making the most of things (Basilicata and Brooklyn)

O Brooklyn!

I.

If I am not always so good at making the most of things, I am a big believer in making the most of space.

II.

My time spent in Rome left me with certain images and experiences that had little to do with anything of great cultural or historical significance.  They were the quotidian parts of my life, and my observations of other peoples' lives: the springtime line for ricotta (displayed in a front window, scooped fresh from a tank, sold out by the end of the day); the mechanized female voice that announced each "next stop" on the train (EUR Magliana, Marconi, Basilica S. Paolo, Garrrbatella, Piramide), the picturesque clothing line, hung over Trastevere's Vicolo del Cedro, of which every tourist to Rome has taken a picture.  (Admit it.  You did.) 

From the first time I began visiting regularly (twelve years ago now), I was struck by Roman apartment terraces, always crammed full of plants, always well-used.  So many Romans are not from Rome, or their parents were not, or their grandparents were not - a sense of distinction enabled by annual pilgrimages to ancestral villages during the Ferragosto holidays.  To be sure, there was never very much arable land even in those ancestral villages; but (for example) in an old boyfriend's father's village, in Basilicata, the family still owned their own little patch of olive trees, and so did everyone else.  The earthquake of 1980 had wrecked the whole region, and the rebuilt village of V. was hard and charmless, squatting in isolation on top of its mountain and marked by a sort of Appalachian destitution.  It had its own dialect but just one main road, on which teenagers tooled up and down, back and forth, on their mopeds on summer nights, while toothless elders played French cards and Rocky shouted in dubbed Italian from the nearby pizzeria.  As a guest, I was served fresh coniglio, probably caught nearby.  The hills were covered with a mix of scrub and olive trees, from the narrow, stony valleys through which a cold river flowed, up to the hilltops, each crowned with a village like V.   As D. explained to me, everyone with any ambition left - for Rome, for cities even father north, like Milan.  For the trees' owners, since decamped to the big city, those tiny orchards were an inheritance that drew them back in.  They lived in that city to the north, but they still had a bit of land in V., where they were "from." ...Even removed to the city, people still retained the habit of planting the most miniscule bits of outdoor space, since miniscule (in city or village) was all they were likely ever to have.  The neighborhoods ringing the wealthier historic center of Rome all had apartment blocks, built by the Fascists or during "Il Boom," usually not air-conditioned, each cramped terrace filled with plants and laundry hung out to dry and undershirted men escaping the interior heat.  From the street, I would look up at the messiness of it all and think, That owner of that terrace, chock full of tomato plants and geraniums and God-knows-what-else - what could that owner do with a whole garden, what could he or she make of it?

III.

When I walk down the street, in Brooklyn and Manhattan, I constantly evaluate the strips that run from curb to well, and the little brownstone basins formed by front steps, facade, neighbor's steps and sidewalk: private property that is yet public.  So often it is neglected, unplanted, paved-over (sometimes with a plastic pot or barrel planter, too cringingly undersized to do much more than call attention to how empty the space is).   When I bike through the suburbs, I notice all the empty lawns - the "billiard-table of grass," in Katherine Swift's words, landscaping limited to wooden stairs poking off the back deck, any plants shoved up against the foundations as though pushed there with a tractor scoop. 

And then there are those owners or co-ops that greedily (and gloriously) use up every inch of space that they have, who find ways to grow up and out as well as across - like the Maytime explosion of roses, above.  I think as I walk: Wouldn't it be great if we could peel up the extra concrete - wouldn't it be great if there was funding or advice to help people who wanted to create a layer of plants to complement the street trees, as low- or high-maintenance as they wished.   When I think of a long-term project, a public project, it goes something like that.