Author: jennynazak

The other day I made up a German word. At least, I don’t think this is a real word. It might be a real word, but probably not in the sense that I mean it.

The word is “flugschmertz” — literally “flight pain.” For me it means not the assorted pains associated with traveling by airplane (as obnoxious as those pains are). Rather, it’s the pain I feel at seeing so many fellow environmentalists still constantly getting on airplanes.

Eco footprint consists of many things, of course, and travel is only one of them. I think what gets me is that we actually witnessed the effects of cutting out flying (and greatly reducing driving, and some other categories of consumption) during the pandemic shutdowns.

We witnessed the very quick and beneficial effect on air, water, ecosystems. So I find it heartbreaking that some fellow environmentalists have seemed to find it so easy to get back to hopping on planes.

My invention of the word “flugschmertz” was prompted by hearing on the news that an estimated 18 million people would be flying on Memorial Day weekend. (And a total of 40 million traveling.)

Ouch. I feel actual pain, almost a physical pain, when I hear about fellow eco-concerned people — who are seriously worried about biospheric collapse and all that — still taking multiple flights a year and so on. And I do have some eco-minded friends who are very frequent flyers. (Specifically, I am talking about fellow white eco Boomers, particularly those of us who have traveled already. Other demographics are outside my lane to comment on. And many have never before had the chance to travel in their lives.)

One of the ways I deal with this pain is by reminding myself that maybe my vegan friends feel this way every time they hear about someone who supposedly cares about the environment eating meat. Like, if I post a picture of a burger that I ate at a restaurant.

I also noticed that I have to sort of compartmentalize this in my friendships. Like, I just sort of try not to dwell on it. Maybe that’s how my vegan friends deal with being friends with me, an omnivore.

Also, it is possible that people are cutting down on flying even though they still fly. Just as some of us are cutting down on meat-eating even though we still eat meat. A person can be a high-volume consumer, but we don’t know where they started.

And: There are lots of ways to cut our footprint. Travel is only one category.

And, it’s possible to at least in part mitigate the impact of flying, by purchasing carbon offsets. Although carbon offsets are not perfect, they are a way to help mitigate the footprint of flights and other travel. If you have friends who fly a lot, and they seem like they might be receptive, you could suggest this to them.

And, according to what I have read recently, a transatlantic flight is about 1 ton emissions (as is a flight within the USA). We are allowed to emit a second ton per year and still meet the global climate target. If one gets really focused and sets priorities, it needn’t be terribly difficult to bring one’s household activity emissions to under 1 ton.

If you yourself are a person who flies a lot, but it does bother you from an eco-footprint standpoint and other standpoints, there are some other things you could try as well.

As I’ve mentioned before in this space, if you find yourself flying to a place more than a couple times a year, and it goes on for more than a year, and it’s not for work, you could consider moving to that place. (If it is for work, you could look into changing your job and/or the travel aspect of it.)

Or you could try to persuade the person/people who you’re visiting to move to where you live. Or, split your time between the two places. Six months there, and six months at your official place of residence. Try not to leave any empty houses on either end; we are in a housing crunch, and besides, empty houses are a liability in many ways.

You can also look into the emotions underlying your motives for wanting to fly a lot. For example, you could have some deep-seated feelings of deprivation left over from childhood. Or, you could be feeling your age and mortality, and not want to acknowledge it. This invitation to look deeper is something I strongly suggest to people who are really wanting to cut their footprint, and finding that their “travel wants” are colliding with their “footprint aspirations.”

You could also become an “armchair traveler” of your dream destinations. There are various ways to do this; I have written about it on this blog and will dig up the link for you when I get around to it. (Or type “Venice” into the search field of this blog; that should bring it up.)

Also, a lot of us find, as we get older, that we can satisfy a lot of our yearnings vicariously by giving young people the same opportunities we had (or didn’t have, but wanted) when we were young. So, you could pay for a young person in your life to visit Europe or wherever they want to go. If they don’t want to go alone, then you could buy an extra ticket for friend their age who wouldn’t be able to afford to go otherwise.

And finally, it’s worth remembering that the harmful footprint of flying and tourism isn’t just ecological; it has socially and economically harmful aspects as well.

If you are an eco-minded person and you still fly, and/or are a high-volume flyer, is there anything(s) that would make you willing to stop or reduce your flying? Knowing that each flight emits one ton of CO2, and we are supposed to be aiming to keep our emissions under two tons a year, total, for all of our activities? If so, what might make you willing?

