Green Friday: Why I bother

“Sometimes you have to act as if acting will make a difference, even when you can’t prove that it will.” (Michael Pollen, “Why Bother?” New York Times, April 20, 2008).

Do you ever feel like there’s not much point in trying to live in an environmentally responsible way, given the enormity of the problems the world faces and the billions of people who don’t seem to care?

And do you get confused by conflicting opinions on whether you should buy an energy-efficient fridge now to replace your still working energy-guzzler or wait until the old monster has died? (If anybody knows the answer this question, please let me know.)

Does trying to figure out if locally grown but not organic produce is better than imported organic produce make you want to throw up your hands in despair, grab a bag of additive-laden cookies, and collapse in front of the TV?

Even I, who was steeped from a very young age in the belief that if I add my little effort to your little effort, then eventually we can change the world, have days when I feel like this.

I mentioned somewhere on this blog that my husband and I have tried to live in an environmentally responsible way for much longer than it’s been trendy (we’re not very trendy people)—not because we were better than anyone else, but because during our ridiculous number of years at university, we were more aware of the issues than people in the real world. Plus it was cheaper and we were broke.

Some people thought we were freaks (in fact, some members of my family still call me a freak. Hi, Mike! Love you!). But we didn’t much care. We tried to live in a way that felt right to us.

My mom has a list posted in her cupboard that I wrote for her about 20 years ago on things she could do to have less impact on the environment. I was reading it the other day and I realized that some of the things that people used to think were weird or downright wrong, like putting your purchases in your own bag instead of a plastic one, are now mainstream.

I know people who don’t believe that global warming is caused by humans. They say it’s a natural fluctuation. That may be. But even if it is, it’s not a valid reason for not trying to live in a less harmful way. We’ve been aware of environmental degradation since long before global warming became a household concept. Smog alert days, PCBs in the breast milk of women in the Arctic, diminishing resources, overflowing garbage dumps, constant exposure to all sorts of cancer-causing agents—these issues have been around for decades.

To me, it’s not about being on a bandwagon or trying to save the world by myself. It’s about living in a way that’s in sync with my values. I make some choices, like not coloring my rapidly graying hair (which is still in desperate need of a cut—obviously the progress I made during “Enough procrastination, already!” month is wearing off), based on environmental concerns. Other people make other choices. A lot do less than I do and a lot do much, much more.

My efforts alone are not going to save the polar bears or the rainforests. But if I do what I can and you do what you can and my neighbor does what she can and your uncle does what he can, well then, this poor earth—and our descendents—will be better off than if we all did nothing.

What I love about hands-free phones

I don't have a hands-free phone. In fact, I use my cell phone only a couple of times a week, for coordinating with my husband how two adults with two cars can have two children in three places at one time without a time machine. And, thank goodness, I'm not so very important that I can justify walking around with a phone in my ear all the time. But there is something I love about hands-free phones.

My monkey mind has lots of conversations with people who aren't actually with me at the time. And I compose a lot of stuff in my head--blog entries, email to Hayley, things I want to write (and promptly forget as soon as I have time to sit down at my computer), reports to clients. And sometimes I get so involved with these words in my head that my mouth moves. And being a person of gestures, I might even move my hands.

It used to be that if you saw someone talking to herself, your first thought might be that she was a bit loopy.

"Look, Daddy, that lady in the car next to us is talking to herself. Does that mean she's crazy?"

If she had young kids with her and you were a parent yourself, you might have sympathetically postulated that she'd spent the morning singing "Baby Beluga" 421 times and was so desperate for adult conversation that she'd resorted to talking to the voices in her head.

But now, if you see someone talking to herself, you're likely to assume that you just can't see the phone she's talking on--especially if she's like me, in desperate need of a haircut and with so much hair that I could have phones in both ears and be wearing several pairs of big hoop earrings and no one could see them.

So now, thanks to modern technology, I can talk to myself without embarrassement. If I wanted to, I could even speak out loud and people would just think I'm monopolizing a phone conversation. Instead of worrying that I've chaperoned one elementary-school field trip too many and gone off the deep end, people just assume I'm on the phone.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday #14--What's around the bend?

Yesterday my 16-year-old cousin was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma.

I, like everyone, have lost loved ones in my grandparents' and parents' generations to a variety of causes. It's devastating to lose anyone you love, no matter what their age and the circumstances.

I've lost friends and family in my own generation to illness and accidents. It's scary and tragic when someone close to your own age dies.

But this is the generation below me, the generation that's still made up of kids--kids who should be spending the coming summer hanging out and having fun, not fighting cancer or watching one of their own fight cancer. This is just plain wrong.

Because they help me with my volunteer work for Chemo Angels and because we've recently lost someone to cancer, my kids are more aware of this disease than many. But this is the first time it's so close to home, someone they know well. This is their boisterous cousin who is so full of life and energy that she can hardly contain it, a talented artist who draws pictures for my daughter and hands down clothes to her--someone who was fine when she was my daughter's age and fine when she was my son's age, but is not fine now.

