You Have a What?

This cute bird, a little Carolina Wren sitting on a teasel, accompanied an article this week in the New York Times. The focus of the article was how the birds and wildlife on the author's property have increased and flourished as the landscape design has been relaxed and changed, allowing for a less artificial scheme. More of the native plants and their human-seen "messy" environments like brush piles have been expanded and encouraged, providing food, homes, and safety to many animals that weren't previously common. I liked the focus of the article and hope it influences every gardener to allow some of the natural world into their lives.

But, and there always seems to be a but with me, the very first sentence rubbed me the wrong way. " A few years ago, when I first glimpsed the azure wing of a bluebird in the hedgerow that borders my meadow..." I grew up and lived in suburbia most of my life. A privacy fenced backyard of 20 by 30 feet was considered large and had to contain areas of many uses, most of them kid-centric, meaning a large expanse of grass so children can wear themselves out playing and inventing games. There was little enough room for a flowerbed plus a decent sized vegetable garden to even consider a "hedgerow" or a "meadow". They are nice and desirable concepts but are not attainable by most Americans, the majority who live in cities and suburbia.

I read it as a subtle form of classism and it still rankles me. I shouldn't let it bother me and will soon get over it but I'm often struck how people can be unaware of how most other people live their lives. We tend to think that most people live lives similar to our own but that's not true. Our interests, motivations, relationships, and how we see our place in the world are vastly different, even when we live next door to each other.

Another part of me acknowledges that a good deal of my reaction is jealousy. I never imagined that I would some day also have a hedgerow and a meadow of my own. I deeply treasure that the flukes and capriciousness of my life, there was certainly no master plan or design involved, have brought me to my current state. I think my appreciation for my current ecological riches is vastly different than my neighbors' because of my background.