PS. Something I sometimes forget is to remind myself that my little corner of the universe is not the whole world. Just today, Flight Free USA’s e-newsletter landed in my inbox with lots of good news. I’ll post some links below.

Further Exploration:

• “This Scottish City Just Banned SUV And Airline Ads. Here’s Why” (David Vetter; forbes.com). “Scotland’s capital city has banned advertisements for airlines and sports utility vehicles, along with ads for cruise lines and oil and gas companies, in what campaigners are calling a ‘historic’ step-up in action to tackle climate change. Edinburgh’s council announced on Tuesday that it had moved to exclude adverts and sponsorships for ‘high-carbon products and services’ that ‘undermine the council’s commitment to tackling the climate emergency.’ The ban covers airlines, car companies that advertise SUVs and cruise operators, as well as ‘all firms and associated sub brands or lobbying organisations that extract, refine, produce, supply, distribute, or sell any fossil fuels.’ Polluting companies and arms manufacturers have also been banned from sponsoring events in the city. The decision makes Edinburgh the first British capital, and Europe’s second capital city, to enact such a ban. In 2020, Amsterdam became the first major city in the world to ban fossil fuel advertising, along with ads for air travel. Other British towns to have enacted similar bans include Cambridge, Liverpool and Norwich.”

Hooray for these climate-courageous cities, and others that are taking action even when/where national governments aren’t stepping up.

• A movement called “make them pay” proposes to tackle climate injustice via a three-point plan: ban private jets, force wealthy polluters to pay for their higher emissions, and tax frequent flyers. The website points out that 80% of the world’s population has never set foot on an airplane, and 50% of commercial aviation emissions are caused by just 1% of the population.

• From Flight Free USA’s website: “One flight, One seat, One Ton of CO2. We are in a dire climate emergency, flying fries the planet and yet there are about 125,000 daily commercial flights in the world and growing. Pledge to fly less in 2024 for the climate!” (Note: The target agreed on by experts is to keep our carbon emissions under 2 tons per year. One single flight is more than many people around the world emit in entire year.)

• To find out the most effective climate actions that an individual can take, The Guardian did a survey of top climate scientists. “Most experts (76%) backed voting for politicians who pledge strong climate measures, where fair elections take place.” Cutting airline travel came in second: “The second choice for most effective individual action, according to the experts, was reducing flying and fossil-fuel powered transport in favour of electric and public transport. This was backed by 56%, and two-thirds said they had cut their own number of flights. Flying is the most polluting activity an individual can undertake and makes up a large part of the carbon footprint of the rich. Globally it is a small minority of people who drive aviation emissions, with only about one in 10 flying at all. Frequent-flying ‘super emitters’ who represent just 1% of the world’s population cause half of aviation’s carbon emissions, with US air passengers having by far the biggest carbon footprint among rich countries.” (Other effective actions cited by experts in the Guardian survey were, in order of rank, reduce meat intake; reduce home heating and cooling emissions; join a campaign or protest group.)

(Copy-pasting a comment I made in one of our local issues forums, in case some of you might find this verbiage helpful in dealing with similar elitist/classist attitudes in your area.)

Regarding County Commissioner Robbins’ comments criticizing Daytona Beach. I have a huge problem with talking about our unhoused neighbors as a problem the same way that we talk about trash on the beach as a problem.

These are human beings, and homelessness is a result of deep structural issues nationwide that need to be addressed. And throwing mean-spirited potshots is not going to help.

I do understand that a parent would not want their young child to see people sleeping on the streets, shooting up drugs etc.

Back when I was growing up, and we would occasionally see people on the streets, Mom & Dad would take the opportunity to let us kids know there are people less fortunate than ourselves.

So let’s focus on making a world where homelessness and untreated addiction and mental illness isn’t a thing anymore.

On a related note, I have a big problem with calling homeless people transient. Many of my homeless neighbors are a lot more solid steady presence than the rich people who live out of town but own houses here which they maybe occupy a week or two of the year. Rich transients, with not much of a stake in the community other than protecting their own property.

Vacant houses are a huge liability for neighborhoods, and bad for year-round businesses.

The rest of the county tends to treat Daytona Beach like its trashy stripper girlfriend. They want us to shake our moneymaker but then they blame us for looking a certain way. For having the typical problems that are attracted by high-volume tourism.

