Hatred of Infrastructure

"Let this eye seek food for the earthly body."

The Juice or The Sap

The sun has been shining somewhat brighter lately, not the colorless sun of a clear winter day, but a pale yellow that promises spring and regeneration. The air still bites, a trace of frost borne on the wind, and past dusk—earlier for children and seniors—layering is generally recommended. But hidden just below the surface of the month, coiled among the roots and the sewer pipes, less than a foot and rising higher, there's energy, not just metaphorical energy but measurable in calories, der Saft as Jakob Böhme would call it, the juice or the sap, which, ready in reserve, will bring out new leaves and bear new fruits. Just give it a few weeks.  

Quality Products

Along the path to my physical therapist, a small to medium-sized warehouse building stands empty. It once housed an industrial heating equipment supplier. Before the building must have been a textile mill, as most of the industry here was. The old sign, the one for the heating equipment supplier, still hangs above the weedy parking lot. A brief internet search indicates that the business is still in business. I can order from their line of quality industrial heating products. Whether these come from across town or across the world, I'm not certain. The address is local in any case. A crew works there most days, in the warehouse, gutting the building for redevelopment. They out great heaps of soiled insulation, pitching it into dumpsters, which look busted as the trash they contain, the enamel falling away and revealing a scabrous integument of rust, which is itself falling away. At times, the city itself seems hostile to the very concept of infrastructure. A fire hydrant lies broken on the sidewalk; a telephone switch box lists to one side, its wires exposed, probably useless before but definitely useless now. These are no great impediments though, either to me (hobbling on my way to physical therapy) or to redevelopment (the neighborhood has its own lifestyle magazine); the broken infrastructure adds texture to a highly developed service economy, with many of these accessed within easy walking distance. The physical therapist's office occupies yet another renovated mill. The lobby has grape-flavored candies and a flatscreen playing sports highlights. These discrete visual impressions, corresponding to different phrases in the history of production, should be enough to complete some unified effect, since I’m too tired from physical therapy exercises (a rib has popped out of place) to fuse them together myself.