Last night my almost-13-year-old son and I had a late-night talk, and I explained the phrase carpe diem to him. We talked about how important it is to really live your life--to not put off the things you long to do or the things you have to do--because you never know what's around the bend.

For another one of my Wordless Wednesday photos, see my other blog. For other people's see wordlesswednesday.com.

Improg word: Monkey

I've just noticed that this is my 20th improg post, which means that Hayley and I are about two thirds of the way through our original words. If you'd like to participate in our improg project by suggesting words or improgging yourself (c'mon, Margerie, I know you're wanting to!), let us know.

If this were any other week, I would have groaned after pulling the word monkey out of Hayley’s envelope of improg words. But just yesterday I stumbled across a new blog, iHanna's Creative Space. On Hanna’s “About Me” page was a phrase that made me stop in my tracks: monkey mind. I’d never heard this phrase before, but I was pretty sure I knew exactly what it meant and I immediately Googled it.

Well, my guess was right and—here’s more evidence that I live under a rock—it seems that lots of people already know about it. It’s from the Buddhist analogy comparing a cluttered, chattery, unfocused mind to either (a) a monkey swinging from tree to tree, unable to stay in one spot for long, or (b) a room full of noisy monkeys. Both analogies work for me.

Plans for the future, memories of the past, relived conversations, conversations I’ve never even had, shopping lists, to-do lists, self-recrimination, other people’s criticism, ideas for projects and writing, snappy comebacks I couldn’t think of when I needed them, panic over all that I’m behind on—all of this is going through my mind all the time. Being in my head is like walking through the primate section of the zoo.

I’m largely unaware of the noise or of the tension it causes until something makes it stop. Then I get that sense of ear-ringing relief that comes after leaving a very loud place, like a rock concert, a three-day camp with 13 Brownies, or any social occasion involving a group of almost-teenagers.

One place in which the noise stops is my favorite park. I don’t know why my mind calms down in this particular park. It’s a beautiful spot, with water and trees and trails, but hundreds of parks in this area are beautiful spots with water, trees, and trails. I used to go to this one sometimes the first time I lived here, but my memories of it aren’t particularly quiet ones. In fact, they’re decidedly fuzzy and involve things like sitting on a dock with friends, drinking rum out of paper cups with Ronald McDonald’s picture on them and singing “American Pie” loudly and off-key.

But for whatever reason, when I go to this park, the monkeys get very quiet. It doesn’t matter how awful I feel when I pull into the parking lot, whether I’ve just had an argument with someone or I’m teetering on the edge of the Black Hole of Depression, how much work is waiting for me, or how loudly my clients, my children, or my mother are clamoring for attention. I step out into air and light that seem somehow different and it all stops. For a few minutes I can hear the ringing echo of the voices and I become aware of the tension I’ve been carrying around. And then my head enters the same time zone as the rest of my body and I understand what people mean by “living in the now.”

The other calm, although not quiet, place for me is my belly dancing class. Moving my bottom half in one direction at one speed while moving my top half in another direction at another speed—sometimes while balancing a cane on my head—is all my pea brain can cope with at one time, so everything else just has to stop. Although it sounds kind of funny, belly dancing class was a sanctuary last year when my cousin was dying of cancer. The heavy sadness was there even during class, but for one hour a week my mind could let go of the worry and the stress.

So now I’m looking for more ways to bring the noise down to a healthier and more manageable level. Do you have a monkey mind? What helps you to calm it?

As we saw it

Earlier today I went to a rummage sale at a church near here, where one of my husband’s best childhood friends got married almost 13 years ago. The bride was a beautiful, exotic, South American girl several years younger than me. We were so happy for them—and relieved, too, that this old friend had chosen someone we truly liked (isn’t it awful when your friends choose someone you can’t stand?).

Child One was about eight weeks old and the wedding was his first big social do. At the time we lived in another town and had to make an overnight trip. What a production that was! We had gone from being a couple who could throw a couple of toothbrushes into a backpack and hop on a motorcycle, to being parents. This baby—who, because he had been premature, was still pretty small—required enough stuff to fill our car from top to bottom. (As a more seasoned parent, I now realize that we only thought he required that much stuff.)

The worst part of it for me wasn’t the worry of travelling with a baby. It was figuring out what I was going to wear to the damn wedding. I was in that awkward stage—my skinny clothes were too small (as they have forever remained), but my maternity clothes were too big. I hadn’t bought anything new, what with being busy learning how to be a mom several weeks before I’d expected to. So I went to the wedding feeling about as frumpy as it is possible to feel, in a long skirt with an elastic waistband and a top through which, I was sure, everyone could see the outline of my nursing pads, with leaky boobs the size of watermelons, circles under my eyes, and hair in desperate need of a cut (hey, those last two are still true today!).