Added later: Our modern society has taken a bad detour. We have become a society that does not recognize that all members have something to contribute. We sideline people. When in fact, everyone has a role to play. All indigenous cultures knew this and know this. We as a society can relearn what we forgot, and I have high hopes that we will do so.

And: Also, regarding the implication that the Daytona Beachside is too dangerous & crime-ridden:

I have lived in the Main Street area for almost 11 years. One block south of Main Street, five minutes’ walk to the beach. I love the beach and walk on the beach at all hours.

I walk around this whole area at all hours.

If my schedule permits, I am happy to be a safety escort for people who want to try walking or spending time on the beach or beachside streets but don’t feel safe.

I used to be a pedicab driver (bicycle-taxi) around the boardwalk; we worked til late late night. We ranged from Daytona Shores all the way up to, sometimes, the Publix north of Steve’s diner!!

Clothes-dryer, dishwasher, car, air-conditioner, water-heater.

Those are the five items that have struck me over the years as being considered absolutely essential for a respectable middle-class life. Doing without them has come to be seen as unthinkable in North America and other places heavily influenced by North American cultural norms.

I realize these things are considered by mainstream North American culture to be absolutely necessary. But they used to be luxuries.

These five things also account for a large share of the typical household budget. And coincidentally — or not — these five things are also very big-ticket items from an eco-footprint standpoint.

One of the ways that I have been able to liberate myself from the financial treadmill of being forced to work a middle-class type of job and/or constant long hours is to cut out what most middle-class people see as “essential stuff.”

This is something you can look into if you’re tired of high repair bills and the hassle of scrambling to buy/maintain a supposedly essential appliance.

Ask yourself: What if you just didn’t need it? What if you really actually didn’t need it, imagine how much money and time and your own human energy and worry you could save.

Of course not everyone will want to do this, and there are lots of reasons why not. Many of the reasons are emotional. For example, having these items is a proof that one has arrived socially and economically. So cutting them out, even voluntarily, could be seen as a step backwards, a cause for shame.

And of course, there is the convenience factor. Conveniences are called convenient for a reason. But when I look into it, a lot of the hassles these things cause seem to outweigh the convenience, at least for me. Multi-thousand-dollar air conditioning repairs, car breakdowns on deserted roads in the middle of the night, and so on. And the extra hours we have to work to pay for all that.

“But I could never do without my …” is a common utterance even in environmental, permaculture, Riot for Austerity, and Degrowth circles. The conditioning of society is very powerful.

I’m not trying to convince anyone that they should force themselves to do without something. And I’m not trying to shame anyone for wanting conveniences and comforts. I certainly have my comforts that I like, although a lot of people seem to assume that I have no desire for comfort just because I found out that it’s easier for me to do without a lot of things.

I’m just saying, as a person watching from the sidelines while her friends are derailed by one huge breakdown and repair after another, that I would invite people to explore the possibility of ditching some big thing instead of constantly forking over the money and energy without question.

If you end up enjoying cutting out the big five, maybe you can explore some peripheral things like specialty countertop appliances that don’t get much use in your house.

The biggest expense most of us have, of course, is housing itself: the roof over our head. More and more, the things that those of us at the economic margins (whether we inhabit said margins by choice, as I have, or not) used to be able to do to cut our housing expenses have become closed off to us, either by law or by very strong social norms. SROs, living in a van, getting creative about arranging an apartment to accommodate more roommates, Mom & Pop mobile-home parks, quirky sheds tucked out of the way in backyards … more and more, those cost- and labor-cutting options are being closed off to us.

But many of us have found that great financial relief is possible by tackling the “big five” that I mentioned.

But, you say, what if I don’t want to do without that convenient thing? Well you don’t have to. I’m just saying that if you feel financially or energetically crunched you might want to explore it. But I understand that it’s hard for various reasons to live without these things. If nothing else, there is the emotional stigma, because a lot of these things are considered signifiers that one has “arrived,” both financially and socially, so getting rid of them can feel like a backward move in life.

Regarding the washer, even before I started only washing my clothes by hand I found it very helpful to basically share a washer, by using a laundromat or utility room at the RV park etc. I just wouldn’t use the dryer, and not using the dryer saved a lot of money and energy. Yes, it takes a lot less of my human energy to hang stuff on the line and let it dry than to babysit and fret about the dryer. This is something that probably sounds unbelievable except to people who have directly experienced it. If you give it a try, or try cutting out any of the other “big five,” let me know how it goes for you!

