Why composting works (but, like, emotionally)

This summer, I hosted a compost performance in my friend David’s garden. The premise was simple: people were invited to bring a memory and I would add it to my compost for them. Was this a little bizarre? Probably. Not even I was sure what I meant when I said “bring a memory” but everybody who came seemed to intuitively understand the assignment. They arrived in twos of threes, rather gravely, holding their chosen memories: letters, photos, drawings, a houseplant. One person brought an orange from a tree at the rehab she had just left. One-by-one, each of these items was added to the pile. Some people opted to burn them first. Others just wanted them to be placed. Contributions were recorded in a spiral-bound notebook made from recycled paper. A few people cried.

Later on in the evening, I found myself considering the concept of “letting something go,” and why and how compost has become such a meaningful inflection point for me in regards to memory—something that felt, for the first time, like I had been able to practically translate for a group, in context of this performance. I hadn’t explicitly instructed people to bring a memory they wanted to let go of, but that’s what every single person who showed up had done. I found this to be both beautiful and instructive.

What are people letting go? Why? And why here?

It’s hard to let things go. Mostly, I think, because “letting things go” is a lie—loaded with the promise of forgetting. We don’t forget things. We remember them, in our bodies if not in our minds, and I think we can often fall into the trap of treating “letting go” (or, to put it differently, “death” / “release”) as an assignment to forget. In doing so, we deny ourselves the right to be changed. Compost, on the other hand, is only change. To put something into a compost pile is to commit to the principle.

I liked that my compost performance offered a different option for “letting go” and one that people decided to take, if not invent alongside each other, because it felt right in that moment. Together, that day, we all practiced releasing something by allowing it to live forever, honoring it with its own eternity. This ritual felt methodical and physical; small, but also true. It reminded me that we, as people, are also fundamentally and always changing; objects in relation. We incorporate new materials and become new with them. Often, what we wish to release says as much about us as anything we’d want to keep.

At the end of the evening, I composted a letter that I had written and brought, tucked into my back pocket (you can see it in most of the photos). It was addressed to somebody that I’m not able to speak to anymore, but who I think about all the time, and still needed to share things with. I wanted to tell them I was sorry. This was something suggested to me by my own good friend, Martine, reminding me (again), that we are only as good as what we exist in relationship to. Almost everybody else that came also brought a friend, who stood as a witness—to both the original memory, but also to the act of its release. Most of the photos from the event show people standing, ringed about the pile, in pairs.

One person brought a small round mirror. “It won’t decay,” she said, apologetically. I put it on the top of the pile, facing upward into the light, after I had pulled the pile closed around all the other ingredients.

Love, Cass

*** photos from this event were lovingly captured by the very talented photographer Amanda Hakan, who I am honored to call a friend. You can find her on Instagram here. Her website is here.