Salt Lake

As a child I played in the gaps between buildings…fallow land, abandoned lots, open fields, muddy bogs…& untouched sand mines.  Formed through misplanning, they were our empire, the empire of children.

Ours was a dirty, unused place with snakes, lizards, frogs, insects of every category & wild vegetation.

Children instinctively understand the language of nature.  They can read it, if only they’re allowed to climb the fence & play undisturbed.

But the city gardeners arrive — the eliminators of mystery, the killers of empty spaces.  They move, pave & plant in zones where children & teenagers once played.

They pave the paths people may walk upon & frame the off-limit grass with perfectly composed borders.  The flowers live in identical pots of cement.

Naturalness is understood as the annihilation of spontaneity through perfect gardening.

-adapted from Design Anarchy

 

Salt Lake City is beautiful in many ways & special to me.  Coming from a small town, its vast population introduced me to diversity & taught me there exists infinite ways of thinking.  I learned tolerance & began to appreciate individual uniqueness that lends to the world’s beauty.  I took my first steps here on the road to truly finding myself — rather than selecting from a pre-designed list — & embraced inner searching.

It is here that I met Dave, finally embraced loved activities & discovered many new passions like rock climbing, biking, food, kayaking, knitting & photography.  SLC shook me out of my rut & helped me to openly love life & myself.

Now, sometimes it is difficult to still see all the reasons I loved SLC…as it moves farther from nature & a sense of community.

Anymore, even during these beautiful, intimate glimpses nature permits us, there is still the nagging voice of “civilization” [often hummed in form of marketing] lingering in the background or muffling the open spaces that people once strolled…together.

Yes, we do still find some escape & cherish its beauty,

yet even here, we are still smothered by the exhaust-filled canyons.

It is time to move on…maybe for a time…maybe forever…

~

I love Salt Lake, I do.  As we come to this crossroad, I say my goodbyes to a place that intimately shaped who I am now, taking with me what I have learned & love.  I am ready to create new experiences, continue to search & live.

~

Have you ever said goodbye?  Have you ever stayed in a place long enough to watch it move farther from what you loved?