In my family, we spend New Year’s Day doing two things: brunching and hiking. My parents and my sister’s family drive up and we spend the morning eating all kinds of yummy things, and then we head to a nearby state park for the First Day Hike.
I don’t normally host a lot of get-togethers at my house, but when we do, it’s always been so easy to rely on disposables: plates, napkins, plastic silverware. I keep a pretty minimal kitchen, so my excuse has always been that I don’t have enough of any one thing; I only have 8 large plates, for example, so when all ten family members are here, what choice do I have?
I’ll tell you what choice I have: put out the 8 small plates I have, too. So someone has to eat on a small plate – they’ll survive! And the same thing goes for silverware: can’t some people use tiny forks and some people use normal forks? They all work the same.
So yesterday I challenged myself not to use anything throwaway. To make up for a shortage of bowls for fruit and yogurt, I set out a bunch of small jam jars. I washed up every cloth napkin we own, so we had plenty. Glassware was mismatched, but who really cares? And the three people who ate off small plates still got plenty of food. At the end of the meal, nothing was thrown away; we just washed everything up and put it back in the cabinet.
Even though this is such a small thing, I’d been letting my discomfort with things being a little hodge-podge and scruffy stand in my way. But if I say I value making sustainable choices, I am absolutely required to make myself uncomfortable in order to live in alignment with that value. Because if you draw the line at your own discomfort, then the truth becomes that you don’t really value that thing you say you care about. And I want to hold myself accountable.
I hope 2020 holds even more discomfort for me.
(photo source Pixabay)
Today I spent about an hour at the thrift store. I’ve been on the hunt for a new cardigan in a happy color, but I had rules: it had to be secondhand, it had to be made of natural fibers, and it had to be worth repairing if it got damaged in any way. The thrift store I was at is huge and combing through literally hundreds of sweaters took time, but it felt like time well-spent; if I could find the right sweater, then I wouldn’t have to look for another sweater for a long time.
I don’t post to Instagram all that much (though heaven knows I love to scroll through it), but when I do, I always feel a little cognitive dissonance.
Back in August, I started a Buy Nothing Project group here in my smallish city. It’s been slow-growing; I think a lot of people shy away from a gift economy because they don’t entirely understand it. Our culture tells us there are only two ways to get things. Either you buy them, in which case: yay capitalism. Or you are given things, in which case: sad poor. The haves give to the have-nots, and the haves just keep buying more new stuff, and everyone is left wanting and grasping and seeking all the time.
I live exactly one mile from a big box store. One mile isn’t really very much. I like to get out and go for walks and runs; one mile would be barely a start when I’m talking about getting movement in. But I never walk to the store, because there isn’t a single sidewalk between my house and the store. So, I get in the car and drive there, probably cursing under my breath the whole time, because ugh. Who drives one mile when they don’t need to?
When I was seven, we moved to the same street as my grandparents. My grandfather Poppy was dying of lung cancer and most of my memories of him come from that time. I remember spending the night with them once, and getting up early while the house was still quiet. I went into the kitchen and found Poppy sitting at the old oak table. He smiled at me and invited me to join him in a bowl of raisin bran. It was his favorite cereal, or at least that’s what I thought as a little kid, and so we sat there letting the flakes soften in the milk before scooping it up. It feels like my last memory of him.
A Place in the Family of Things. 