Day 25: Taking The Bitter With The Sweet

Today was one of those days where time seemed to be moving especially fast. Yet, when I look at my desk and my pile of work, I don't see any evidence of anything being accomplished, aside from more books and articles added to my research pile.

It isn't that I wasn't out and about early. I had a follow up appointment with my surgeon, who is still "watching" one of my lumps which is situated on a very delicate spot and which nobody wants to remove unless it is absolutely necessary. Fortunately, it is not necessary, it has not changed and he told me to come back in another six months.

But, again, I digress. The point of me bringing up the doctor appointment was that while there and waiting for him, I looked out over Torrance Airport and saw the field that was home to Tom Ishibashi's Farm for the past 50 years, and saw not the rich, dark soil, already planted with early spring strawberries that I usually see, but instead, just new weeds that had sprung up in their place.

So, me being me, this made me tear up. When the surgeon came in, he noticed, and was of course worried it had something to do with my medical condition (or at this point, maybe my mental one). Then, he saw what I was looking at, and since he knows what I do for a living (I had given him my first book) he said, "oh, that's right you told me they were gone, very sad."

Now this was a very cool thing for him to not only remember, but to talk about, and I was also very happy that my medical condition wasn't worthy of more discussion. But, as happy as I am about that, I am still so sad that we have lost our community's last farm and that I have lost a friend.

As I left his office and went down towards the parking lot, I remembered that this was the Skypark Medical Complex, which meant that there was a very pretty area in between the medical buildings and I thought it might be better for me to leave after walking through there, then while staring at the now vacant farm.

As I walked through the complex and stopped to take some photos, as a gardener and a horticultural therapist I thought that these man-made streams and ponds are pretty, and are a great thing to have for people who are dealing with the stress of medical issues. 

But, I also couldn't help but think that they don't tell the story of our community in the same way that our farms and farmers once did. And, while they can easily be replaced and rebuilt (which ironically they were doing to some of them), the same can't be said of our farming legacy.