Pressed
leaves - - so
easy to collect &
so simple to
compost.

National
Geographic, not
so much. Each year, eleven
pounds of images from around the world.
But last week, it was time for this collection of stories
and images to move on, to mix and mingle
with holiday wrappings ​and
​old bills.

​Our
children
did not plow
through them, as I
once did, and no library
wanted them. This 450 pound
collection was, in fact, a
burden from
another
era.

We
were managing
the clutter we brought
home from my mother-in-law's
house, which we had cleared out three
years ago. It was time to say farewell to her pressed
leaves, National Geographics and her
dog-eared rhyming
dictionary.

The
compost
absorbed all
of it, including the 
expectations of creating
the perfect turn of phrase in a
gift card, thank you letter or speech
at the garden club. In our pile, the leaves
& this book will nourish new growth
in a new year & maybe even
inspire new ways of
thinking post
2020.

For me,
photographing
the spent blooms has also
been an invitation to see the beauty
embodied in decay, especially
during the past 3 years,
when she has been
in decline.

This
first 'dried
flowers' photograph
is part of my original "Compost
Composition" greeting ​card collection.
There is still a limited supply available, which
I hope to get out into the world. Please express your
gratitude for the US Post Office by writing
cards to those you love. Rumor has
it that these images make
people feel good.
Here's a
link.

For almost 
a year, I've been
documenting the Landfill
and have not been surprised by
the tons of waste dumped onto the
ground, creating a mountain
where there had once
been a valley.

A few
minutes later,
when the sun went
behind a cloud, it was not
the play of light, but the play of 
textures and tones that caught my eye,
and the way the color of the ground shifted
from raw black soil to brown shredded bark to a
layer of plastic and then on to the snow-covered hillside.
And here was this massive vehicle whose sole
job is to smash it all up, but which,
in the process, creates these
elegant circles in
the soil.

To manage
our waste, the landfill
crew harnesses a complex mix
of engineering, biology, chemistry and art.
​It's all about containment - How to safely entomb
our garbage so that it stays where we put it,
does not leach toxic runoff or become
a landslide, or explode from
​noxious gases.

For me,
it's not hard to
manage what I know or 
to plan for things I understand. Like
in this discarded tax preparation worksheet
from 1992, I can do whatever calculations I must.
But when confronted with variables I do
not understand that are beyond
my control, I become
a bit befuddled.

While
at The Landfill
last week, though, the
manager indicated that they
were receiving 35% less waste than
just two weeks before. He suggested that it's
like everyone & everything is taking a deep breath and
a giant pause. Maybe, I thought, that is what the earth and each
one of us needs right now...as long as we care for
​each other along the way...because
we are most definitely in
this together...

...pausing
at the landfill
or at home, or wherever
we may be right
​now.