Reality Check

We have new neighbors, originally from the Ukraine.  Nalia can't be said to be perky, but she seems nice, friendly and above all, industrious.  She and her mother Nina moved to this great land of ours eight years ago for reasons I can only guess. What I do know is that her mother wished for a real house to live n, not an apartment.  That wish was granted last fall.

Nina wanted to have room for the flowers she loved as well as the food she needed, so the plain front lawn has become a perennial showpiece.  Nalia has taken the flowers and entwined them with paths of white stone, accented with figures of gnomes and bunnies. She's not a landscape architect, not a horticulturalist--just a very hard worker.  It is so beautiful, you have to stop and stare.

"Would you like to see the back?" she queried.  Of course! and I was led into the most productive city-lot garden I have seen since Grandpa D had his on Twentieth Street.  The previous folks had left behind an old wood deck.  Nalia dismantled it piece by piece and repurposed the wood into raised box gardens.  Each box has potatoes or tomatoes, berries (five kinds), celery, eggplants or one of four varieties of squash--or herbs, or cucumbers, or who knows what else.  Nina tends to them while Nalia works, then Nalia comes home and begins her part.  Nina uses no chemicals, just rainwater and her own seventy-something hands.  There will be enough food to last them until next year's harvest.

Nina speaks little English, but Nalia translates.  She is proud of her garden, as she has every right to be.

I suppose it has to do with life in the Ukraine, learning at a young age that you have to be self-sufficient to live.  In our spoiled, abundant land we rarely have to learn that lesson.  While Nalia works two jobs, takes care of her aging mother and tends the flowers, I am complaining about the cost of food and gas.  While Nina cares for the house and vegetables, I complain about the dusting I hate to do and the basement from Hades.

I am reminded of both my grandfathers with their gardens, one simple and one elaborate.  They had plenty for us, and always some to share.  I am reminded of the families on Nineteenth Street with their block of garden plots by the railroad tracks.  Everybody did their share of the work, everybody took their share of the harvest.

Today?  We want, we take, we buy.  We are too busy.  We have forgotten how to be industrious in our hypocritical society.  Too many of us are dependent on hand-outs instead of attempting to make our own way. We see so much every day at every store.  We get upset when we can't find exactly the right color or flavor.

The self-sufficiency of my neighbors,  my grandfathers and the people of Nineteenth Street make me ashamed of my self-indulgence.  My idea of self-sufficiency is to drive to the supermarket and pay for it all by myself.

Will I change?  Unlikely.  I am just another spoiled American.