Dear friends,
We make our living in heritage preservation. Despite our feelings that it’s better to preserve 10 things properly and not 100 things improperly, and despite our feelings that the whole concept of heritage is deeply problematic at times, we do share the spirit that there are things from the past (still with us) that deserve to be protected. We feel this strongly when walking through Meadowlilly. We feel it when we look at the castle downtown (despite, as mentioned, some problems). We feel it even at Fanshawe Pioneer Village, a fabricated mausoleum to settler romanticism, whose quiet, windy, sun-soaked lanes inspire an experience of Time that is nowhere to be found in many urban places unless you head into a weed-strewn alley and squint real hard. We say this knowing that it exposes a number of issues that need addressing. Jason is currently writing a book on this very thing. Somehow, though, most people agree that the past should be recognized as something that has value to us Present People. It should remain accessible, researchable, and real. Otherwise we are stuck with the vacuous promises of the Future, the true unexplored country.
We thought about this whole can of worms the other day on Wharncliffe when passing Nan’s house. If there’s a case that locally exemplified the use of heritage over progress we can’t think of it. If you haven’t heard Nan lived at 100 Stanley Street, a 100+ year old house by the railway bridge there. The City of London wanted to widen Wharncliffe. The City made an offer to move her house. Nan wanted to stay. The community rallied to support her. Fraught local politicking ensued. The result after much broo-ha-ha was that her house was slated for demolition. Her house, gardens (worked on for years) and soul were left to rot. Perhaps that’s an overstatement but, jeepers, imagine living somewhere for decades and this is what you face near Life’s End—your city saying that your home will be destroyed. Fucking imminent domain, she fought it. She lost. And her house is boarded up and left to vanish into the legal and political morass of Road Widening.
Nan kept an extraordinary garden there, we’re told. Being from a river valley and a small town, we both are susceptible to the symbolism of the old lady tending Gardens of Eden in her backyard. Both of our grandmothers kept gardens. Both were taught that gardens were part of their stewardship of a creator’s earth. Neither of us feel this way—its a bit too Protestant for our spirits—but we’ve been loved and have been loved by people who do. There’s a power there—a simple and lifelong dedication that we admire—of the small town church auxiliary member planting flowers for bees and canning strawberries in the summer. Like the Fanshawe Pioneer Village, it has a dangerous simplicity. But we feel it. We love it. Gardens can be known by everyone. A good garden welcomes all. Gardens are folk art. They are fine art. They are places where produce is shared, community made, and heritage rooted. Beyond the frankly bullshit obsessions of cultural loyalty and nationalism, of ancestral romance and blood-simple truths of Anscestry.com, gardens make heirloom tomatoes and wild flowers. This is beautiful.
Despite some folks’ desire to be pure and linear (the originator of organic food was a White Supremacist, after all), and despite others’ interest in the Power of Progress, gardens can ultimately fight the need for things to be perfect. They get out of hand in the most beautiful way. They are resplendent, both day and night, and, to us, symbolize the most beautiful things that a land can make and preserve. Put another way, if a little old lady who lives in a corner house cannot feel safe that her little world is valued then why the hell are we doing anything at all? Why else are we going to work and loving our friends and getting up to hope that this day might be a little better than the last? This is why any of us plant anything. This is why we take care of things. This is why we fall in love. If this isn’t something that our neighbours, the Powers-that-Be, or enemies care about too then Fuck It.
It’s time to lie in front of the bulldozers.
Much love,
Jason & Vanessa
