Defiant life in an abandoned parking lot

Old growth. New growth.
London, ON
August 2019
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Humans are fascinating. We pave over our world. Reshape it. Dominate it. Make it subservient to our every whim.

In doing so, we convince ourselves that what we do here is the last word. That as soon as we build that street/highway/building/whatever, we've once and for all determined what that sliver of the planet will look like. Forever.

Um, sure.

Life has a funny way of making us look like fools. Of slowly, steadily, inevitably taking our arrogance and rewriting the story we thought we were writing for ourselves. Of gently proving us wrong.

Like in this parking lot in London's re-emerging East Dundas neighborhood.

This was once the very heart of London's manufacturing district. They made cereal to the right of this photo, and cookies behind it. It's been years since the last workers last clocked out. The factories stood empty for years before developers moved back in. The sounds of construction now echo off the massive faces of brick and concrete, promising a better future for a neighborhood that clearly deserves it.

But in the shadows of all this renewal sits a massive stretch of asphalt, forgotten, baking in the mid-summer sun. Blink hard enough and it's easy to see the trucks that once powered London's make-it-here reputation, easy to hear the workers who devoted their entire working lives to the companies that offered them and their families a decent wage and lifestyle. There's nothing of the sort here now.

But there is life. Maybe not the kind that once filled the air with the overwhelming sights and sounds of industrial might. But these weeds powering their way through the cracked pavement serve as a reminder that we aren't quite as dominant as we might have once thought.

We may yet reshape this neighborhood, and I can't wait to see the result. But even this will be temporary, as forces more powerful than us all will eventually reclaim all we have built.

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