If nothing else, I think our society would be a lot healthier if people at least resented being basically forced to take on all of these expensive machines. Like, a person might not be able to do without a car, but at least if they have a healthy resistance and resentment toward this constant financial and energetic burden, they might end up finding ways to reduce or eliminate it. We might have more staunch advocates for public transportation.

In my book DEEP GREEN, and elsewhere on this blog, I have gone into detail about how I do without the typical middle-class signifiers and other expenses that aren’t adding value to my life. I hope you will find my tips helpful. And I’ve also shared a lot of material from other people on a similar path. If you can’t find information on something or other, drop me a line and I will help you find the blog article or book chapter/paragraph. I’m also available for teleconsults at budget-friendly rates.

Cutting out the big five is a quick way to reduce one’s eco-footprint to “Riot for Austerity” levels of around 10% of the US average. When I’m living alone, my electricity use is actually about 3% of the US average. Even though I live with two “civilian” housemates, our consumption of water and electricity hovers around 10% to 15% of the US average.

Speaking of the house, I have posted a series on my YouTube channel, a room-by-room tour of my house. Look for the titles with “DEEP GREEN house tour”; the videos are all grouped together.

On a housing note, Vicki Robin, a famous fellow permaculturist and co-author of the bestseller Your Money Or Your Life, has started an email newsletter and Substack. Reading her newsletter yesterday, I realized we are trying to do similar things with our personal housing surplus. She wrote in her newsletter:

“Currently I’m encouraging house rich people to consider a kind of sharing called in-home suites – to increase the stock of affordable rentals.”

Cool! That’s exactly what I’ve been setting out to do with my DEEP GREEN house! If a lot of us house-rich people do this, maybe it will make a dent.

PS. You can check out Vicki’s page and subscribe to her newsletter here.

“BS” is an abbreviation for a colloquialism which is not G-rated if spelled out. An alternative G-rated rendition would be “excrement of the male bovine.” And the term is popularly used to mean lies; falsehood; deception; fake; insincere; nonsense; something completely untrue; and so on. I believe it originates with USA American English though I could be wrong.

In any kind of organization, there are various essential and valuable roles. Perhaps one of the most essential and valuable is that of the person who is capable of detecting assorted forms of falsity and nonsense. A.k.a., BS detector.

This role may or may not overlap with formal roles in the organization. For example, your CEO could be really good in that role, but they are not particularly a good BS detector. Doesn’t matter as long as they are a leader who was able to recognize the person or people playing that role within the organization, and draw on their insights. Instead of feeling threatened by such insights.

This article is getting long-winded already. Long-windedness, by the way, is one commonly recognized indicator of potential BS, so one needs to be careful of getting too long-winded.

An organization can be a corporation, a nonprofit, a neighborhood association, a school faculty, a congregation, even just an informal group of friends, or a family. Basically a collection of people choosing to associate for the purposes of accomplishing tasks.

The BS detector is often very quick to be fired, either literally or metaphorically. This is because it’s not pleasant to hear BS exposed. Sometimes an organization is getting along very happily with its BS cushion, and the revelation of BS brings discomfort or even misery. On the other hand, the revelation and exposure of BS can bring such fresh air and liberation. If the organization is willing to work through it.

Oftentimes the BS detector person is seen as not a team player; not a helpful person; a contrarian; a difficult person. But a lot of the time those personality traits are actually just the persons allergy to be as manifesting itself. The person is basically saying hey listen, I can’t be with this BS. Obviously I love you guys enough to stick with you, and try to fix things, but if you’re not going to fix things, I’m going to have to leave.

Oftentimes, though, people are very happy to see them leave so they can get back to their peaceful organization. So the detector’s attempt to rid the organization of BS does not work.

But on some level, everyone feels the falsity and stiflement. An organization without BS detection capabilities may feel peaceful and effective (at least to its inner-circle members), but it’s not going to stay healthy in the long run. And it’s going to be squandering human energy, creativity, and other precious resources.

Now, if you happen to be the BS detector in a given situation or organization, here is a big pitfall: Typically, the BS detector does not want to leave the organization. The BS detector is committed to the organization’s mission, and/or feels some form of love and duty to the people in it. The BS detector wants the organization to get free of the stranglehold of BS, so that it can achieve its full greatness.

