Space & Stuff... And Lincoln, NE

Having just finished David Owen's Green Metropolis, I have a few things on my mind concerning stuff. Stuff, well, it's everywhere and we keep getting more of it. One of my few regular expenditures is on food. I enjoy food; preparing, eating, sharing, improvising, I enjoy it. All the same, between my mother and I, we have a refrigerator that regularly has spoiled fruits and vegetables showing up in it, as well as forgotten dinners and lunches secreted in the back recesses. Neither of us are particularly wasteful people, I might add. My mother seasonally adjusts the thermostat, I bike everywhere when the roads aren't icy, and we like fresh food at meals most of the time. When I came home, I coerced my mother into the curbside recycling program for our neighborhood only to discover that we only need pickup every other week because we have so little to worry about.

When my mother goes out of town, I do not often go to the grocery store except for something specific like limes for gin and tonics or some ingredients for baking. I don't need to because we have a full pantry most of the times, complete with stale chips a expired boxes of tea. Yes, expired tea; who knew it was even possible? At school, our fridge was usually between one half to three-fourths full for the five of us; though we had our share of dried goods stashed in various nooks and crannies. We had potatoes that sprouted and some cheese that molded in the back, but we had very little problem eating most of it. We didn't have much choice because of our limited space there. At home, we have more stuff to fill our amount of space, and it has become quietly, insistently irksome.

I have a penchant for used books and heavily discounted films (DVDs in the pre-viewed shelves at Blockbuster mostly) and even right now, I have a stack of books to my left on my desk and a row on the floor next to my full bookshelf. I even have a few too many DVDs for the space I have right now. But, given the space I have, I am allowed to spread out my books and movies to fill it. One odd aspiration of mine--particularly after reading Green Metropolis and Whole Earth Discipline--is to have less space, not more. What I feel like I earnestly need in a living space is a kitchen and a real bed. (I think of Henry's apartment in The Time Traveler's Wife and his futon bed, or Miss Linnea's regular futon bed at her parents' home.) as for the books and movies, I can stack them on shelves as much as needed or give most of them away; the latter of which happens accidentally as I loan them to unreliable or well-traveled friends and family.

In tighter quarters, I conceive of having a more orderly existence. This was both true and misleading at school, which abounds in its scheduling necessities and its frenetic episodes. I might lose something at school because something or other was tucked away in a box I needed to keep around for packing things up at the end of the year or because a friend had moved or borrowed it, but most of the time I could find everything I needed. It was, after all, right there.

David Owen relates a story of a friend of his opening a self-storage facility and finding it essentially filled from Day One, because we have so much stuff these days. Most of the stuff, Owen recalls, is just junk accumulated over our consumptive lifestyles, stuff that well ought to be thrown out, repaired, or given up. My mother and I similarly argue with my father for keeping his old textbooks and science fiction paperbacks in a storage and shipping facility around Houston. My mother's common remark is, "You know I would charge you less to store it here." After the phone is hung up, we point out that most of the stuff wouldn't last long around here anyway and would makes its way to the dump. We may be a nation of packrats now, but some of us are better at parting with other people's things, at least.

This is all more of a rant than an essay, but it is inescapably on my mind. At home for the year, I increasingly frequently want to organize my life into accomplishing something productive. I write and read and work, but I cannot ignore the issues that I feel under-qualified to deal with that need attentive care anyway. Presently, I am pondering how I might approach Lincoln City Council about plans to fund and refurbish buildings downtown into apartments. Downtown Lincoln is a rather pleasant place and with a few additions--a small grocery and school bus routes, perhaps--it would be a fine place for most Lincolnites interested in giving up their cars. In addition, the senior center is downtown and many elderly, with the aforementioned grocer, might be interested in moving downtown where they could take care of themselves rather than move into the various old folks' homes away from the city center.

Through these, I am realizing more and more that I might end up in Lincoln for the long haul. Not right away, for certain, but I feel that with a little guidance and criticality, Lincoln can nurture itself into a rather fine community. As most Midwestern cities, Lincoln spreads out into former farmland. This sprawl strains the public school system, which functions quite well, and the municipal infrastructure. It has a surprisingly thorough public transit system that, if the demand were there, could certainly mature. Surrounding farmland has plenty of organic or sustainable models for growing food and supporting locavorism, too. The University, independent businesses, art galleries, and Farmers' Market all make downtown bustle with live music, foot traffic, commerce, and pedestrians. It is no metropolis, but its modest spending habits (Nebraskans are frugal and uncertain of borrowing much money) feels a little like Curitiba with its necessary penny-pinching. This isn't an advertisement, Lincoln has its problems, but it could so easily accomplish something worth doing; something that I feel will be increasingly necessary in the years and decades to come.