saving the world one bit at a time

http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/19261/
http://www.laundrylist.org/





perhaps the reason i've always found hanging out the laundry therapeutic is the fact that when i was a toddler, my mother and grandmother carried me out in the basket where i would lay on a quilt in the warm sunshine while they hung out the sheets. i also remember helping gramma running clothes thru the wringer washer. the work was clean and made her happy --she always hummed a tune as she worked. now, even on days when nothing else seems to get done (or done right), it is always a source of extreme satisfaction to me to be taking advantage of the wind and the sun, with the end result a fresh, healthy, and free pleasure, not to mention a great source of exercise.

the open road

on the way to badger's house...
my husband tells me that there are no badgers east of the mississippi, and they are mean & nasty creatures to boot. so i feel the need to clarify: moley & ratty are just ahead and if we scurry, we can catch up to them and have a lovely tromp thru the wild wood...

presto chango! coming to a farm near you...

did you see that
horse turn into a
cat?


WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses — even against their will — for private economic development.

It was a decision fraught with huge implications for a country with many areas, particularly the rapidly growing urban and suburban areas, facing countervailing pressures of development and property ownership rights.
The 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.
Rest of article at
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050623/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_seizing_property

Read the complete Supreme Court opinion here:
http://wid.ap.org/documents/scotus/050623kelo.pdf

another day in paradise

watch this space... development in process on this bit of earth. this pic taken tuesday afternoon, march 22, 2005.

fallow fields

deep in thoughts of mother earth & her overall health this morning that were further reinforced as i drove in to work. the road takes me past more than a few farms, older housing stock, and spiffy new developments, shining like tacky-bright medallions in the crow's nest of our complicated rurality. several of these farms still pasture cattle --black baldies, angus, and mahogany-red simmentaler. there are cornfields, where the grain is now taller than i am. and nearer to town, the fallow fields where here and there still rise an errant cornstalk, leftovers from last year's harvest. these spear my heart like a picture of an orphan's bad haircut, as mute evidence of neglect. for it means that the land has been sold, and a shopping center, or mcmansions, are on the way.

can we say sprawl?

i will be silent on that subject for now, for truly there is nothing nice to say. my psyche needs relief, hope, or something, so i will go digging for that. plenty of good things are out there, plenty of nice folks. hope springs eternal. and so do the grass, the trees, nature itself seems always to win out. we don't always like it, sometimes it frightens us, but some of us do learn to live with that, and so far, humanity has survived some pretty awful things that we have done to ourselves and our world.

surely we can survive this, too.

rain, rain, come again

we are floating away here in our little town. as in, the creeks are risin'!! saw several homes on the way in in the 600K+ price range sitting in the middle of ponds that used to be their yards. the water was churning over the dam --exciting, wonderful thing that nature is. i can imagine your dismay at my callow attitude --surely i wouldn't look at it that way if it were my house, but then, i didn't build three years ago in a flood zone. i live in a hundred year old house on main street, where if it flooded i would have known about it because of the clear evidence all around me. and ummm... how did anyone not notice there was a CLIFF under those houses there at Laguna Beach?

and what? it happened before? http://landslides.usgs.gov/html_files/landslides/calls/Laguna.html

http://curriculum.calstatela.edu/WebQnA/webqna.pl?module=dmayo-58&action=printall --counter to the discussion, the price of real estate went UP after the last landslide, not down... go figure. and people still came, and built, and were not conquered by losing it all, apparently.

but these folk do such silly things & then are surprised when nature actually takes its course --and your tax dollars help pay for the fixes thru FEMA --how do you like them apples? america! land of the free!

i guess this sortof thing gets me more upset than bird flu, apparently. each to his or her own soapbox! we'll learn from each other, i hope. meanwhile, i thoroughly enjoyed riding down to see the churning floodwaters and floating equipment all around in those brand-new subdivisions off of the local big, fat creek. One of the roads under construction was an entire river unto itself --of course!! the big development containing exclusively chewacla & colfax & tatum soils! why do they expect anything else?????? can no one listen to the planners? of course not. "that's what engineers are for --to get permits from the army corps of engineers & fill in wetlands." well, today i am laughing up my sleeve. tee-hee!!