And when I say that the BS detector is readily fired, unfortunately it’s not a really clear-cut thing. It’s not like anyone will come to you and say you need to go. Rather, you can expect to experience all sorts of ostracism, usually very very low grade and petty, of the sort that will wear you down slowly and make you question your sanity and validity. I’m talking some unbelievably, fiercely, viciously petty stuff. And, as many of you know who have experienced it know, the little stings can be a lot harder to counter than an overt attack, because of plausible denial by often very socially and politically adept individuals.

So, if you really love an organization and are committed to it, and this has started happening, you need to take steps to guard your own emotional safety. Don’t wait for someone within the organization to validate your sense that this is happening. (Anyone who would agree with you is too busy trying to survive in the organization to be willing to admit to you out loud that they share your assessment.)

Just check the results of your bloodwork (if you get health checkups), your inner gut-check, or any other tests that you do to monitor your well-being.

And, you need to know when to cut your losses. Because if an organization just does not want to let go of its BS, there are almost certainly better uses for your heart, energy, and soul. Beware the occupational hazard. The medical consequences and emotional consequences of trying to ride out such malevolent weather can be quite deadly. Even if you consider yourself a person who handles stress well. Maybe even especially so.

As I was typing the title of this post, it struck me that “Don’t fire your BS detector” is true on an inner level as well. We each have our own little inner BS detector, although some of us have unfortunately managed to bludgeon it into silence over the years in order to get by in the world. We need to value and nurture our inner BS detector. Not fire it! No matter how stunted, wilted, pale and scrawny it may be, it can be nurtured back into life. Ways of doing so including spending time alone in nature, spending time with people who have their own robust BS detectors, and just spending time one or two people who truly, deeply love us and get us (although it can be hard to identify such people, if our BS detector is broken — thus creating a vicious circle).

If you are tempted to fire your inner BS detector so you can get on with the rosy business of clinging to the fruits of blissful ignorance (be it a little bubble of popularity, some crumbs of recognition, a 401(k), a nice-looking and only mildly abusive partner, or what have you), please reconsider. Much better things are in store for you if you are willing to face down BS within yourself.

I started making a little video tour of my house. It was inspired by a conversation with a friend who is navigating some life stuff, but also in general by so many things I’m seeing in this world, people being economically precarious.

And I really have to wonder sometimes if the art and loveliness that is deficient in / missing from this world nowadays is at least roughly correlated with the amount of precarity that people are experiencing and therefore being impeded from stretching, taking a full breath, using their voices, doing their art.

Although art and creativity almost certainly thrive on various forms of tension, some sort of stability, usually in the form of cheap housing, is extremely helpful or possibly even necessary I truly believe. Looking back at various housing situation’s I have been in and witnessed, and the amount of art and creativity that were able to grow there.

The people I see walking around adrift, some probably in need of mental-health services, some very seriously in need of same — for a long time now I have been wondering if a lot of them are the missing artists.

And also, too, I’ll see some guy out there wandering the streets or just sitting on the ground and think hey, back in the olden days he would just have been herding sheep or something, having a useful function, getting to be himself and be considered a member of society but not having to fit himself into a harsh mold he didn’t fit into.

Or what about all the missing rug weavers, mat weavers, basket weavers, roof thatchers. And I wonder if you drew a line for them on a graph, if it would run roughly parallel to the line representing “invasive grasses,” “yard waste,” etc.

My house tour videos, the couple that I’ve done so far anyway, are posted on my YouTube channel @jennynazak764 . Yeah, I don’t know why they put the 764 after my name, it used to just be my name, but then at some point it changed to have a 764 on the end. Maybe I committed some YouTube sin like be too obscure or something.

A few years back, I stumbled on an online course in behavioral economics. It sounded really interesting so I took it. I was definitely not disappointing. It was indeed very interesting and useful.

Behavioral economics is sort of a mix of economics and psychology. Basically, studying the reasons underlying why people do what they do.

Behavioral economics is applied by advertisers and marketers to feed the engines of consumerism, so people may well be inclined to mistrust this branch of social science. But it can just as easily be applied by beneficial social movements. And by us as individuals trying to motivate themselves to adopt beneficial actions and behaviors.

