An avenue over and a few blocks north lies a tiny oasis in my little Brooklyn neighborhood. A beautiful space where we we go & seek refuge when craving an escape from our city streets. An avenue over & a few blocks north is a small piece of earth where green lush plants with budding flowers dominate the city grounds. It's a corner where Mother Nature resides. It's a garden where peace welcomes you upon your arrival and where children can dig in the dirt & feel the earth between their finger tips..
6/15 Green, a small community garden in Park Slope, Brooklyn where we recently became member's. It's tucked inside a quiet avenue full of peonies, and tulips….we've come across garden snails, butterfly's, kale, carrots & herbs. Bebe Bird has held worms & dug for beetles. Our afternoons are spent watering plants & flowers, watching them bloom & grow. It's a small patch of earth, in a big city, where tranquility thrives & peace blooms. There have been day's where we meet Papa after work. We sit, he & I and chat…we are relaxed…we feel content. We watch Bebe Bird as he runs along the flowers to the fish pond, and I'm filled with gratitude. How lucky is this little boy to grow up in one of the largest cities in the world and still play amongst such beauty. His city life will include incredible country blessings. He gardens. It excites him. This year he spends time talking to me about the flowers and how they once were seeds. He's genuinely interested in watching them grow, in caring for their well being. He water's the life growing in the garden and will point out to friends the various plants he's familiar with. He will demonstrate for the younger crowd how to handle the plants-kind & gently & say "thank you for the honey!" to the bees as the swiftly fly past him and into the flowers that surround him.
Bebe Bird & His Buddy in 6/15 Green
6/15 Green came to life in 1988. It used to be an empty lot where people would toss their trash and an empty trailer resided creating a haven for drug use. The people of the neighborhood wanted to take their community back from the drugs & trash. Together they joined forces to clean up the empty lot. Together they pulled the trailer into the street and out of the garden. Together, they removed all the garbage & added clean top soil. Politicians & the sanitation department took notice & assisted in the rebirth of the empty land. With time, hard work & love 6/15 Green blossomed into what it is today, a beautiful garden patch that has won many awards & grants including The Greenest Block in Brooklyn. 6/15 Green is a true testament on how it can take but a few to make the positive changes in this world. It is a reflection of true success and reminds me of Ralph Waldo Emerson's poem To Laugh Often & Much …"to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. That is to have succeeded." And today in 2014 as I take my little boy by the hand and enter into 6/15 Green, an avenue over and a few blocks away, I am eternally grateful for its budding success.
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