what does it say when one is reduced to laughing at the troubles of others? sorry, those others are the ones who devil me personally at work, and i have to take it, day in & day out. the ones who are affronted & call the mayor to complain when i politely tell them i cannot issue them a building permit for that lot until their surveyor fills out a flood elevation certificate. sorry --it's the law, i just enforce it. so i take my joys where i may.

happy fishing to you all --enjoy the weather!

personal geography

i posted the bit yesterday and the poem the day before, dredged up from past notebooks where i jot down observations from my everyday life --some of which come out as poetry.... from time to time i may do that as opposed to actually typing something as it comes to me. sometimes i made more sense in the past than i seem to do these days. sometimes it seems i have no words beyond what i've already said.

i am looking for commonality, for validation that my original design fits the reality that i became. it is an exercise common to the planning process --evaluate, check your reference points, ensure they are still valid, go back and re-evaluate if necessary to ensure you read it right the first time. before i was a planner i was a cartographer; the same process is used in mapping. as i make a garment i am also constantly checking to ensure fit and that the pieces are going together smoothly (and that I didn't stitch the underarm to the back piece!) why not examine my own life in like manner? it occurs to me that perhaps i am in my own 'life-crisis' period --i refuse to admit to the 'mid-' prefix that usually accompanies that phrase --because more and more i feel a need to re-visit who i was before i became mom, planner, seamstress. wifey. perhaps it is because i feel in many ways i forgot who i was before i got here, and in so doing, did lose something. i was a pretty neat kid, actually. always confident in the face of adversity. up to the challenge. where in the world did i leave that? as i type, i realize i know the answer, and it is not for this semi-public venue. the challenge now is, to remind myself of her value, and encompass that within myself once more.

the choices made will hopefully continue to be useful. looking back at your life from the vantage point of middle age (there! i said it!) is like looking upstream, from whence you cometh, hopefully not at a wall of water that recklessly propelled you, but more simply, at a map where you could see the points of assimilation, where the creeks came together, where you took on more than yourself to become the river of your own being. this smacks of belly-button contemplation, something i abhor. i will look no longer than necessary, to plot the reference points, and move on.

Surcease

We wanted --no, needed --this rain. It came up from the Gulf, swept thru Alabama, Atlanta, the Carolinas, and was over by nightfall. It left us cooled by calm breezes that followed on its heels, quietly hemming the darkness like fine lace on the silken shawl of night. The crickets and other small animals chirrup a sweet melody, marking time to my thoughts. The dishes are washed, laid in the rack by the sink, the towels folded and put away. Sitting opposite me in our library, my husband sketches a portrait of a highland soldier in time to the ancient melody brought forth by a celtic songstress, her dark voice husky as the night wind, and equally as haunting. Surcease --a mechanism by which we let down, relax, find ourselves and our thoughts. We are quiet, yet the world around us is humming with vibrant life. Surcease is when we fall into step, find ourselves picked up and carried, by rhythms or emotions. It is not a time of nothing. It is a time of everything.

The pinnacle of surcease is when we two are together ...we match ourselves to each other’s rhythm, we are the water that rolls up from the depths of the ocean, we become the tide itself. We are no longer ourselves, we emerge from our cocoons to become something completely different, more than human, no less than gods. There is undeniable power in love, it is the coupling of two energies, and so can never be denied as anything other than something more than the whole entirety of our separate beings. Surcease. Could it really mean --a joining? It can never happen without a catalyst: surcease never comes in and of itself. It is always the result of something. It is added: it satisfies a need, usually a deep longing, depletion, or hunger. Perhaps that is why we feel as if we are more than ourselves when we are together: because we are. We receive more than we can give to satisfy our own needs: our depletions are filled, we no longer lack.

