The Wild - Rob The Gardener

The Wild
Rob The Gardener

The wild. Why I’ve loved working for B & H Buildings. The wild. Furniture has strode in from the garden and sat itself next to outrageous palm-print arm chairs, Cocktails are shaken, stirred and shot out of a cannon and Below & Hidden is simply a savage beast lying in waiting. The wild infuses this place and is a necessary garnish to the greyness of London. Over my tenure here, I’ve tried to make my own wild impression. Ivy climbing the walls, moss floating in the bathrooms, strawberries hanging over door frames.

I like the wild a lot, call it a preternatural lust, a yearning from another side. I have a recurring dream where I’m walking under a green canopy of lush exotic foliage, the light streaks through in pinhole beams and there’s a soundtrack of different primates and parrots all layered over the rhythmic drumming of water drops hitting that infinite panel of giant leaves. In the dream, I return to my cabin home which is built into the hollow of a rocky cliff overlooking the verdant valley. Approaching the door, passing under my very own glistening waterfall, I’m fumbling for my keys and I realise that I haven’t got my phone because I left it at Jack’s house and now I have to go back and get it which is annoying and frustrating- annoying because I’ve gotta spend 40 minutes on the tube, frustrating because I can’t really remember whether his road was on the first or second left and then all the houses on the street look the same anyway, I could buy a map, but can you buy a map these days? I can’t call of course but maybe I could email him but he’s the kind of person who never checks their emails which is basically selfish. I actually think it’s better if we’re not friends. But I do want my phone so I’m just going to have suck it up. I could buy a new phone. I could buy a new friend?

Why am I having this as my dream?!

What happened to cliff cabins and waterfalls? That, that was amazing. Why can’t I be there!

The dream is now over, and as I awake the reality is I still have my phone.

I doubt that Jung would call this an archetypal dream experience but I’m sure he’d agree on which recurring part suggests a healthy subconscious.

So there it is I want to live in the wild and I’m convinced I’m not the only one. That said, I do quite like the city. I love being near so many of my friends. I like meeting people. I love being surrounded by new ideas, new foods, new environments. The city isn’t so bad, it can’t be; even God-of-the-jungle Bear Gryll’s is buying in Battersea. When it comes to work, play and raising our kids most of us, with the exceptions of Robinson Crusoe or Captain Fantastic, prefer the urban environment (if you disagree with that- then embrace your primal urge to strip down, roar, paint stripes on chest and run giblets out to Epping Forest to live off it’s rugged fauna for the rest of your days). By force or serendipity we’ve all found our way here, Zone 1, the modern and historic centre of the civilized universe. And we’ll probably keep coming back here. So what does that say for our wild side? Does nature have to wait in the slips? If we compromise, will a few regimented tree lines in suburbia do it for us? Do we really want to be surrounded by waterfalls and oxygenating lifeforms?
Do the city and the jungle have to forever be set at permanent odds to one another?

Can we bring the jungle to the city?

Yep, you guessed my answer!