Mellow in the City

by John Cannizzo

Writers block requires all the energy and none of the effort of writing. It is incredible how tiring laying on the couch trying to think of a moral plot can be. I explain this to my wife Pam when she comes home from the community garden. She has been there with the kids all day Sunday collecting ginko nuts.

Stepping off the train at Times Square two weeks and five days before Christmas you might see break dancers dancing, a patrolman walking his beat, tourists touring and a woman in a black cape and a feathered cap watching street musicians playing uptown versions of Christmas Carols. There is a line outside Madam Tussauds House of Wax. Lights glare, horns blare, crowds seem more crowded than ever as they rush to restaurants and theatres. I can't quite believe that in a few days we will be in Hawaii.

Further west the neighborhood changes. There are family businesses, the macaroni factory, a fruit stand and even further west a community garden. Next door to the community garden is Clinton House. It is a residence where people that once lived on the street can now find a home.

Lorenzo and Mark are already there laying out the materials for our workshop. Mark has been working with us for about seven months now as our head gardener. Lorenzo is still working with us going on three years.

Here the streets are darker. They are playing Christmas hymns in the foyer. Religion beats all rational systems in that it alone relates the outer and the inner individual in equal degree.

In the back yard some of the Clinton House garden club members smoke cigarettes. We will make wreaths from boughs of Noble Fir donated by a board member of HSNY.

At first the garden club members are kind of shy. It is almost like we have never met. But seeing Mark put together an evergreen swag with velveteen bow and pine cones helps to break the ice.

These individuals suffer from schizophrenia. Carl Jung found that delusions and hallucinations which often seemed to be variations on themes could seldom be explained as a product of the patient's personal history. Comparative religion and mythology led him to detect parallels with psychotic material which argued a common source: a myth making process at some level of mind common to all of us.

*All photos by John Cannizzo

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This is the roof of Project Renewal’s Clinton House. In the spring the residents alongside of our interns will build a garden here.

These are a few of the garden club members. Some are careful and quiet; others are more outgoing. They are all ages. They volunteered to develop the roof top garden project.

The wreaths and swags will decorate the residents' doors and the foyer of Clinton House. In many cultures and in many nations the evergreen has been a symbol of longevity, wisdom, and endurance against adversity. Mark is wearing a red sweater.

It is really good to see people that can benefit from putting their hand on plants. The room is filled with the smell of freshly cut evergreen branches.

As soon as we laid out all the materials people came over and started to work with them. Children, adults, and senior citizens have been working with us all week making holiday decorations. Now the residents of Clinton House are too. Lorenzo is very good with the residents, patient and affable.

Outside in the back yard the garden club members prepare a box of daffodils for forcing in the early spring. They fill smaller wooden boxes (these were made by the students at Rikers Island) with soil and daffodil bulbs, then put the wooden boxes into a larger box. The kind that is waxed for shipping plant material in are proof against the weather. They pack the cardboard box with mulch to keep the daffodils from freezing. In February, they'll bring them indoors, give them sun and water, and they will have daffodils by Easter.

Jason would like to know if we can come back next week.