And so, the truth is that the earth, no matter the richness of the soil or the lush canopy of protective forest, needs rain. Without the addition of the catalyst of water, seeds do not open, roots dry up, the ground cracks open and releases the remainder of the nutrients it has held onto since the last rain. Why do we listen when people say, “You don’t need anyone else. You have yourself.” We may as well say the earth needs no rain, the tree needs no water, for both hold their own, even for long periods of time when necessary. But eventually the earth dries up, the tree withers, the leaves fall from the stress of holding on and conserving against need. The truth is, nothing but the coupling of rain can preserve the earth. We are not so different. No one is an entirety unto him, or her, self.

We all need someone. For surcease.

ANSWER IN THE WOOD

This cool green wood that silent waits
guarded, watchful
catching the last clear rays of light
with upturned boughs of verdant trees
before the mist rises to veil the calm-laden valley
It softens the heat, lightens the gloom of evening, and
for brief silver seconds the world seems to shimmer, not really there,
but an intangible thing;
Solid wood and vast stretch of fern-blanketed earth
seems momentarily fragile,
on the verge of being swallowed up by night.
Here is where I played,
I stood in the shadows and watched--
my mind alive,
hearing finely tuned,
straining to catch the essence of the wooded green
in the treasure chest of my imagination.
I could not hold it for more than a moment,
the vibrant pitch of waiting, growing greenery
would filter through when all was silent,
and as quickly, was lost, when I turned away and
answered the call of the outside world.

I must return to the wood,
go back and walk those paths
along which I ran as a child
when I was too busy chasing dreams
to gather in the wonder that lay about me.
To examine bark, and leaf, and twig,
touching needle-strewn beds of moss,
gazing intently at the pattern of life within
each tiny sprout and curling lichen
Something rests here, which helped me
to make peace with my world,
and I need to find that, to once more make it a part of me
the young part, the growing, wondering, reflecting part,
the part of me which accepts,
and believes in the future,
and grows wiser, knowing.


As the wood, we grow tall, stretching forth our branches,
we answer the call of the whippoorwill,
our voices teasing, beckoning,
wanting deep within our hearts to mate,
but always holding something back, something vast,
precious, and green...
...answer, tell, pray, answer, look, tell, answer, answer, tell:
Believe, said the spirit, and isn't it a shame that the
legend is such that the magician had to die before he could
communicate to his wife that one small intelligence?
that love surpasses even Death?

We should know this, and trust in it, and go on,
wiser,
knowing.
What is it that we do not acknowledge?
I think that deeper than Fear, it is our Want,
our need of soulful replenishment
our craving of a concrete essence to re-affirm our own choices,
our own decisions.
Laughing, we mate, we do not think that a lifetime will be so long
to share with another.
Laughing, we were wrong.
So misguided.
We are lost, after a time. Life itself eludes us, we look upon one another as at the door of death itself, and recoil –
aghast, shivering, disgusted.
Depleted, indifferent, yet still tightly nursing the flame of want within our own being.
And so we return to the wood, we look at every tree and branch,
and slowly, we understand.
We grow old, we wither, we die, but
though individually the trees of the wood do just that, the forest remains.
Whole. Vital. Alive.
With every death, a new seed sprouts forth,
to feed upon the old.
Either within the wood, or just outside of it.
Love doesn't die; the men and women do,
so says old Will in the midst of rising waters and thrashing wild palms;
and so right he was.
Love doesn’t die, it outlives us all.
We can hold nothing fast to us
when we are constantly changing, evolving, growing
into someone else ourselves.
The very limbs we use to clasp will wither away to dust,
and grow again, as flowers, new fronds of sun-kissed willow,
and the tiniest of earth-bound leaves.
So. Like the seeds of larch, oak and pine,
we too reach out to grow new roots,
and embrace the Death when we can do no more,
draw from it, extract its nourishment
adding strength to the stand from within ourselves,
expanding our very breadth,
breathing life into death
with new seeds to sow,
ideas and sustenance that we’ve brought in
on winds aloft, from far away.
---Susannah

