Side Note Distraction

Just back from radiation. While driving back, I couldn’t help but think the following:

I love my car. Flawed, as it is. It is old, scratched, in need of repair, expensive, falling apart, and impractical.

I love Austin. Flawed as it is, I pass a tree branch in the bike lane that I saw get knocked down by a semi that was unable to make a turn without running into a tree-- which happens to look exactly like the giant white semi I'd see later in the news that hit a cyclist just under 290 on the southside. ​ I think about the foolish new pedestrian signs that have gone up in my neighborhood that exactly zero motorists acknowledge. Now, these are not small signs, and they are in triplicate and have reflective surfaces as well as brand-new crosswalk paint that is about ten feet wide. And there are reflector sticks all around this new crosswalk. No one cares. Motorists whizz by. One blond white lady in a minivan. A big fat brown-haired man in a Tesla. They don’t care. They don’t care if you’re walking alone or with dogs or with kids in carriages. Speeding past because if they aren’t going to acknowledge this mess of signs, they certainly aren’t going to abide by the speed limit.

I love my house. Flawed as it is. Old with a shitty kitchen, terrible soil that resembles clay, poorly constructed, and popcorn walls and ceilings to cover up drywall inconsistencies, as was the tradition of the time. The washer and dryer are in the garage, which causes damage because it gets so hot out there in summer, and there is no utility sink. There are no bathtubs, nor is there electricity on the exterior. Yet, there are many old cables that have since been cut and painted over.

I want to stay. I want to go. I want to stay and go. I want to stay or go or go and return. I want to realize the ideas behind all this, especially those about the car and the house. Restoring the car would be fun and make it more practical and sustainable. But creating a sustainable property that could be an example of something pretty and nontoxic to the environment. A place where lizards, birds, and possums can flourish. In the neighborhood, we have foxes and possums, and hawks, bats, and owls. I want wildflowers and healthy soil and trees and paths and bird baths and bee baths and a nice fire pit. I do not want gas-powered lawn mowers, blowers, and weedwackers. I do not want pesticides, fertilizers, or poisons.

Neighbors blow their yard junk with their gas-powered machines right into the street, which ends up rolling right into the creek drains. Some just leave the nitrogen-rich clippings right on their lawns, which heats up and kills more grass, leaving a big dirt area. But it doesn’t stop them from getting out their gas mowers the next week. They just mow their dirt. They don’t seem to care about garbage or run off, which also all ends up in the creek drain. They don’t know the difference between the brown, blue, and green bins either. Large, white, plastic garbage bags full of things like diapers prop up recycle bin lids up and down the block. And every morning around 6:30 AM, a diesel engine revs up and is left to idle in the driveway for about 15 to 20 minutes every day, Monday through Friday. They must be made of money.