Our friends had a storybook church wedding, in stark contrast to our own backyard wedding, an occasion so dysfunctional that for years my husband and I couldn’t look at the photos without cringing at the stress they brought up. The bride was surrounded by other gorgeous, young women and a big, loving family. The reception was crowded with unmarried, well-dressed people who had slept well the night before, or, if they hadn’t, it certainly wasn’t because they’d been up all night acting as a milk cow. As we walked among these beautiful people with our baby in his little homemade overalls and our god-awful ugly diaper bag, I wanted to disappear into the floor.

Years later I told the bride about how inadequate I had felt that day. And then she told me about how inadequate she had felt about a year later, when she and her husband had come to our town for a visit. She was newly pregnant. There I was, in our own house (a tiny, old, falling-down house, mind you, but our own house), overly educated, making baby food and baby clothes, an experienced mom. Unbeknownst to me, the image of me scooping puréed squash into ice cube trays intimidated her for years. She saw me as some kind of homeowning, supersmart supermom—a real parent.

Really, we’re our own worst enemies sometimes. I felt inferior to her because (as I saw it) she was younger than me, more beautiful than me, more interesting than me. She felt inferior to me because (as she saw it) I was older than her, more of an adult than her, a perfect mom (Ha! Double ha!).

As I stood in the church parking lot today, I wished I could go back almost 13 years and tell that tired and frumpy-feeling new mom that no one would remember what she was wore to the wedding that day or what she looked like (really, when you’re carrying a newish baby wearing overalls printed with cute giraffes, is anybody even looking at you anyway?). Over the years I have been to numerous gatherings with the families of both the bride and the groom and not once have I been greeted with "Oh, you're the one who wore that awful skirt and top to the wedding. I remember that I could clearly see the outline of your nursing pads." I would tell her that the beautiful young bride, once she became a mom herself, would be just as worn out and feel just as inadequate. And I would tell her that she and the beautiful young bride would still be friends so many years later.

Now that we’ve both been mothers for over a decade, with two kids each, the age difference between us means nothing. Nor does the difference in our education, whether we used cloth or disposable diapers, what we look like, or whether we own or rent our homes. The fact that we’ve shared this experience in the parenting trenches, that our husbands have been close friends for almost 35 years, that our children have been friends for all of their lives and will be for years to come, that the two of us can laugh over how we used to see each other and ourselves—these are the things that are important.

Green Friday--Saving water one bucket at a time

Now that gardening season is upon us, I’ve placed a bucket in the shower to catch the water that would normally go down the drain while the hot water makes its rather slow journey from the water heater to the bathroom. I have a smaller bucket that I use while waiting for water to wash my face. When you multiply these bits of water by four people, it adds up to a lot.

In this blog I tend to complain loud and long that I live in a place with precipitation on an average of 154.5 days a year. So it might seem ridiculous to you that I would try to conserve water. But there’s no point in wasting something just because you have a lot of it and, believe it or not, even here in the temperate rainforest we do have dry spells and summer watering restrictions.

Plus I grew up in California where, it seems, I was permanently affected by the drought of 1976–1977. And lately, as we’ve been watching Frontier House on DVD and I’ve been reading Little House on the Prairie to Child Two, I have apparently been infected with that pioneer waste-not-want-not mentality.

I’m sure that my neighbors must wonder what the heck I’m doing sloshing around the already wet yard (sometimes in the rain even!) with my big red bucket of water. Several spots in our yard don’t get watered by the rain because they’re protected by the eaves or by the branches of the ginormous trees that surround us, so I use my bucket water on them.

A bonus of this scheme is that my haphazard watering habits have improved tremendously. In the typical scenario, I say to myself, “It looks like today will be one of those 154.5 days with precipitation, so why bother watering?” but it doesn’t actually rain and the poor bean plants shrivel. Or I forget about the umbrella effect of the trees. Or I put “water the garden” on my mental to-do list again and again and again while the Shasta daisies topple over with heat exhaustion.

While it appears that I’m normally incapable of getting off my butt to go fill up the watering can or turn on the sprinkler, hauling a bucket of water out of the bathroom and into the yard doesn’t seem to be any trouble at all. And, if it happens to be one of the 210.5 days without precipitation, my red bucket reminds me to water the rest of the yard while I’m out there.

Buttons-n-Dollars

My good friend Hayley, breast cancer survivor extraordinaire, recently met a woman named Heidi Marble, an eight-year survivor of inflammatory breast cancer. Heidi has established a registered charity called Buttons-n-Dollars to raise money to help under- and uninsured breast cancer patients with their treatment. Using donated buttons and costume jewellery, she turns broken mannequins into works of art, which she then sells or leases.

If you have costume jewellery or buttons that you're not using, please consider sending them to Heidi to help her continue her great work. You know all those mismatched earrings in the back of your jewellery box? And how about your overflowing button box? Declutter your drawers (or for those of us with a teeny tiny craft supply addiction, make room for more) and help Heidi at the same time!

To learn more about Heidi, her book Waiting for Wings, and her art and to find out how you can help, visit her Undone website. Her shipping address is

Heidi Marble
Buttons-N-Dollars
25017 NE 188th Court
Battle Ground, WA 98604