Note: This is an old version of a poem. Posted in honor of National Poetry Month.

a day well spent

yesterday we spent an incredible day attempting a plan to mend the heart of our little town. like doctors bent over the surgical table, we planners moved things about, hemmed & hawed, stroked our chins, and puttered. at day's end we had done quite a bit of work, had the beginnings of a downtown development plan containing most of the usual elements of vital and functioning places, including pedestrian paths, light retail, a library, post office, town hall, medical offices, the grocery store, the church, even some residential (yet to be defined) and yes, the farm all arranged methodically and interconnectedly along the slopes and drainages that make up the ground we are given. a redevelopment plan for the existing shopping center --turn it into a major component of the new downtown. cross-path connections around the low-lying areas so that things are not separated or squared off against one another, but hold hands across the street, or tie together with open pathways through a short stretch of wood. beautiful. vital. functioning. a happy place.

now, to polish up and verify the reality, and to give words to ideas in the form of published reports --back to the offices. all this in preparation for the seeds of change --to be sown in september, at the public presentations. promises to be a bit of a roller coaster ride, so stay tuned. i'll keep you posted.

four tenets from a wise woman

Meditations for today:

Economy, prudence, and a simple life are the sure masters of need, and will often accomplish that which their opposites, with a fortune at hand, will fail to do.

The surest test of discipline is its absence.

I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing, but if paid at all, I shall never do a man's work for less than a man's pay.

I have an almost complete disregard of precedent and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done... I defy the tyranny of precedent. I cannot afford the luxury of a closed mind. I go for anything new that might improve the past. --Clara Barton

When I need reminding that we have come some distance from overwhelming public stupidity, I look at the war women waged in the nineteenth century to regain some of what they had lost in the late eighteenth: respect, purpose, and the ability to have some input, for good or aught, into the direction of society. In doing so they eventually went beyond what they had achieved before, and gained sufferage, some semblance of their own economic worth, and at least some recognition of their ability to contribute to the betterment of the world. So we do not give up, we do press on, and march in time to the need of our day.

it doesn't get any better than this

...is what my colleagues tell me, over & over. today i had the edifying experience of a fellow planner --who has gone to the "dark side," meaning she now works for a developer (albeit a relatively good one) telling me after a meeting in which certain public officials for whom I work had shown their respective lack of good sense and cluelessness, "Man. You have the patience of Job. I would have been screaming & walking out of there! How do you stand it?"

I guess I don't, anymore. Just do the "head down & butt" thing. And keep analysing the problem. One thing I did identify, with the help of the aforementioned colleague, is part of what makes this current position so absolutely horrifying is that, there are absolutely no qualified persons on our planning board. Not a one of them knows anything at all about development, environmental issues, or economics; they are all just "citizens." So we get what they call common sense and we know is ultimately ignorance of the real issues. None of them can even read a plat so all they can do is point out typos. All they can do is hold up the ordinance and try to make it match up to what is said in print. They have no idea how to analyse layout and design of a proposed site plan or development, but boy, they do have opinions. Opinions based largely in subjective aesthetic dream-worlds.

