A weekend with family, friends and strangers which became friends.

Dear readers,

I had spent the last two day spending time with my housemates and my family, the communities that I am in. I find joy and comfort always when I am with my friends and family for it is true that life is best when shared with others. Community is truly one of the most essential element of our survival and surely our well being.

I want to spend same time talking about local farmer markets. I went a local farmer markets that close to my house with a easy bike ride. It was very pleasant to be there enjoying the companies of the seller and other buyers. I always find joy in being with a big group of strangers. There are just so many possibilities for new friendship and surprise conversations and spontaneous gatherings. I also love how I can ask the sellers about the origin of their produces and the sellers would able to answer me with confidence and honesty where they come from. I love how personal and close I can come to with the produces and the grower of that produces. I love how those produces no longer seem to be appeared from no where with a plastic outfit on rows of shelves in a white lighted environment, but harvested by dirty hands, kneeling knees and sweat. It is no longer just a relationship between me and the food that I am going to consume and soon to be forgotten, but a relationship between me, the food and the farmers, the sellers. It is no longer just consumers and sellers, but a farmers and its appreciators. It is no longer just about one come to buy and one come to sell, but also there is now a relationship that is being shared. How beautiful is this new picture, new way of exchanging our labour with food, new way of looking at our food and its producer, new way of looking at the possibility of a market place being a place of community. I loved the farmer market. It truly reminded me much with the markets that I love in Ghana.

It is always a joy to be with my family in my family home out in the country, sixteen miles from the city. We have three acres of land, a fenced in garden full of delicious fruit and vegetables, a simply ranch house with a open living space, a wooden deck, a play set, a trampoline, a dog, a cat, a rabbit and a lot of song birds. It is truly a safe paradise for me. I enjoy being with my family. When I was young, my parent have a rule that on Sunday, none of us three children were never allowed to leave the property of our house and have our friends over; it was a family day as they call it. Now as I grow older, I always excited for the weekend to come and have a chance to come home, take small break from my project and the busy city. But most of all, it is because as I grow older, I see how important my family is to me and how essential they are to me and my identity. Families are the building blocks of any kinds of communities, from neighborhood to township to city to nation to the world; Families are the basic of all connections and representation. Families is the place where we grow from toddlers to young adults that yearn for their individualism from their families. I had came to the realization that family is the place where I had gain all that I am today, and before I can say that I am equipped to be a contributor to the communities around me, I need to be first a contributor, good member of my own family. And after all, I had realized that family is the place where I felt most belong, most welcome and most peaceful... and with all these realization, how can I not yearn for my occasion chances of homecoming!?

When the moment came today when I have to leave my home to get back to the city and my project and my regular day to day life... I was sad and not willing to leave. But thus is life. I always struggle with the notion of  my love of being with family within a community; and my interest in being an artist/social experimenter which involves my reliance on "the machinery of the corporate world to get my ideas and message out"... but after reading a interview with Wendell Berry by interviewer, Fearnside, of the magazine,"The SUN", I had gained a new insight into this struggle that I have. Mr. Berry call this interaction with the corporate world as a network instead as a community. He sees community still as his family and the surrounding neighbors, environment and infrastructure. Mr. Berry see that both is needed, network is needed to help spread message about the need for community, it is only a means; and community is what we need essentially, as an end of its own. I like what Mr. Berry said and I am grateful that I had came across his word. But still, I have not find out what is the balance between the two, network and community. How much time should I spend in each of them? I guess I just have to continue to live and learn.


Thanks again for your interest and your supports.
I am truly grateful.



Patrick