Feasting in the Jungle Aug 5th

Dear Topos,

Even in the jungles of berries, bamboo, and bounties galore I will never forget the deep love – the mutual love – which Colorado gives to me. Sense arriving in Asheville NC we have harvested and eaten nettles, dandelions, apples, grapes, service berries, blue berries, black berries, elder berries, and more gone forgotten. That is not to mention the melons, and vegetables unbounding which we gleaned from gardens. (Gardens which nonetheless are poorly cared for – dried out, un-harvested, weeds abounding – because people do not take to heart that even a garden in the jungle is a man made phenomenon and must be cared for as such, unlike the jungles around them which explode whether you wish it or not). To survive by hunting and gathering from this land is not unthinkable even for me who is like a baby in this place. The green life has so much power in this place that the city government seems to have given up keeping it under control. One can harvest fruit from any place – private or public – with little, if not no, trouble from the city. In Denver, where wild food is scarce, it is not uncommon for the city or private owner to get all up in arms if one is caught picking fruit from a specially place “landscaping” tree, or a vine growing over the fence of some private land owner. Upon arriving at my friends house in Asheville one of the first things I commented on was how lucky they were that the city was not getting after them for the weeds in their yard. There is no such thing as weeds here. Everything is jungle, not weeds. My last day in Denver was spent arguing with our old landlord about, among many things, the “weeds” in our yard. In Denver there is a law that no plant life can be over 6 inches tall in the “hell zones” (the strip between the road and the side walk). The hell zone is the abject (neither subject nor object – neither yard nor road – neither private nor public). There is no abject here because the plants themselves overwhelm the binary tensions. Vines over state. Vines over greed.

I miss the work it takes in Colorado to find and grow food. One cannot digest that food as one does food stamp food. At my parents home in Montrose CO we hall water from a half mile away to feed our garden what it need to feed us. I’m no grandma so I can’t tell you stories of times past when hard work was a virtue and we had to dig 20 feet down every week to find water to keep us alive. But time and space are bound up and zooming through space skips time a bit. So I think I can tell you about places where berries grow from your finger tips, water pours from the skies, and fire flies dance in the night. Yet, without work, there is no utopia. Hannah Arendt speaks of work as the activity which produces the durable. While labor is always being used up – food, cleaning – work lasts beyond its purposed end. The Rocky Mountains of Colorado are durable as that made by work. In order to live there one must work to create a durable home. The Appellation Mountains are old and their work has come to an end. Now they give their fruits freely.

Stay cool and take pride in your work.

- Terese

ps Topos means place in Greek. Yes I am writing to you place...