OK, 'nuff said. I am working out of the bitchy mode. I always do. The Mayor likes me again, I guess I came thru her hail of fire with flying colors. I am just tired of having to prove I do actually know what I am doing, in spite of the fact I have a couple of college degrees in this stuff.

reality

where have i been in the past three weeks? i wonder. aside from the ruptured tendon, that thankfully did not turn out to be the achilles and will not require surgery, it's been busy, in a word. and three of us had a bout with whatever the local nasty virus is this month; we survived.

so. i get so fired up about work nowadays. is it hormones, old age, or just being fed up with the stupid career choice i made? i leave it for you to judge. a brief recounting of facts:

1. April 25 - Board of Adjustment Case, in which the Planning Board rendered a 6-0 unanimous decision in favor of the applicant, who having filed a Request for an Appeal from the Interpretation of the Zoning Administrator (for which I was asked by two council members to recommend that the applicant file such an Appeal, so we could not prosecute the applicant for putting up the structure without a permit, while we changed the ordinance to allow him to do what he probably could have done to begin with, except several members of the community and Planning Board felt that it wasn't allowed. Are you confused yet? Wait, it gets better). Intepretation indeed. Then they spent two and a half hours of the public's time roasting the ZA over the coals for "over-regulating." Apparently some of them didn't know the politics behind the case. And I learned --how could I not have known already? --how fickle and forgetful most politicians are when they get on a podium in public and the topic is "deride government regulation." Forpitysake, I told them to begin with the damn thing didn't need a permit but they insisted on finding some way to permit it, in order to "control it." What was this thing, you ask? An unlighted wooden scoreboard at the local public ballpark that IMHO didn't fall into the category of "needing zoning approval" because it wasn't a sign, and it did not require a building permit due to its size and construction. Still, some insisted that if we didn't require them to get some sort of permit, they might build something bigger and light it & then they would be out of compliance & it would be a PR nightmare for the Town. Better to figure out some way to permit them. So I pulled out the permit application, they filled it out, then when it came time to pay the fee they balked because they are a "non-profit." The ordinance doesn't give any breaks for "non-profits," they have to pay just like you and me. But the two aforementioned councilmen decided at this point they shouldn't have to pay and we should change the ordinance. And besides, what was wrong with the scoreboard anyway? This is what you get when you have government by committee, and none of them have any training in this sort of thing. The trained one (me) ends up looking like the chimp watching a tennis match. I can't keep up with where the ball is coming from half the time, and the other half it is bonking me on the head.

I ask you: why do I do this? No, I ask myself. There is surely something for which my brain and energies are better suited.

All I ask is, tell me what the rules are. I don't care what they are, I just want someone to explain them to me. And don't blame me because you don't like the damn rules that you made. Even if I do work for the government. I'm just here, I'm not a criminal.

OK, I'll stop whining in a minute. I just have to get thru this and try to make some sense of it.

2. I understand people are mad at me because I had to miss most of last week due to aforementioned injury and illness. There are dozens of phone calls to return, even though I left an out-of-office message regarding my situation. Howsomever, I think I did a damn good job keeping up with things in spite of those challenges. We had 5 subdivisions in various stages of approvals to be heard at the Town Council meeting on Monday --and I sailed thru those with my requisite professionalism and "can-do" attitude. The engineers and applicants for the most part deserve nothing less --they, like me, are just doing their job. The developers rarely attend these meetings & when they do, they don't understand a word of what is happening. I long ago learned to separate the technical staff from the greedy.

3. To continue: What I did not need yesterday was the Mayor leaving a nasty voice mail --no, two nasty voice mails --stating that she had a complaint that I "cursed" a customer in my office and "this behavior will be cause for immediate termination if she hears about it again." This is absolutely ridiculous, I in no way "cursed" a customer or anyone or anything else, not even my foot, or the fact that for the past month my office has been upside down & I have been enduring construction of a new storage closet complete with new lighting and shelving, and have had nearly every piece of furniture re-arranged or replaced. Translation: can't find a thing, and can hardly think what to do with it when I do find it. Still, I kept my bitching to the blog and the Planner's list. Never once was I anything less than respectful to any person I encountered. Now, I may have had a few negative thoughts, especially toward the contractor who threatened my job when I declined to sign something he wanted signed that day without consulting as I had been required wtih the Planning Board Chairman first. She was unavailable, I left her a message. Not good enough. I was costing him hundreds of thousands of dollars. How did I like that on my conscience? I (again politely, but firmly) informed him I had nothing of the kind on my conscience, I had done what I could to get him an answer regarding the signature and was certain the Chairman would call back soon. I would get it taken care of as soon as was possible. He growled something absolutely insulting which I will not repeat. I lowered my voice as I do when I start to get angry, and stated that I did not allow attitude in my office, and he could leave this minute and send in the next person who was waiting out in the hall to see me. Explosion, consternation generale! I heard him stomp up the stairs and slam the door to the Administrator's office. I expect that is whence the accusation of cursing came. However, I am not guilty of cursing out loud. Perhaps silently. I am not as senseless as that would require. As I have said elsewhere today, I need this job, much as I hate it sometimes.