That’s one of the things I realized about this whole “deep green” thing I coined to sum up my book, blog, & other channels: It’s a behavioral-economics gig. Like, how do I motivate people to take some beneficial actions on behalf of the biosphere and on behalf of living things other than themselves?

How do I motivate people to see that they have a self-interest in taking certain actions and adopting certain behaviors, when doing so involves moving out of the comfy groove of established norms?

And, this applies to me motivating myself also.

If we think of it as behavioral economics, we can see that it’s a soft discipline as opposed to needing some sort of special equipment or hardware. Unless you consider our brain equipment and hardware, which actually yes I kind of do.

BTW, for those of you who may not be aware, online courses have existed for a very long time. Long before the pandemic shutdowns. Many prestigious universities offer free online courses known as MOOCs (Massively Open Online Course).

I guess it’s sort of the modern computerized version of what used to be called correspondence courses. Yes, back in the “old days,” people took courses by postal mail. There were correspondence courses in shorthand and other secretarial skills, and I imagine there were academic courses offered by mail as well. And definitely drawing, painting.

One of my takeaways from that course was the idea that the more times in a day that we are compelled to exercise our willpower, the more worn-down we get and the harder it is to exercise our willpower successfully by the end of the day. I guess that makes sense. If you think about what it’s like being on a diet, for example. Or trying to avoid single-use plastic without having to starve or go thirsty.

And add to that the fact that many of us in the Degrowth, Deep Adaptation, and related movements feel we are some sort of helpers/guides for some level of planetary biospheric hospice care. And just like with a hospice patient, we don’t know necessarily what stage of the end-of-life we are in. That kind of thing can wear on a person’s mind and heart. And we still have to keep a level head for the little daily stuff all around us.

Further Exploration:

• The behavioral-economics MOOC I took a few years back was titled something like “The science of irrational behavior.” It was offered via Duke University and the professor was Dan Ariely. Here in this article by Isabel Engel on CNBC.com, Ariely offers his top 4 money tips. You may find some overlap with your efforts to make daily living choices that are more ecologically aware. Especially the first two tips I find resonate very much. The novelty of new stuff wears off fast; and also we need to consider the future, not just the present.

• I can’t seem to find a reference to Ariely’s MOOC that I took, but he does have an extensive online presence, including a YouTube channel and writings.

• And here’s another Scooby snack for you, this one courtesy of Farnam Street blog. Dan Ariely on 10 irrational human behaviors.

• “Alienation Is a Losing Game: What Urbanists Can Learn From the Haters”. Article by Tristan Cleveland; cited in StrongTowns digest newsletter today. Talks about how we (activists etc.) often make the mistake of using speech that adds heat and divisiveness instead of being persuasive. Cleveland mentions three recently published books about changing minds. He also mentions Daryl Davis, the black jazz musician who convinced multiple KKK members to leave that organization. He did this by spending hours talking with them and listening with them. Links to this transcript of those conversations are included. So definitely some reading homework for me there!

• The three books Cleveland mentions in his article on StrongTowns are: How Minds Change (David McRaney); Think Again (Adam Grant); and How To Have Impossible Conversations (Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay). I haven’t read any of them, but they are all instantly bumped to the top of my nonfiction reading list.

Sunrise at the beach at the end of my street.
I somehow had not noticed until today, how contiguous the graffiti on the wall had gotten.

For liking the graffiti, I am some sort of traitor to the class I was supposedly born into. I’m supposed to not like the graffiti, I’m supposed to be appalled at the disruption of law and order, same as I’m supposed to be appalled at the number of people curled up sleeping in the parking lot.

I am saddened and appalled but not for the reasons that society says I should be. I’m supposed to want more of our tax money to go to “law and order.” Instead, I want people to have the right to sleep outdoors if that’s the only place they have to go and nothing better is being offered to them. Or, even if that’s not the case, I want people to have the right to sleep outdoors.

I’m supposed to think of graffiti as a “broken windows” crime. Instead, I am quietly celebrating feral self-expression; tiny scraps of human vitality that spring up unauthorized. Like the dune flowers who spring up amid the rocks, defying the feral-flower-assassin trucks that roll into my beach neighborhood with their tree-hearses and their straight-line noisemakers.

Update 2 days later: I was down there at the wall again this morning and some power-that-be had started painting white to cover the graffiti on the wall.

see pix here, on my art & design by jenny nazak page