(The following post was originally posted by Natalie on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 on the blog Outermost Village Green and is being reposted here with permission. She only got one answer there. We can do better can't we?)
"Looking out from the top of a high tenement, over the housetops of Manhattan, I can see a pale tower with its golden pinnacle gleaming though the soft morning haze; and for a moment all the harsh and ugly lines in the landscape have disappeared. So in looking at our utopias. We need not abandon the real world in order to enter these realizable worlds; for it is out of the first that the second are always coming. "
The Story of Utopias, Lewis Mumford
pg.29
I often struggle between all the things I see that are disappointing in this city, the grimy streets (oh so much more murky with the new slush), the broken down buildings, the trash. When I moved down here I was overwhelmed by it all, having spent so much time in the country (which would be my whole life previous). But as I learned to live here I got used to parts of it, even started to see past much of it, to other aspects of the city. Sometimes those broken old steps and gangly rod-iron messes can look rather beautiful, striking even. and sometimes not..
Anyway, this quote resonated with me because of my experiences here in the city. Having had such a harsh reaction to so many of what I considered the " disheartening" aspects of living here and yet still coming to a place of appreciation. I can draw from these reflections of what my life is here and undoubtedly use it, in my life to come. Which is something I would very much like to be communal in nature ( and involving many, many more trees). Everything comes from what was before right?
Now a question is just what is it that will or could make up each of our realizable worlds? How does community ideally manifest itself?
Food for thought.
Love to all of you,
Natalie
