Now that spring has more or less made its tentative 2011 debut, my unruly garden is in need of attention. Like a dishevelled teenager it’s in sore need of a haircut, the weeds have made the most of my absence during the last few months. Unfortunately for them the grim reaper bearing garden tools is about to make their ruthless take-over a temporary reign. They creep all over the garden unbidden and without mercy. Then again they’re actually native flora, even if unwelcome most of the time. I think we forget this in our bid to have fancy gardens, though mine can hardly be described as such. Nature’s switch is on and there’s only so much I can do to keep the weeds at bay. Tools in hand I try to make a start.
The other half doesn’t garden at all – the last couple of times he attempted to tackle the greenery he managed to mow the lawn-mower cable and rendered it useless. On a previous occasion he killed the trimmer in similar fashion. Somehow he just kept missing the green bits despite their abundance. How he didn’t electrocute himself is a miracle and as a result he is now banned from using the tools. Fried husband, keeled over nice and easy isn’t something I want to have to deal with in future. The only time hubby goes into the garden these days is when he likes to treat the neighbours to a firework display on Bonfire Night. I usually hide indoors for fear I get to witness a repeat of the Armageddon of two years ago. He bought a ‘cake’, something that was meant to release little rockets up one-by-one, all very well. What we didn’t expect was the Blitz. The whole damn thing shot up in one go and created a colossal explosion. I ran into the house hoping the roof hadn’t caved in. As it happens – divine intervention perhaps – it wasn’t. Subsequently he’s been banned from those too. Now it’s nice little fountains and catherine wheels. NO rockets! I’m convinced it was a ploy to blow up next door’s shed in revenge for a comment the old codger made once, but so far Mr C is winning the war, despite the near perfect attempt to demolish his vegetable patch. Rockets were strewn all over his plants, with little harm done. His cranky old eyes squint at us in disdain at times. Did I tell you he has a perfect garden? Our garden is a jungle compared to his, sacrilege in his books. No snail moves without him knowing about it. If he spies a weed out comes the weed-killer; he keeps it within reach and squirts it with relish looking for intruders - so much for our green attempts at keeping the wildlife happy. I don’t think the hedgehogs like him much. They hang out in our garden, snuffling and snorting. No toxic snails and slugs at our place, it’s a veritable feast! Even the foxes leave a plop or two in appreciation of our wild garden. Take that Mr C! I suspect he has traps laid out all over his pristine garden. The creatures take refuge in ours. They know!
The garden is a symbol of renewal and change, the seasons come and go and time toils away leaving us scratching our heads wondering where it’s all going. I am acutely aware of the passing of time: time’s relentless waltz and the things that come and go. The people you leave behind, take with you or are yet to meet; the challenges that we are presented with good and bad; the personal history that we create as we move forever forwards; and the history we are witness to in the wider world whether it affects us personally or not. Spectators or creators we are all a part of this universal dance and we only get a very short time to participate within it. In the words of Carl Sagan:
“We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it’s forever.”
When you measure our time frame to that of the cosmos you’ll know what he means, and yet this last few weeks have been challenging. Despite Sagan’s philosophical and scientific truth, I can’t help my meagre human self from feeling the disquiet of change; change that has caused some sadness, some anger and much disappointment. What I thought was a respected profession appears to no longer be so.
The future of libraries looks bleak. There is much furore about the cuts and attempted closures of this public service, but for me it’s the human cost that grates the hardest. It’s not life and death, and it’s not such a big deal in the greater scheme of things but that shouldn’t render it any less important than anything else. Forget the politics, the monetary problems and the arguments for and against if you will, but think on this: how much is a human-being worth these days? It seems to me the governments/corporations of this world treat us, the ordinary folk, like weeds in a garden. We are dispensable and easy to cut down. All it takes is the loss of your livelihood and it can change your life irrevocably. Those resourceful enough will be fine and I do not worry for the future of my evicted colleagues. I have every confidence they’ll do very well, but it’s not right that some of my colleagues (to use a metaphor) have been put out to pasture and left to chew the cud of rejection after years of service and loyalty. The axe swung at them and executed their vocation. To have a profession so altered that it no longer resembles a respectable and proud one leaves me seething. To deplete our stock to nothing more than a handful of cloned bestsellers filling our once abundant shelves and losing our readers on a daily basis leaves me cold. Such a proud institution becoming so derelict and unwanted.
I feel a little bereft. People I have come to view as friends and in some ways my work family, have left a void that can never be filled. Not meaning to be derogatory, our libraries were once like zoos filled with a myriad of human specimens, both staff and public. All so different, all so fascinating – some we loved and some we disliked - but generally there was always an unspoken respect or ambivalence. We were all in this profession together doing our jobs. Now I worry for those of us left behind. We’re left with the memories and the nostalgia and the writing is still on the wall. If something doesn’t alter soon the future of the public library is dire, ultimately extinct. It is what change brings sometimes.
History is often a personal odyssey. We create our own personal histories through life and call it experience. We bear witness to the events outside our personal spheres and watch as things come and go. On a lighter note I have been watching the Space Shuttle programme with interest. So far in our lifetime we have witnessed the Berlin Wall come down, Nelson Mandela becoming president of South Africa and the end of apartheid, the coming and going of Concorde to name just a handful of events (the more positive events). And now the end of a thirty year Space programme. I find the whole thing rather compelling, watching a 4 ½ million pound (approximately 2000 tons) machine soar into the heavens like a shooting star defying gravity. Maybe it’s just me but that’s a beautiful sight. It’s not perfect and it’s risky (think back to the Challenger and Columbia accidents) but it’s a hell of an achievement. The Hubble telescope the Galileo probe, missions to the International Space Station, if only we could always try to be altruistic and wise. Ok so Reagan had one or two nefarious ideas, but still, the Space Shuttle is the most complex machine ever built. A beautiful example of humankind’s achievements and ingenuity and once again I am sad to see the end of an era. The Space age has given us a perspective of this beautiful Earth unsurpassed by nothing else. We live on magnificence and a miracle.
And so....
Where to next? What happens now? Do we sit back and let things happen or do we get out there and make some history? We’re mostly weeds you know. But always remember the hardy weed is defiant and will always come back to give the gardener a headache. As I prepare to make short work with my shears I allow myself to enjoy the sun and allow the breeze to sweep away the gloom. Mr C has just squirted his arm. I suspect the aphid population have nestled on his scrawny limb in true kamikaze defiance.
“We are legion” they whisper.
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