Picnic Table

This happened a while ago. I built a picnic table from 2x4s that I salvaged from a deconstruction gig and Shea organized a painting party with folks in out community garden. Now this adorable accoutrement adorns the garden:

As we were preparing for the painting party, Inside Columbia Magazine found out about it and sent a staff reporter to add it to their "neighborhood report":

North Central Columbia

“Better to be a first-rate version of yourself than a second-rate version of someone else.”

Judy Garland’s quote is printed carefully in bright orange letters. They cover just a small portion of the picnic table that Zach Rubin crafted from salvaged 2-by-4s.

In July, Rubin and his partner, Shea Boresi, waterproofed the table and placed it near the grapevines at the alley entrance of the Circus-Lyon garden, where the couple grows cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and herbs. Boresi immediately recognized the white surface as a canvas for creativity. She sent an e-mail to neighbors and asked them to help paint the table one Sunday evening. “I hope you all can come at this time and put your own mark on this new garden fixture!” she wrote.

The message prompted a wave of neighborhood activity in the block just south of Jefferson Junior High School: dedicated gardeners volunteered to whack weeds and spread wood chips in preparation for the art extravaganza. Boresi provided paint and lemonade, which was accompanied by drinks and desserts from about 15 other neighbors.

“We have a great group of gardeners, including some notably creative people,” she says. “There’s a lot of casual socializing, but until the table there was no place to rest or to linger for a conversation. Now we can just hang out in the garden.”

http://www.insidecolumbia.net/1682/2010/08/a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood/

Have some old 2x4s? With a little imagination and some sweat they can be saved from the dumpster and made useful again.

- Zach

About One Back, Two Forward

This is not a nostalgic blog. The opportunity to share our projects and ponderings with you through the internet is, itself, extraordinary. I am attached my iPad, and Zach would be disconsolate to part with his power tools. Even more seriously, Zach is grateful that his heart problem could be fixed with a procedure made possible only through modern medicine, and Shea is grateful that she, rather than her gender, will decide her contribution to the world.

But we want to be up-front about our agenda to help bring about change. Modern life has expanded our worlds, and opened up our choices—which means that never before has personal responsibility been so important.

Unfortunately, in our culture, it is easy to get swept up in a wave of indiscriminate consumerism and mechanization. The cost for this (besides the pollution and depletion of our environment) is that we become increasingly dependent on money and technology, rather than depending on our own skills and on each other.

But we can change our culture. We can widen and strengthen our skills; we can establish strong community relationships; and we can use our resources more elegantly. To keep this up, we must continually evaluate whether "new" and "more" is better. Clearly, sometimes it is. But everything has a cost--one that often isn't fully reflected on the price tag.

Thinking critically about those costs is not always popular. The good news is that we have found the process of building self-reliance and community-reliance to be, for the most part, surprisingly pleasurable.

It's also really hard without support. (And we are kind of new at this ourselves.)

To that end, this blog is for us, as well as for you. By showing the small steps we take in our own lives to become more self-reliant, we hope to show you--and remind ourselves--how approachable profound change can be. This blog is meant to provide fodder for thought, discussion, and ACTION in your quest for the good life.

Topics of discussion will include: our quest to build or fix things that others would pay for or throw away, how we approach building community in our diverse neighborhood, gardening and other food issues; and DIY tips for simple ways to make your living space more attractive for little or no cost.