My dear readers,
Compost first revealed its power to me after the 2016 election.
This regular action of taking our family’s food scraps out to the bin behind our garage grounded me through the first T presidency, through Covid, and all that came next in my life.
So I return to it now. I voted in 2020. I voted in 2024.1
And I vote with every bucket of compost...2
…and every photograph of compost I share.3
Because I often return to these posts, I wanted to highlight inspirational phrases spoken by Kamala Harris during her concession speech yesterday - - they particularly resonated with me, as I have often seen compost as the perfect metaphor for democracy and all that it means to balance ideals with the often messy reality of our country.4
“We all have so much more in common than what separates us.”
This is not a new idea, but what could be more common than eating, food scraps and wanting to experience beauty in the world?
“…The fight for our freedom will take hard work. But, like I always say, we like hard work. Hard work is good work. Hard work can be joyful work. And the fight for our country is always worth it…”
“…The important thing is don't ever give up…Don't ever stop trying to make the world a better place. You have power...And don't you ever listen when anyone tells you something is impossible because it has never been done before…”
…like composting a falling apart edition of Shakespeare…5
“..This is a time to roll up our sleeves…to stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build together…”
…I love that we are now living in a community where “we compost”…6
“…I know many people feel like we are entering a dark time, but for the benefit of us all, I hope that is not the case. But here's the thing, America, if it is, let us fill the sky with the light of a brilliant, brilliant billion… stars…” and
“…the light of optimism, of faith, of truth and service.”
… So with compost as guide, let’s lean toward joy…7
…beauty…8
and love…13 tons of it…at least…9
…to create, together, an alternative narrative to the rhetoric of fear and hate.
It may not always be pretty, but beauty emerges when we keep showing up.10
Thank you for sharing this time and place with me.
With gratitude for you being you,
Lyn
As always, I invite comments on any part of this particular post that inspires you. And if there is one image that you really love, please let me know by commenting here! Oh, and always remember to eat kale, those dark green leafy veggies are soooo good for us!11
Finally, combatting hate and fear necessitates community. If you know someone who might appreciate 13 Tons of Love, please share it with others!12
Also, if you love any of these images and would like to give a compost photograph to yourself or a friend for the holidays, just e-mail me to discuss size options! lynswettmiller at gmail dot com
Sometimes it feels as if our actions don’t matter. Compost reminded me that what I do makes a difference - - 10 pounds a week, over 13 years, becomes 3 tons of food waste diverted from a landfill. You add to that compost collected from a local cafe and from neighbors, and you get 13 tons! In a democracy, every vote matters. With the climate crisis, every action has an impact, for good or ill. What we do has value.
Compost thrives on a balanced mix of nitrogen rich vegetables, like watermelon, kale stems and strawberry tops and carbon rich materials like bread, cardboard and leaves. In these uncertain times, this kind of equilibrium can be hard to find. I often wonder if more people would feel at peace and if the planet would feel more loved if we all spent a bit more time with our food waste or in the garden.
Before stirring it into the pile, food scraps fall from the bucket in a heap, unceremoniously landing on whatever is there. When there is snow, grapefruit always look good.
Since we have now moved to a condominium with community composting, I won’t be able to experience these large kaleidoscopes of shape, color and texture. That said, once out of the camera and into the world, the joy embodied in these images persists…and I still get to take my compost out, though in a different bucket (one that has to now sit on the counter instead of in our under-the-counter system we created in our old kitchen) and to a different collection point (a green garbage pail that says “We Compost” on it). It’s interesting living in Vermont, where composting is required. I’m curious to learn more about it all works over here!
Everything bolded and in quotation marks were spoken by Vice President Kamala Harris at her concession speech yesterday, November 6.
What to do with a prized miniature set of Shakespeare plays that turns out to be disintegrating paper and not the red leather that it appeared to be? How could I honor this object before returning it to the place from which it came? Paper does comes from trees and the compost these pages will become will nourish other trees. My hunch is that William Shakespeare would appreciate this. So often, people, plays and possessions are not what they seem to be.
My October 12, 2023 post, Re-composing Shakespeare, is quite popular. Check it out!
Last week I wrote about Covens, Cohorts and Collaborations - - Whatever you do in the coming weeks, be sure to spend time with people who lift you up and give you joy.
Banana Peel & Greens: It was August, 2020. The election was tense. Our nation’s divisions and discord were palpable and disturbing. Leaning over my compost pile, looking at this mix of color and texture, I wondered how food waste could be this beautiful? Then I saw the label on the banana: Equal Exchange. Organic. From Peru. Hopefully it really was an equal exchange and whoever grew, picked and transported this here for me to include in my smoothie was treated with respect. With each additional image I create, compost becomes less about achieving personal self-sufficiency and more about living fully in community.
Croissants & Coffee. Weekend food scraps from Umpleby’s Cafe and pages from an SAT prep book mingle on a Sunday morning. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could be handed a book with simple strategies for solving the climate crisis and a few practice tests to build resilience? In lieu of that, make applesauce with old apples and take time to enjoy the smell of fresh coffee in the morning.
I started collecting compost from the cafe in part because I was curious how our food waste would look against the snow. Every week the 5 gallon buckets revealed new surprises.
These images certainly inspire conversations about food waste. It’s dangerous to see composting as a justification for throwing food away. Our primary goal must be to reduce our waste at every step of the food path.
Still, I just love the shapes and balance of these croissants hanging out with the spent coffee.
Rhubarb: I've been growing rhubarb for years and have lots of it. I'm not sure why I didn't share this batch with neighbors. In truth, I may have wanted to see how they would look against the coffee...I do that sometimes...don't tell.
I’m curious. Today was the first day I photographed the compost in our shared bin, down between the huge garbage and recycling containers. First is was fruit against snow, then it was everything against coffee, and now it’s our family’s food scraps against apparently compostable green bags…that give everything a very blue tone…Humm. I wonder how the scenes will change with the seasons?
Bread & Thesaurus is particularly meaningful to me. Here’s my standard caption for it: Words: I wonder what would happen if we spent less time in our heads, worrying about words, and more time in our hearts and with our hands? This central maple leaf was in a collection of pressed leaves I found at the bottom of a pile of books in my mother-in-law’s basement.
Pam loved to write poems to celebrate birthdays and holiday gifts, but words did not come naturally, so she always used a thesaurus. When she moved out of her final apartment, to assisted living, her thesaurus was in a drawer in her desk, untouched for years. Her dementia had taken away that capacity. None of us had received a poem from her in years. It seemed fitting to add her decaying book and pressed leaves to our compost, as she was also an avid gardener.
…And I’m kind of loving that my first compost photograph in Quechee, VT contains pomegranate skins - - the very thing that inspired this whole body of work almost a decade ago.
Purple Stemmed Kale: Birthday dinner for my husband, including fresh corn on the cob. Before I realized compost was becoming my muse, it offered moments of pure joy. While creating images like Purple Stemmed Kale, I would often whisper: "Wow. Look at the gorgeous garbage.” These colorful kaleidoscopes sustained me during years of grief, fear and overwhelm. I hope they might do the same for you. More to come.
This and That: Like a favorite recipe from Grandma: “Just add a bit of this and that.” If only life was as simple as making an omelette! I created this image a few days after Thanksgiving. Spent tulips and days old bread from Umpleby’s Cafe give life to discarded lists from the holiday…
This Thanksgiving, consider giving locally grown flowers or plants as a house gift…while I loved the yellow tulips, I wondered how far they had to travel to get to us. What about trying arrangements of dried flowers and tree branches?
Beautiful Lyn. Thanks