First chapter of my first book. Cheers! Herb #Community #Blacksburg #Sustainabilty #Peace Native Washingtonian and pizzeria owner, Freddy Ventura embarks on a fact finding mission to a small university town in rural southwest Virginia. Contemplating his citys blight and pondering the likelihood of profound systemic change, he seeks to build a sustainable and more connected life for himself. Along the way he meets kindred spirits and discusses love, work, power, business, relationship and life. What he finds is a town on the cusp of an exponential curve of profound transformation. In Good Company Three Days In Blacksburg Chapter One Blacksburg Bound I leave the casual majesty of Washington, D.C. Place of my birth. I say goodbye to the bustling, human sized city....Turn right onto Constitution Avenue...goodbye to the fragrant smells and foul odors, the neighborhood trees, and stately Greek columns. Good luck to the daring youth and deliberate elderly. Pass our nation’s Iconic Obelisk on the left, surrounded by kites flown with parents and their children. Pass the manicured lawn of the Federal Reserve Building on the right. Farewell to the destitute, the well-to-do and everyone in between. Pass the souvenir festooned, hot dog stand that has occupied the same corner since before I was born. Last city light...it’s yellow... but ...make-able ...curve right and up the hill, “Hello Building for International Peace!” “Goodbye protesters’ warning of systemic collapse.” Curve left past the Kennedy Center .“Thank you, Grandma for the music and plays.” “Goodbye blight, goodbye homelessness.” Over Roosevelt Bridge... “Goodbye cries of an unraveling biosphere!” Beyond the towering heights of the Gannett News Buildings and I’m in Virginia. I’m Blacksburg bound. Three pop songs later and five hours to go, I’m traveling adjacent to the raised metro rail reaching out from the city into Fairfax and Vienna. The tired faces of the passengers are clear even at a distance. The train accelerates from the platform station, reaches my speed and the passengers and Iare now traveling side by side like two strangers inadvertently matching strides on a city side walk. But instead of feeling awkward, I feel a subtle camaraderie with my fellow commuters. An intimacy afforded by the comfort of distance. The train continues to accelerate and pulls away. I would liked to have waved, but I can never pull off waving to strangers. Only as a kid. Then it was natural. Ill be meeting many strangers in the next few days. “Ah! Heres a good song! Road trips and music are like peanut butter and jelly, they are an exquisite combination. Toniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight….Weee Are Youuuuuuuung...! My girlfriend and I love that song. Thank you pop songs. You are what you are. Nothing more, nothing less and I love you. I appreciate you too, corporations, for making the songs. Thanks capitalism for this car and the open window from which I smoke my corporate made, organic cigarette. Gratitude for my big business bacon cheeseburger and corporate conglomerate Coca-Cola with which I wash it all down. Thank you for punching this ride up.” Imitating a plane with my undulating, outstretched arm, I feel the push and hear the sound of the wind rushing past my face. The day is clear and beautiful. The sun is warm on my cheek. i think about Maria and if well get married. Will she leave all she knows behind and move with me to the country? Aaahh…the wind feels good. Thank you also nature, for the wind... (or universal consciousness for the wind...or random atoms for the wind.) Whichever is the reality. I don’t know. But thank you either way universal consciousness or random atoms...and corporate conglomerates… for it all! Whatever it all is. Part of… it all... is unsustainable. That’s what I hear. Thats what I read. I dont know. I dont truly know the reality of the world. I can only discern what is true to the best of my ability. Though, if true, I do know...that anything unsustainable, at some point, ceases to sustain. We were born into this world of imbalance. Nurtured and abused by it. And, as we learned, so did we in turn, nurture and abuse our world. My eyes opened late in life. Now, between my rude awakening and the eventual end of my earthly stay, there remains a small window of opportunity… to wean myself from that which does not last. To cultivate a life that feels authentic. To walk a path that rings true to that little boy who waved to strangers. The life of a pizzeria owner is too small for me now. DC is too small. I want something more. I will pass my restaurant on as Angie had passed it to me. I will build a home with my own hands. I will understand how the things that I depend on work and how to take care of them. I wish to live in a place of beauty...a space of simplicity and practicality that I have created. Something wholesome in which I am inspired to be nestled in. I will pick fresh basil leaves from my garden to garnish my homemade, sun ripened tomato sauce. My wealth shall be the environment in which I live and the quality of relationship with the people with whom I spend my days. A life integrated and intimate...connected. I wish to be connected to a vibrant community and to a robust, more functioning world. I’ll be fine in my homemade paradise...as long as the world doesn’t collapse. Our fate is entangled with one another’s. Its all connected.
Posted on: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 04:16:45 +0000
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