Crisplandia

Create something new everyday. You don’t have to be a professional. Just create. That’s the message at CRISP.

Didion said to always carry a notebook. I carry scraps of paper and sharpie markers that I use to write on the sections of window blinds. Those old white ones. Perfect to fit into one of the 72 cells of a plug tray. I sometimes carry those 80-page pocket spiral jobs. They usually turn to one solid hunk, especially after an entire day in this New Orleans heat. The best to carry are the pocket-sized moleskin, but even those lose their leather cover when they encounter a day full of sweat.

I could have asked for a pen this morning. I could have asked for paper. For there was a lot of truth laid on the table between Jacob and me. Both of us come from a place of abundance. Both of us believe in running toward what has not been found. Both of us know the grounding that comes with watching a seed become a plant.

I see how Monsanto became what they became, for as soon as money enters the picture there is this lure to covet, to hold tight, to hide the knowledge. We spoke of how to work together with what we know, to include others, to keep what each of us specialize in and then to grow together both literally and figuratively for the kids born in this century.

There is a giant greenhouse in the Lower 9. There is great possibility in this. I consider the truest thing I said while sitting with him this morning. And what I believe coincides with what he believes, that we can develop varieties and study what does and doesn’t grow well in this city and why. I spoke of Mark Shephard and STUN and planting more, and finding places and people who trust us with their land.

I spoke of the difficulty of trying to walk the tightrope between those who want landscape fabric and rocks and the wild sort of land that might come up by letting nature do her thing. How to pass along this knowledge? Who wants this knowledge? Usually those who experiment on their own will not pay for a consultation and those with the money for a consultation already have the idea of what they want.

That might have been a tangent, a field down which I did not mean to pass. Truth is, sitting here and sucking the pulp of this guava, spitting out the seeds for the future, I know that there is more to find. I know that what I wish to do takes time. 

And I know that what I wish to do is become a hub from which spokes can spread and become an entire bicycle that can connect to other bicycles. I see these plants I have found over the years combined with natives. I see Gulf Coast penstemon at the base of pitanga. I see rows upon rows of this. Hedges if you wish

I know for this possibility to exist, there must be others nearby who believe, and I know because I have seen. I keep going back to Fusterlandia in my mind, a place in Cuba where a man started to put down tile around his house, built sculptures, and how this led to a neighbor doing the same, and another, until the whole village was known around the world. And I think of the Watts Towers and those rubber tire homes way out in the desert of New Mexico.

Now imagine this same concept with plants and art and each person involved composing a space. Imagine a quilt. This is a quilt of life where each section has its own individual mark and yet collectively this entire quilt can cover and protect and grow and spread. And there is a communal ecosystem in this.

This is my vision. In this instance. And the more that grows, the more seeds there will be. And in this tourist city, people will come. And the people already here, well…they can take advantage of this so that the foot traffic that now exists will blow Brendten’s mind in the future, while he sits with his latest batch of origami and a sign that says For Sale.

And there’s nothing wrong with selling what you believe.