For day 17 I'm breaking again from writing about discrete physical, geographical places, and picking up What Makes You Feel Alive, the suggested day 17 prompt from #Write31Days host Crystal Stine. Alive reminds me of Howard Thurman's {career, vocation, recreation} counsel not to ask what the world needs—ask what brings you to life, because the world needs people who are fully alive.
What makes me feel alive? Sharing a meal with almost anyone else! Teaching ... almost anything? Well, not quite. Teaching something I know about: art, music, bible, theology. To tie alive into 31 Days of Celebrating Place, what places, large or small settings, types of towns, or particular geographies bring me to life? Cities. Noisy residential neighborhoods. The CBD at lunchtime. I still have that Preservation Project passion, or maybe Restoration Project would be more accurate. To cite the description of my currently less active {than this one} Preservation Project blog, it's about Neighborhood revitalization, brownfield reclamation, storefront transformation, infrastructure rehabilitation... about surrounding the city with beauty, encouraging nature with window boxes, backyard gardens, kitchen herb gardens, community gardens. Flowers and veggies, beauty and nutrition all over the place! Getting artistic with murals on brick walls and wooden fences. Creating new signage. What brings me to life? Digging into dirt. Pruning, weeding, raking, harvesting. Getting real dirt all over and not minding it at all after the first five minutes. Planting, harvesting, growing, and greening can happen almost anywhere you can dig into the dirt, and it's most noticeably abundant outside the city out in the countryside, across rural farmlands. What brings me to life? Sharing a meal, especially a feast full of ingredients we've planted and picked ourselves, prepared together, and blessed together. In the city, In the country. Anywhere.
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