I would ask the Mayor tomorrow when we have our "meeting" about this and "other complaints she has received," for the respect she would give any normal person when investigating any complaint, and that is, the respect to ask, "Is there a problem? Can you tell me what happened?" For if that is not to be forthcoming, I think there will be a problem indeed. And I am not likely to hang around too much longer to discover the particulars. Life is much too short, and I am much too unhappy lately. A conversation with one of the local engineers who attended Monday night's meeting was enlightening and encouraging. He said, "I expect you'll land on your feet. Talk with the Mayor tomorrow. She's apparently forgotten how professional you always are --I suspect she must be buckling under some sort of pressure herself." Kind words, and helpful to hear.

Will try to put all this in its proper perspective, and march on toward whatever goal I am supposed to achieve. Surely that will manifest itself sooner than later.

continuing the rant

Dear Ones:

Thank you again for listening to my rant yesterday afternoon. It was so nice to come in this morning and read all the lovely posts, both on & off list. I am happy to report I am quite mollified by your empathy, and have decided that maybe I will stick it out awhile longer. At 5 p.m. yesterday I was missing the good old days of being chased out of an Alabama swamp (where we were doing housing counts for a CDBG low-mod water & sewer extension application) by concerned citizens in a pickup truck with four gun barrels hanging out the windows, pointed straight at us. No, really! Let me explain:

I remember how lovely the sky looked that day, how the wind was riffling through the soybean plants in the field alongside our rapidly retreating vehicle, and in spite of the momentary dismay & excitement, felt as if I had done something worthwhile & taxpayers' money was very well spent in those days. I could look at a new elevated water tank in an old downtown and say, "I helped to put that there." Things like that went a ways towards helping the infant mortality rate in one of our counties actually dip below that of Bangladesh. I made maps of county water systems, held public hearings on landfill sites, had eggs & tomatoes thrown at me at public hearings & was called a communist for writing one town's first zoning ordinance. I observed straight-pipe septic systems, saw people living in tarpaper shacks, and visited old people who had no floor in their houses with 7 half-naked children clustered around the TV set. (I was told "no one here goes without a television set. That would be uncivilised.") At times I felt as if all I could do was listen and commiserate. But then a year later I could go back & visit those same houses in their fresh blue paint & new front porch & roof and smile and feel like I had done something. Back then, need had a face that I could look into and learn from. As poor as the people were, they had dignity, and they were decent folk.

So when the question is posed, why don't we planners do something, or do more? I realize it is a challenge to be met. I also realize that I don't have the tools to deal with it. The questions have changed, the needs are different now. And maybe I don't care about these people I am supposed to be helping as much as the old ones. Now it is all about playing a game, pushing the pen, saying the right words, making people happy so they don't call the congressman. And the need is no longer dignified, it isn't even honest need. It's just want.

