. My second thought is, “Look at all this concrete and metal.” I grew up in West Central Florida fifteen minutes from a beach, in a house with a big yard and a forest out back. This concrete and steel is suffocating at times.
I can’t imagine growing up in this environment. No trees to climb and dream up jungle adventures, no bushes to hide behind and build forts beneath, and no flowers to surprise the family with on the dinner table. Instead, in Kennsington, we have rows and rows of homes overshadowed by block after block of factories. Among both groups many are abandoned, not unoccupied, abandoned Boarded windows, broken windows, no windows… cats, and rats, and people lurking in and out, scrapping for anything. Some lots are now cavities where buildings once stood. In some cases they have been victim to arson. Accidental or not, they have burned down and at the expense of human lives. In other cases they have crumbled into the street and have been hauled off by neighbors, and occasionally by the city.
Temptation calls investors and builders to construct new buildings and rent, rent, rent. More concrete. More steel. More money. We have a different idea. How about something green? How about some vegetables? How about something to benefit the neighbors and the community? And we have already started this movement. We looked at each other. We looked at the kids. We looked all around us at the buildings. We know we can purchase drugs on any corner, weapons, alcohol, Air Jordans, and any type of chip that comes in any shiny bag you can imagine, but we can’t get a salad.
So we are pulling bricks out of the earth and dirty needles out of the soil. We are collecting seeds, and tilling the earth. We are getting the kids to run their hands through the new soil. We are watching tulips and sunflowers pop up… life. In place of decay and death we are calling the earth to reclaim what has always been hers.
And now, if I look a little harder, peeking around the corner of some row homes on my street, I can see a Morning Glory climbing up a fence and tomatos poking out beneath green leaves. Peace comes. And the kids are bringing home flowers and pretty soon we’ll have a big salad.
Scott Armstrong lives in Kensington. He is one of the early members of The Simple Way Community. He is currently a nurse, always an artist, and one day he will return to the dust from whence he came.
