Details

I spent this week walking around Philly. The winds have been sharp, biting, blowing trash about and forcing the homeless to batten down under their mounds of raggedy blankets, and yet there are signs that Spring is arriving. The yellow green buds of the graceful weeping willows, the tiny violet ground flowers, the hardy daffodils and warm lilac tulip buds of the magnolias. 

Still, winter lords its grimness, and it is a struggle to maintain a positive outlook rather than feeling weary of the cold, even knowing from experience that this annual transformation makes Spring feel ever more wondrous. 

I srood motionless, doubtless looking baffled, forlornly counting the rings of one of seven huge trees that had been severed by the City apparently for a couple buckling sidewalks, when a man passing by stopped and asked me why this devastation. When I suggested that perhaps a more creative solution could have been found, he launched into a persuasive, negative rant that made me again feel that we are witnessing the fall of human civilization. I've been mulling over the response of an Egyptologist, someone who has spent his career studying the ancient Egyptian civilization to my query recently whether he thought they were more advanced than we are now. He replied, "Their civilization lasted 3,000 years. How long do you think industrial capitalism will last?" The knowledge base in my brain tells me 250-300 years tops. I wish it didn't, but a quick survey of national and global events doesn't immediately suggest we are heading into a period of enlightenment.  What I am about to suggest for personal mental health is not meant to discourage positive societal action. Still do what you can. Utilize your skills and follow your passion. But if you run into a wall, by all means shift your focus so that you still live a happy life. I say this from experience. I know about climate and refugees and the work the UN is doing to encourage countries to set and meet sustainable development goals and so I wrote a novel, a blueprint for addressing these issues in a positive way and yet... never mind that it is a genre-blending novel, a little sci-fi, a little realism, a little fantasy, a little dark humor, that is the way I think, but it's not everyone's cup of tea and I don't yet have the market reach of the billionaires who manipulate consumers, so I'm not sure it will get into the right hands in time. Still, I feel good about contributing my ideas and will continue to do what I can to make the world a more beautiful place, realizing that sometimes my most meaningful contribution might be to simply smile at someone I am passing by. The man who spun me into thoughts of the fall of civilization told me that he was going home to commune with dead black heroin addicts from the 50s, with whom he felt more in common than most people today. Sounded like a pretty specific niche to find comfort, but we all seek what we need to get by, so of course I wished him success in finding consolation. I looked down at the sidewalk. It seems I find the answers in the small, silent communications here, almost what one would expect from fairies, only in Philly it is literally more concrete than flashing sparkles in the morning dew. I may have included similar findings in an earlier post, possibly in the Street Art section, but I am taken each time I see a sidewalk crack repair with mosaic or a gas cap cover someone has taken the time to adorn with artwork. It's these small details that give me hope, so I have decided to focus on them to help me believe we might find the circumspection to save ourselves.

You can always make your personal space more colorful and happier.

And how thoughtful is this? A sprinkler that can be turned on in the summer to cool hot children at the Roberto Clemente Playground. Philadelphia is embraced by the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, so water shortage is not a problem here.

Entrance. Why not paint all dismal concrete structures and grotesquely ugly utility boxes, etc? I have seen this in many different cities and it always brightens up an otherwise dismal container. This one is at the Spirit of Suwanee Music Park.

Signs posted on the playground fence. A dog owner passing by - I'm pretty sure there are more dogs than people in Philly - grumbled at his perceived  slight. "Dogs aren't unhealthy!" he declared. I thought of the fleas and poop the children would be graced by avoiding, not to mention the piss everywhere. Which of course no one does mention. Don't cross a dog owner! I truly believe that many sentient creatures are more highly evolved, more keenly aware, more intelligent than Homo Sapiens, so I am far from a dog-hater. Still, I find it sad and selfish that so very many people keep dogs with heavy coats in hot climates, usually in their apartments all day, only to imperiously walk them three times to urinate all over the city as though it is their God-given right to make the city smell ubiquitously like piss. All to fill some personal psychological void, a need to be unquestionably loved, a hole. And then I think of my own dogs, who gave me so much more love and support than any humans. Unconditional love. Hard to come by and so helpful in a stressful world. The other consideration is our current state of evolution.I feel like there is some niggling questioning with the data coming in on the intelligence of elephants, dolphins, octopus, sting rays, a growing awareness that maybe, just because we have guns and other means to easily kill prey, that our position at the top of the food chin is not because we are superior beings. And that perhaps in forty years or so, humankind will come around a bit more to a realization, an understanding that to co-exist, we must recognize our interconnectedness, respect our planet as a living organism, not foremost as a commercial resource, and that maintaining, protecting, and respecting other species is vital to our own health and well-being.

But back to more petty detailed concerns while we are in this state of imbalance. How is this right to distribute piss everywhere, flower pots, lawns, porch stairs different and less invasive from smokers feeling self-righteous about their right to smoke outside, as though they own the air everyone breathes? It is far worse walking down the street in many European cities than in the US of course as we are ahead of them in acknowledging the addiction and health risks of nicotine. (This is not nationalistic pride talking; we are pitifully behind in so many other areas, like banning plastic bags and recognizing the health risks of pesticides in food and harmful chemicals in personal products.)

Yet these political concerns of an overactive mind are not helpful. Better to focus on the smaller things. This sculpture along the Schuylkill is camouflaged in the shadows of the trees gracing the banks and looks very much like the fishermen nearby. Unobtrusive, quiet, peaceful.

And here is a sign that we are embracing diverse cultures, even if it's just in these small libraries, this one at the Roberto Clemente playground. That's something. Yes, we've got a problem with racism here. But at least a portion of our society is trying to change that.

And isn't this restoration of the Waterworks elegant?

Aren't these lights in the hallway of City Hall cool? And isn't it lovely that even with a crumby old iPhone camera you can feel the coolness of the hallway and almost inhale the grandeur of the history made here - the founding of a nation, however imperfect - the ideal of freedom is a noble one. 

Can we, with the love in our hearts so easily sparked by small beauties, move forward mindful of the many consequences of each of our decisions?

Maybe.