Memphis Democrat
September 29, 2005

This is Nicole. This funny, windy weather we?ve been having has a way of getting my mind racing while my body just wants to snuggle up under a blanket. It?s some of my favorite weather. This morning I got to thinking about the three c?s, cities, cars, and compost.

In about a month I?m going to be leaving Dancing Rabbit for more cement-laden pastures. Even though I grew up in the country, or maybe because I grew up in the country, I?m a city girl, through and through. For me, a city is a place with lots of people and lots of buildings, all densely squished together, so I don?t need to travel long distances to get to my favorite places (my job, the library, friends? houses, the grocery store, restaurants, etc). The buildings I like best are old and/or thoughtfully planned and built, a pleasure for the people who live and work in them, and also a pleasure for the people who have to look at them every day. The people I love best are my friends, but the people I like best are the ones that I get to watch, the smiley lady at the bus stop, the tiny woman with the dog as big as a dinosaur, the chain-smoking fellow who is afraid of dogs, the couple across the street who has an epic falling-out once a week. Living in the city is like having the TV on all the time, without the unfortunate decorating implications that come with actually owning a television set.

Sadly, all these things I love about cities are accompanied by things I do not love at all: waste, litter, cars, filth, air pollution, noise, cars, parking lots, and cars. There are too many cars in cities. They pollute the air, they make too much noise, they require too many parking lots, and they make life scary and unpleasant for pedestrians. Buffalo, NY, my favorite city, is in some ways a hollow core of a place that has been hemorrhaging people and businesses to the suburbs for decades, and yet buildings are still torn down to make parking lots and parking garages, and the place is still beset by cars! It is a situation that has a lot in common with the flies that are currently plaguing the Dancing Rabbit common house. Where do they come from? Why are they here? Why are they so annoying? Soon, I hope, the first hard frost will put a dent in the fly population. What needs to happen to get rid of some of those pesky cars?

And the waste in cities! All the crud that gets spirited away to those magical landfills, where it mystically, mysteriously?joins lots of other crud to become a gigantic heap of crud. It?s too depressing. Which is why I LOVE composting. I take crud and put it in my magical compost bin, where it mystically, mysteriously?turns into something that looks like crumbled up chocolate cake and helps me grow lovely vegetables and flowers!

Composting in the city is quite a challenge, though. The neighbors complain about the smell and the rodents, and I know that everything could be fixed right up if I just had a bale of straw. Right now, I am living in the land of straw bales. I could be drowning in straw bales if I wanted to. I could build myself a whole house made of straw bales. When I go back to Buffalo, I?ll look at my sad, sodden compost pile, and think with longing of my time among the straw bales. And then, just as I?m starting to get all misty-eyed, that week?s episode of ?This Time It?s Over Forever? will start up across the street, and I?ll start to feel better.

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