Post by Shinpei Minamoto on Sept 20, 2015 17:09:22 GMT -5
And just who do you think keeps the parks nice and clean for you to look at?
Well, that depends on where you are--but naturally most of the work is done by volunteers.
And why do people volunteer? Why do they give their own precious time for no reward?
Well, you'd have to ask them. I'm sure there are all sorts of reasons they'd give: perhaps the park was the only thing that connected a child with his mother. Perhaps the park was a favorite destination of a young girl and her lover. Perhaps the park reminds of this, or of that, or of those...
I suppose all of the answers basically mean the same thing: once upon a time there was a man, and maybe there was a woman, or maybe the other way around--and anyhow, there was a big green grass patch and a grove of trees that swayed and a flower that bloomed under the sunlight.
And who knows? Maybe that means something to the people that work there, at least the ones that aren't paid to. Maybe to them, whenever they look at the small patch of nature surrounded by clubs and bars and restaurants and libraries they think to themselves, "just like it used to be."
Of course, I can only comment on Shinpei's motivations--not because I can't, you understand, but because there's no need to--and I can tell you with complete certainty that the past was why he was here on his hands and knees pulling weeds.
I certainly don't want to badmouth the good people in charge of maintaining Karakura Park's gardens: I'm sure they did a superficially adequate job, but there are things you notice when you know what you're doing. Trust me, if there's one thing Shinpei and I share, it's that.
We like flowers. Nothing complicated to it. It's just the way it is.
So of course he noticed the first time he walked through that there was a clump of weeds there, and the sunlight was being blocked here, and the way this flower was growing it would soon overtake another there... he noticed it the second and third time, too, and by that time he was well and truly hooked. The very next time he had a minute off he went charging off for the garden and now he was truly at home. For him, so little had changed since his time in the Seireitei: he was still a Lothario, still lazy and self-indulgent, and now he was still gardening in his spare time. If his Zanpakuto spirit could have screamed out loud it certainly would have--not that Shinpei would have paid him any mind.
So this was what he was up to on this perfectly nice day, as the wind gently tossed the boughs above him and the pine needles below him. The garden itself had become over the years a mishmash of old, new and foreign: it was why he was tending to these daffodils that sat right next to a nice patch of white roses under a line of cherry trees. Past, present and maybe even future met in a sweet little intertwining: it was one of the things that so endeared the park to Shinpei, although even if it had been a run-down little patch of dirt he might have still been here, tending to it.
Memory is funny like that. You look at something old and broken and if you squint just right you can tell it used to be new, shining and full of life.
Sometimes he felt like that too.
But it's hard to be too joyless on a beautiful day like this, in a beautiful place like this, with a beautiful job like this. Even if his soft and silky robes--out of place in modern Japan, but too comfortable to abandon--got a little smudged with dirt, and even if he wiped his sweat with a dirt-covered hand every now and then. Slight streaks of dusty brown arced across his forehead--but he was smiling, and that's half the battle. Or so they tell me.
Maybe they're right.
Well, that depends on where you are--but naturally most of the work is done by volunteers.
And why do people volunteer? Why do they give their own precious time for no reward?
Well, you'd have to ask them. I'm sure there are all sorts of reasons they'd give: perhaps the park was the only thing that connected a child with his mother. Perhaps the park was a favorite destination of a young girl and her lover. Perhaps the park reminds of this, or of that, or of those...
I suppose all of the answers basically mean the same thing: once upon a time there was a man, and maybe there was a woman, or maybe the other way around--and anyhow, there was a big green grass patch and a grove of trees that swayed and a flower that bloomed under the sunlight.
And who knows? Maybe that means something to the people that work there, at least the ones that aren't paid to. Maybe to them, whenever they look at the small patch of nature surrounded by clubs and bars and restaurants and libraries they think to themselves, "just like it used to be."
Of course, I can only comment on Shinpei's motivations--not because I can't, you understand, but because there's no need to--and I can tell you with complete certainty that the past was why he was here on his hands and knees pulling weeds.
I certainly don't want to badmouth the good people in charge of maintaining Karakura Park's gardens: I'm sure they did a superficially adequate job, but there are things you notice when you know what you're doing. Trust me, if there's one thing Shinpei and I share, it's that.
We like flowers. Nothing complicated to it. It's just the way it is.
So of course he noticed the first time he walked through that there was a clump of weeds there, and the sunlight was being blocked here, and the way this flower was growing it would soon overtake another there... he noticed it the second and third time, too, and by that time he was well and truly hooked. The very next time he had a minute off he went charging off for the garden and now he was truly at home. For him, so little had changed since his time in the Seireitei: he was still a Lothario, still lazy and self-indulgent, and now he was still gardening in his spare time. If his Zanpakuto spirit could have screamed out loud it certainly would have--not that Shinpei would have paid him any mind.
So this was what he was up to on this perfectly nice day, as the wind gently tossed the boughs above him and the pine needles below him. The garden itself had become over the years a mishmash of old, new and foreign: it was why he was tending to these daffodils that sat right next to a nice patch of white roses under a line of cherry trees. Past, present and maybe even future met in a sweet little intertwining: it was one of the things that so endeared the park to Shinpei, although even if it had been a run-down little patch of dirt he might have still been here, tending to it.
Memory is funny like that. You look at something old and broken and if you squint just right you can tell it used to be new, shining and full of life.
Sometimes he felt like that too.
But it's hard to be too joyless on a beautiful day like this, in a beautiful place like this, with a beautiful job like this. Even if his soft and silky robes--out of place in modern Japan, but too comfortable to abandon--got a little smudged with dirt, and even if he wiped his sweat with a dirt-covered hand every now and then. Slight streaks of dusty brown arced across his forehead--but he was smiling, and that's half the battle. Or so they tell me.
Maybe they're right.