I realized, belatedly, that December marks one year since I started volunteering at a small, somewhat indistinguishable-from-the-street garden a few blocks from my house— and inadvertently changed my entire life. One year! It seems surreal. I got into compost by such a chance mixture of timing, nihilism, and recent skill accrual. In December of 2021, I was finishing out a few years of distributed schooling and apprenticeship in soil science, I had just quit a job that I absolutely hated, and I was existentially aching from the tenor of “the discourse” amongst my peers (particularly on social media). Things had never felt so anxious and noisy; I had never had more information available to me that I knew less what to do with. Compost was just a footnote in the deafening onslaught. So when I got a call from my neighbor, inquiring if I would help the local church restart their compost program (“I think you know about that stuff, right?” she said), I was ready to take it—but had no expectations. I was too depressed for expectations. I thought I would spend an hour explaining to them how compost worked, and that would be that.
I have a big compost pile now because of you. 💜
Happy Anniversary 🌳✌️