Persimmon Glen

I had to laugh the other day, not necessarily at myself, but at our American society as a whole.

Let me explain.

The weather here lately has been wonderful, and I've spent every spare minute I could get working outside. I'm finishing up my pond and it has some water in it from my rain barrels! Hooray! Now, I'll sit back and wait for the rain to fill it up and do some decorating.

I also have been busy building several terraces in my yard which is on a slope and makes it a bit difficult to find a level spot to put a table and some chairs. When you live in a tiny house, your outdoor space becomes an extension of your home, so I need lots of space for company. I have a huge firepit and a dedicated cooking area, both for grilling and for baking. I plan on having people over a lot this year and wanted a nice large space for a table and chairs, since having company almost always revolves around food.

The terraces have been built by hand. I start digging on the high side, moving the dirt to the lower side against a low rock wall which I built by moving rocks from all around my property. Each terrace is small with steps going from one to another, so it's almost like having a bunch of separate rooms, all built around the fire pit and next to the pond.

So a few days ago, I had a few family members over for a picnic. The weather was just right and the day was beautiful. My oldest son has a new girlfriend and she came with him. I really like her and am trying to get to know her better.

My family and friends all know that I live here with no running water and I use buckets inside for a bathroom, and they don't think anything of it, but I was a little nervous about the new girlfriend. I knew she would have to use the toilet at some point while she was here and I didn't know what she would think when I  had to show her the bucket to use.

So, we're visiting and waiting for the rest of the gang to arrive and watching the fire and she tells me how pretty it is here and how much she likes it. Then she tells me that where she comes from, almost all cooking is done over fires outside. Then she proceeds to tell me how difficult it was for her to get used to cities when she moved here because she had always lived in the country, and that where she lived, they didn't have bathrooms like everyone has here. When they need to go, they just go outside somewhere, and all showers are outside and taken with cold rain water. She said it was very much like what I have here, except that in El Salvador they don't have trees like I have, they have banana and mango and lime and avocado trees everywhere.

Well, this was my kind of girl, and I instantly lost my nervousness over a bucket, so I proceeded to show her my outdoor shower and my compost piles and explain how I compost the human waste. She thought that was a wonderful idea.

Later, after everyone left, I got to thinking about Americans. In this country, those of us who are going back to the basics are in essense just learning to live as people in many other countries have always lived. Yet here, we're seen as 'progressives' with our new ideas for living in harmony with the natural order of things. How backward we really are! We have become so accustomed over many generations to all the niceties of modern living that we have a tendency to forget our own roots and to realize that there are people all over the world who know nothing of our modern lifestyles.

In these political times and with our country's recession in full bloom, people are panicked over the cost of bread at the grocery store, and it is seen as almost radical for a guy to dig up his manicured lawn in order to grow his own food, and it's seen as a terrible thing to have to cut back on the cable bill and start using coupons and start shopping at the discount stores.

In my opinion, these are good things for this country. We've all gotten too soft and our society is spoiled. In a way, I wouldn't mind seeing everything crash in order to teach people some lessons and force them to learn how to grow a tomato and save rain water for a garden and not a lawn.

Maybe then more people would learn to appreciate the niceties and not take them for granted as our due, and maybe then we would learn some patience by having to wait for a watermelon to ripen on the vine and children would get off the computers and video games and learn where a hamburger really comes from. We wouldn't be so immersed in instant gratification and be such a throw away society.

People from other cultures have so much to teach us if we would just learn to listen.