The Patchy, Verdant Gardens of Oakdale

To some degree, everyone is a gardener here, like being a guitarist in a bad.

On the weekends, people congregate outside, each on their own revealing green plots. These verandas vary: some are trimmed finely, planned and lacking any undesirable growth; others betray unyielding browns and pale yellows. In spite of our naturally dry environment, natural growth is hardly considered garden worthy.


All the while, we entertain a neurotic fascination with these mini parks, stoked from without by the scrutinizing eyes of others and impelled from within by a deep yearning to be remarkable.

What is arrayed around the green distinguishes houses. Light flowers, colored pink or purple. Sometimes marigolds, carnations, or lilies even inhabit these sparse, rural installations.

If one is lucky, one might take a stroll by a house with roses; if one is luckier, there will be an bouquet of colors - bold pinks, deep blues, pale yellows, sanguine reds - that suggest fragrances that cannot compare to anything else we might make.

Still, the people here exhibit an odd antipathy toward putting grass to work for rest or respite. It is considered abnormal to use them aside for objects of visual or olfactory delight.

These observations, however, really only hold within the confines of the 'urban' sphere of town, outside of which gardens and flora are all but use. But in town, in town, gardens are all about the aesthetic, the beautiful, the captivating the wonderful, the sublime and the useless.