How about starting with being a good human?

In my last blog post, I explained my hopeful plan to start a garden at the Sunny brae Middle school but after talking to people who started and are running the garden at Pacific Union, and several conversations with my program manager, I’ve realized that the time I have left in the semester and Arcata in general is simply to scarce to be able to pull it off successfully. I now understand just how much work, patience, and support is necessary to start and garden and will use the information to my advantage in the future! To say the least, I was disappointed when I realized that I was in over my head and that I wasn’t able to give the gift of gardening to the kids.

Like Danusha Veronica Goska explains in her chapter “Political Paralysis” of the book The Impossible Will Take a Little While, often our worth and agency is measured off of our status of virtue and a sort of celebrity status. Goska explains that people feel powerless unless someone is acknowledging their acts of good in the world (62). I resonated with her words but I all too often feel powerless in a world that is ran on money and institution, an example being my garden situation explained above! But Goska also says that many people who feel hopeless often do have the ability to enact small feats of agency with what they do have including lending an ear to someone how needs it, donating food, and even donating smile and nice gesture to our neighbors (67). She says that the paralysis we will for enacting great change should not inhibit our ability to empower the humanity within us. I will walk away from her words more aware of my role as a social change agent, not expecting to “Save the World Right Now” (or in my case build a garden), but to find inspiration and worth in my humanity.

So for now I am basically back to square one, however, I decided that the second best option will be to show the kids how to germinate seeds, watch them grow, and then finally plant them. One step at a time, right?