Remember the "two twin imps" of Dickens' Christmas story? They were "ignorance" and "want." You may feel the outraged, concerned citizens mentioned in the opening of this story typify both ignorance and want. However, I beg to differ. All in all, they were protecting what they saw as their dearest possession, to which every ounce of need, purpose, and passion was tied: their land. And, by the way, it must be noted, these guys didn't feel they were in need at all, and had purpose and passion in abundance. All they knew was someone was trespassing in the area, and their first instinct was to remove that outside invasion. Trespassers may bring change, and change may not always be good, and in any case it's a pain in the butt, I imagine they were thinking. Would that we had just left, and done nothing, instead of applying for the federal money that brought the public water & sewer to the area. Do any of you know how the story ends? I don't, but I can guess. The public utilities brought with them economic development, in the form of investment in commercial industry, which brought jobs. Jobs brought prosperity, which in the end just brought more want, in the form of fast cars, disposable diapers, fast food restaurants. It made the land more valuable, even desirable to outsiders, who moved in & put up brick houses and demanded better schools for their children. Building the schools caused the locality to have to raise taxes above what the old-timers could afford to pay, and brought services they hadn't known existed before, such as permitting procedures. So the people sold the land, made lots of money, and moved away, taking with them the community that had been there for decades. What was left were people who worked at the new industry, alongside some of the remnants of the former community (the ones who didn't have enough land to subdivide & become rich off of), and when the industry closed its doors and moved to Mexico, everybody was left sitting in a big pile of their own, self-created want. And the guys in the pickup truck, who previously had been hard-working farmers but became millionaires when they sold the land (aka their purpose, passion, & need); retired & moved to Myrtle Beach, partied for 18 months straight, and died sitting in a hot tub with their noses full of cocaine. Crazy? No, just an amalgamation of several stories I've collected over the years. Scope for my novel.

Because in the end, we just go around chasing after want. I maintain, it's the needs of people that we are too ignorant to recognize, and so need, the purpose, the passion... goes unfulfilled.

Thanks for being there. Maybe we'll figure it out if we work together & share what we know.

Best regards,
Susannah

the yankees are comin'

This is forwarded from the NC Plan mailing list, where this week, the discussion focused on the Census Bureau's new findings.

David Stein wrote:
"North Carolina continues to have a highly ambivalent attitude toward planning - we do it with great reluctance in many cases, and avoid it entirely elsewhere. The continuing game in which taxes from new development is used as a tool in setting up bidding wars between communities or between incorporated and unincorporated areas has allowed development to maximize the externalities they create: long term costs borne by tax payers as a class rather than by the newer homes that cause the costs. This leads to sprawl, leap frog development, air and water pollution, and traffic congestion, not to mention pedestrian unfriendly environments. Note how many supposedly "new urbanist" subdivisions are miles from any real center of activity. North Carolina is also a beautiful place, with an attractive climate, many good jobs (at least for the well educated who can afford new homes), plenty of willing developers who are unwilling or unable to put the pieces together, and local governments unable to get past the anti-tax climate that would allow them to do better planning and development guidance. Yes, there are exceptions, but in observing the scene closely for several years as a transplanted Californian (and no, we win no prizes there, either), I am saddened by the inability of our profession to get ahead of the curve and make the case for not just "smart" growth, but for very much smarter policies on land use management, transportation, health, education and economic activity. We need to recognize that the population has grown dramatically, and to rethink the nature of our development process. To what extent does the "right" of the property owner to maximize individual profit exclude the right of the community at large to avoid economically untenable patterns of development. Why can't we use common sense a bit more often: we know the consequences of haphazard, poorly sited development, yet somehow we seem to be making exceptions for each case that comes along. Even when we go to great lengths to improve a project, we still seem to only be able to make it less objectionable rather than truly an improvement. Look at the "new" development on the site of the formerly proposed "Coker Towers" in Raleigh: months of negotiations still left us with a project that it vastly over-scale for the site, with little public access despite its density, and located where public transit will never be a meaningful option. Or the almost gleeful pattern of continued annexation at the outer edges (Raleigh now touches Rolesville!) which can only undermine the billion plus the city is causing to be invested in its downtown. Isn't there a point at which we can figure out how to do the right think rather than just please everyone or even worse, avoid displeasing anyone "important"?I know it is hard, and that one must listen carefully to the political pressures on local councils, but still, we have not done our job very well if the term smart growth is largely a term of ridicule, the NC Smart Growth Alliance has had to fold up its tent, and the state has yet to mandate appropriate planning legislation for all counties and municipalities."

