The annual fake-out thaw.
You know the yearly ruse—when obstinate, yet playful Winter masquerades in Spring’s clothing; a costume party lasting just long enough to lure out emboldened, eager crocuses, oft-sacrificing themselves for Winter’s folly.
With the thaw, I also resurrect. A re-emergence not sacrificial, but smiling, preserved, cryogenically evergreen, waiting.
Waiting for now, the fake-out thaw before the re-emerging winter storm season.
But what has not waited for the thaw?
GLTD…
Garbage. Litter. Trash. Debris.
As I have walked, these past few weeks, along numerous streets in The Avenues, the mass of it has struck me. Along the road, in gutters and storm drains, across yards, and in open, unclosed garbage cans along the street, and even, in one instance, in a defiantly uncovered truck-bed .
GLTD…
A printed statement listing “interest paid” with the accompanying very tony property address on it.
W2’s.
Studio photos of children.
Children’s school papers.
A sticker of a heart.
Fortune cookie messages— (top is from South side of 6th Avenue; bottom is from North side)
“Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the Valley.”
“Your energy returns, and you get things done.”
A Victoria’s Secret bag.
Insidious plastic bags.
Even more insidious disposable diapers not properly disposed.
Single shoes, single socks, and single gloves.
Every aluminum, plastic, and glass beverage container I admit to being familiar with.
Even copies of The Greater Avenues Community Council’s hallowed institutional newsletter.
GLTD.
One of my first days “out,” after the thaw, I decide to make my walk along the length of 6th Avenue a “working walk,” wearing gardening gloves and carrying a few bags—right hand for recycling, left hand for trash. I enjoy a wonderful walk, filling up each bag in the process. As I walk into Smith’s parking lot, I see someone doing what I have been doing! It’s Adrian, a native of The Netherlands, who is now hired by Smith’s to keep the outside GLTD-free. We talk for a few minutes. The joyous talk of immediate friends, bound by a love of the earth. And then he’s back to work, and I’m back to my day job.
Today, a week and a half later, I again stroll 6th Avenue. Only today, instead of better? The GLTD is worse. About three times worse, and not that much greater thaw. Searching for “friendly houses” (those with both green and blue cans along the street), I disobey the law, emptying my left-hand bag several times, and the right-hand a few times, along the route. Heading West along the North side of 6th, on my home stretch back to Smith’s, a car pulls right up by me. “I can save cans for you, if you’d like.” It’s 80-year-old, SUV-driving, but recycling-committed Margaret, who has surmised that I am collecting aluminum for cash and wants to help me with my economic endeavor. I smile at the thought. At her thought and at her non-judgmental warmth, then let her know I am just looking to throw out and recycle, not quit my day job.
Curiously, last week, I watched a film presented by the Salt Lake Film Center about folks for whom garbage is much more than a job. A look at the lives of Egyptian garbage collectors, The Zabbaleen, whom, for generations have herded the mega-city’s garbage as their flock, Garbage Dreams is a timely film for this newly-unthawed not just walker, but citizen. “A place so different from our own, and yet the choices they face are so hauntingly familiar,” is how Al Gore describes the film about green practices The Zabbaleen caste employs, only to slowly be ousted by landfill-bent waste management companies from other countries.
Stream of consciousness leads me to think of a woman right here in Salt Lake. Her visage and body shape embryo-like, though old, enter my mind often. ( “Too much Oolong tea” a Chinese elder once observed to me about the curved body.) Omnipresent in the image? A grocery cart. You’ve seen her around Liberty Park and Central City, always collecting cans—placing them in the cart and carrying oversized clear-plastic bags on her ever-bowing back. Years ago, my ex-husband Scott, who lived and worked in Japan for several years, shared his take on her mission. The elderly in Japan, he surmised, make themselves useful by spending their days doing good, picking up garbage. The unfortunate corollary to this, he said, is that, unlike the Zabbaleen, Japanese youth deem responsible management of trash not only not their responsibility, but almost their responsibility to irresponsibly manage it, ensuring a pipeline of activity for their elders, so to speak.
As I am walking along, this time, on 11th Avenue, I see lots of small pieces of paper. I pause, consider, then keep walking, only to reconsider and return. Small things are very hard to pick up. I sigh. In bending down to pick up the shreds, I remember the same concept from Garbage Dreams. A few of the Egyptian Zabbaleen teens are sponsored on a trip to The U.K. to learn modern waste management techniques. While there, the would-be pupils are horrified by the amount of recycle-ready materials simply cast aside due to the difficulty of harvesting such. Small things are very hard to pick up.
Allowing my mind to return with my body here in SLC, I think about the difference between small things and big things and all things garbage. The annual Memory Grove Cleanup is scheduled for Saturday, May 8. I have marked my calendar and joined the strangely-anemic FaceBook group (join it! Address below!), and here, promote the event. The Memory Grove Cleanup event? It’s a big deal. When I ran for District 3 Salt Lake City Council this summer and fall, one of my more successful opponents always noted the significance of his chairing the event. It is a big deal. But… It is also only a one-day event.
Small things are very hard to pick up.
In addition to attending the cleanup and NOT running again for Council or anything else, I invite us all to not make cleaning up an “event” or a career, or an end-of-life travail. Rather, a way of being, allowing ourselves to unthaw, view our neighborhood as our yard, and, like the bold, early crocuses, be willing to bloom.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=87375943435#!/pages/Friends-of-City-Creek-Canyon/93624239713
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