Kelley's search/research/discovery.
(Here's my e-mail address: kelleylibby@gmail.com)
I’m in Atlanta this evening, in a house, in a neighborhood near Grant Park. My friend Kristen and her fiance Josh, along with their dog Yar and their cat Cupcake, have recently moved into this house and have begun making it their home. I say begun, but there’s really little left to do. They have everything they need—kitchen stuff, bathroom stuff, furniture. They have art on the walls and surfaces. Their styles are different. Josh prefers modern, Kristen…it’s hard to describe her interior decorating taste—rustic romantic vintage? Josh has Star Wars posters and figurines; Kristen has fresh flowers and seashells. Josh has video games; Kristen has fashion magazines. Somehow it all works.
“The history of suburban construction can be understood as the evolution of seven vernacular patterns. Building in borderlands began about 1820. Picturesque enclaves started around 1850 and streetcar buildouts around 1870. Mail-order and self-built suburbs arrived in 1900. Mass-produced, urban-scale “sitcom” suburbs appeared around 1940. Edge nodes coalesced around 1960. Rural fringes intensified around 1980. All of these patterns survive in the metropolitan areas of 2003. Many continue to be constructed.” —Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000
“Recently, I drove around some of the subdivisions on State Road 54, as well as in other parts of Tampa Bay and in southwest Florida. A friend from Tampa, who accompanied me on one outing, called them ‘ghost subdivisions’.” —George Packer, “The Ponzi State: Florida’s foreclosure disaster,” The New Yorker, Feb. 9 & 16, 2009
“ What is or what should be the goal of our life and work? This is a fearful question and it ought to be fearfully answered. Probably it should not be answered for anybody in particular by anybody else in particular. But the ancient norm or ideal seems to have been a life in which you perceived your calling, faithfully followed it, and did your work with satisfaction; married, made a home, and raised a family; associated generously with neighbors; ate and drank with pleasure the produce of your local landscape; grew old seeing yourself replaced by your children or younger neighbors, but continuing in old age to be useful; and finally died a good or a holy death surrounded by loved ones.
— Wendell Berry, in an essay called Quantity vs. Form in a book called The Way of Ignorance
But first…
Some of you may know me already, but if I haven’t met you yet, my name is Kelley Libby. I’m a graduate student who rents at The Overlook. I guess you could say I’m a newcomer to Oregon Hill—been here about 15 months. In that time, I’ve come across a number of Oregon Hill citizens, both in the public writing and out in the neighborhood, who are tremendously faithful to Oregon Hill and who stand up for it when it needs help.
I really admire that. I come from a rural community in Northeast Florida that in some ways reminds me of this community. One of the things I love best about home is that people there take the time to sit on their porches and visit with each other. I enjoy the stories, the news, the jokes, the sipping of sweet tea, even the pauses in conversation. To talk with a neighbor on a porch is fellowship of the highest sort, and at the same time, a simple, natural happening. I love that it happens here in Oregon Hill, that I’ve been invited to sit on porches with some of you all—to watch the cars go by, to listen to the birds and the church bells, to take a break from all the going, and to get to know you better.
If someone were to tell me that there would never be another porch talk, ever—that all the porches on people’s houses were to be removed—I would be devastated. And I would fight, as I’m sure some of you would. And that leads me to my question.
What is it about Oregon Hill, for you, that you’ve either fought for or would fight for if it came down to it?
I’d like to put all of your comments into a book that will benefit Oregon Hill in some way. So I’d love it if you wrote to me. Or if you’d prefer, I’d be happy to sit down and talk with you. I’m at the William Byrd Community House every Thursday evening from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., and like I said, I like porch talks too.
My e-mail address is kelleylibby@gmail.com, and my phone number is 904.540.1689.
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion — put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go.
Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