a purpose

i am defining the hows and whys, the direction of this venue. i have never traced the path of my life, and it is possible that by doing so i will find answers to questions that haven't been answerable heretofore. and thus perhaps i will be able to find more answers, such as, where does my world go from here? and are there any answers i can give to the worlds' questions?

the census bureau has published figures that show that our county made the top 25 fastest growing in the states. dubious distinction. and the commissioners are so mad about it they have shut down the development community --taken their ball & gone home, so to speak. i am laughing up my sleeve, being a child about it. i take my joys where i find them, and do not apologize.

the needleworker in me sees a parallel between those beautiful landscapes and some of the wonderful older neighborhoods in my community: they are like embroidery upon the canvas of the rural landscape. not so the newer absurdities. they defy description; i cannot reconcile them with anything useful or good. they are merely manifestations of greed.

but i digress. first, this is about me, it is a lesson i need to learn. i am a private person, i shut down descriptions of myself even in my own mind. but something pulls me onward to disclose this biography, and make it parallel with my search for meaning. i will post next my favorite picture of my younger self. it has always said more than i could say with words. i remember being shocked when i first saw it, and a little embarrassed. certainly it showed more vulnerability than i cared to admit. but damn, i looked good, didn't i?

innocence in black and white

susannah... at one time, i was going to be a ballerina. this was during that time.

a well-grounded child

meaning, of course, that i was certainly familiar with the ground. this is where it all began, i think. i remember the day my father took these pictures, i can smell the green grass in my grandmother's yard as surely as if i were there right now. i can feel its cool quickening beneath my cheek, scratching across my shoulder blades as I twisted about to look up at the sky. how much time did you spend looking at the sky when you were young? i believe it was this grounding, this looking up while being so firmly set down that began my love affair with the earth.

late and overbooked

it is the wee hour and i should be abed... however, as is my habit anymore, it is late and i am overbooked. i am going to bed soon anyway. no utter musings tonite, i will be up too early tomorrow morning to be able to give the energy now to form any sort of cogent ramblings. my brain so full of things to do, to think, to say, to ponder. my list so long. had been several days since i opened this and thought it worthwhile to at least touch base again. leaving the light on, so to speak.

unfamiliar as i am with this venue, i have been reading thru several weblogs of those who were here before me. how profound some of them are. being such a private person i cannot even explain fully why i am writing here. i know some who would think it imprudent, ill-advised, at the very least undesirable. however, i have met some of the nicest people online, even going back into the 1990s, some of my best and truest friendships were formed thru email lists. this type of forum wasn't even around then, so i hold out for some future friendships, much as was hinted by the friend who wrote the first comment in my "book." that, and i do write better than i speak. communication is something with which i struggle, either assuming a dialogue formed by rote that rolls off my tongue without thinking, or stammering out phrases that are half-caught in my throat. either way it's painful, and less useful than annoying.

ta. i am off to bed, before it rains again. the drumming helps me to sleep. i will write again sooner than later. but meanwhile, if i do not, i am reading someone else's words.

first post

good morning.... and a fine one it is. in the small town office where i work it is far too fine a morning to be inside, but that is where the work is. i try to be philosophical about it, people have always complained about work, and i am no exception. however, i believe in work, i believe in the fulfillment gleaned from tasks performed well, in being productive, but not just for the sake of being busy. it is a simple joy to involve ones' hands, heart, and mind in worthwhile tasks, both mental and physical.

i much prefer sewing to government service. however, i have yet to figure out a way to feed my family with needle and thread. so from time to time i may ruminate on the loss of physical work in our society. i think that is part of our problem...

on to be happy with the day. if i don't make something of it, who will?