My grampa lived in what a lot of people would call a "tough" block. But I remember it as being beautiful. A lot of the reason why his neighborhood was so beautiful was because my grampa took so much ownership of cleaning up and maintaining the neighborhood aroud him

My grampa was, I realize now, deeply autistic. He took a lot of abuse from the world for it. I am autistic, also, and I guess that's why grampa and I got along so well.

One of my grampa's favorite hobbies was picking up garbage. He found it soothing. When I was going through a rough time -- covid isolation and other things -- I started picking up trash too. I found it equally soothing. To me it seems to mimic what is called EMDR therapy.