Everyone has his or her breaking point, and I know we are all living under a great deal of stress right now, what with news headlines just this morning like
Florida despair and foreclosures; Death toll in Australian bush fire hits 84; Joblessness hits new record; and let's not even go into the whole peanut butter recall thing.
Close to home, a 7-year old boy was killed this week by a woman driving an SUV while he was crossing the street in front of a school, in a crosswalk, while a crossing guard was holding out a stop sign. All this stuff bombards us every day, even if you (like me) watch little TV. TVs have somehow become ubiquitous and I can't even ride the public bus or go to the eye doctor without it blaring at me.
Add to that your own personal schedule, which, for my family, has been an unprecedently busy time for about the last six weeks for reasons that will end soon but nonetheless have required some really fancy footwork on our part. Many late nights, early mornings, and military-calibre logistics. An older relative of mine said to me, "Oh, I remember when I used to thrive on activity like that!" and I thought afterwards,
But no, I don't thrive on this! I thrive on digging in my garden and reading in the hammock! (And have I mentioned that January in Atlanta was the coldest I remember and that my garden is weeks behind where it usually is at this time of year?)
And so, it was inevitable that one day it happened. Something small. Something inconsequential. But it's the something that had me standing there in the kitchen, feeling the complete tilting of the earth beneath my feet, and, yes, even exclaiming out loud, "That's it. That's the straw that breaks the camel's back." Or, perhaps, the monkey's.
The monkey origami assignment came home in my younger daughter's backpack from a very well-meaning, generous-with-her-time mother. Three big fat paragraphs in 8-point type explained how the elementary school class was assembling a collection of origami animals representing character traits on a Roman shade that would be then sold at an art auction to raise money for the school, and my daughter was assigned the monkey. The enclosed instructions were four pages long, involved 45 steps, and required me to research "origami symbols" so that I could decipher them. One little sheet of enclosed brown origami paper would somehow, miraculously, become that monkey. And it was due in just a couple days, the exact couple days during which I wasn't sure how I was going to get from all the point As to all the point Bs where I or some member of my family needed to be.
I never touched that brown paper. My daughter, perhaps intrinsically sensing her mother's inability to participate in one more thing, took it over to a friend's house one afternoon and together they made the monkey. No, it doesn't look like a monkey, and yes, they added tape in a few places, which I'm guessing is a major origami no-no, but they had fun and they got it done.
My car has broken down several more times, by the way, which is starting to feel like a message from the heavens to me, and my friend Judy of the CSA drove way out of her way to pick me up at seven in the morning Friday so that I could join her at the always-excellent monthly
Sustainable Atlanta Roundtable meeting, and I told her about the monkey origami.
"I think you're going to be the one buying that thing, Pattie," she said. And then we got to talking about the "monkey origami" of sustainability. The thing that breaks our back, that all of us seem to experience at one time or another, that feeling that what we are doing doesn't matter. That the water is already so filled with toxins that does it really make a difference if we bring our own bags to the supermarket?
"Perhaps we have to stop thinking of our actions as
effective," I suggested to Judy, "and think of them more as
symbolic."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Perhaps we have to accept that change will not be significant until the next generation, and our job is simply to plant the seeds of sustainable action in the memory banks of children, so that one day, when policy and process and practice all catch up with each other, they can achieve significant,
real change. So, maybe it is less important that we recycle everything than that we recycle
some things, particularly when children are watching or participating. That we ride our bikes occasionally so that they can see us from the back seats of minivans. That we simply
try when we can, and not beat ourselves up when we can't. That we allow our advocacy efforts to skip a few steps and not look perfect and perhaps even require a little tape."
"So perhaps we pursue a different outcome?" Judy suggested.
"Yeah," I agreed. "And maybe lighten up on ourselves, and everyone else, a bit. Because, you know what, Judy, I've been thinking. Perhaps, ultimately, it all simply comes down to kindness. Good things seem to happen when we are kind, you gotta' admit. It changes the entire energy of the day, of the
world. So maybe that's all that really matters, especially right now when things are so hard. Maybe the best way to create renewable energy is to just be kind to each other."
We rolled that around in our heads for a minute, until I had to say it, the ultimate "what if?' that has a way of putting things in perspective.
"I mean, once you accept the limits of a lifetime and the potential for the annihilation of humanity, what else is there to worry about?"
Judy laughed, but I could see a calm coming over her as well. And let me tell you, if you have a friend with whom you can share thoughts about the annihilation of humanity and somehow both find it relaxing, I say do whatever it takes to keep that friend. These are rare and valuable people.
As we hugged goodbye, feeling better about the world after boiling it down to its simplest essence, I suddenly felt a wave of gratitude. For a broken-down car that brought me together once again with this friend. For two children who didn't care about perfection. And for a mom who knew, somehow, that I needed the unexpected gift of the monkey origami this week.
Nurturing sustainability close to home and around the world. (And other food for thought!)
Everyone has his or her breaking point, and I know we are all living under a great deal of stress right now, what with news headlines just this morning like Florida despair and foreclosures; Death toll in Australian bush fire hits 84; Joblessness hits new record; and let's not even go into the whole peanut butter recall thing. Close to home, a 7-year old boy was killed this week by a woman driving an SUV while he was crossing the street in front of a school, in a crosswalk, while a crossing guard was holding out a stop sign. All this stuff bombards us every day, even if you (like me) watch little TV. TVs have somehow become ubiquitous and I can't even ride the public bus or go to the eye doctor without it blaring at me.
Add to that your own personal schedule, which, for my family, has been an unprecedently busy time for about the last six weeks for reasons that will end soon but nonetheless have required some really fancy footwork on our part. Many late nights, early mornings, and military-calibre logistics. An older relative of mine said to me, "Oh, I remember when I used to thrive on activity like that!" and I thought afterwards, But no, I don't thrive on this! I thrive on digging in my garden and reading in the hammock! (And have I mentioned that January in Atlanta was the coldest I remember and that my garden is weeks behind where it usually is at this time of year?)
And so, it was inevitable that one day it happened. Something small. Something inconsequential. But it's the something that had me standing there in the kitchen, feeling the complete tilting of the earth beneath my feet, and, yes, even exclaiming out loud, "That's it. That's the straw that breaks the camel's back." Or, perhaps, the monkey's.
The monkey origami assignment came home in my younger daughter's backpack from a very well-meaning, generous-with-her-time mother. Three big fat paragraphs in 8-point type explained how the elementary school class was assembling a collection of origami animals representing character traits on a Roman shade that would be then sold at an art auction to raise money for the school, and my daughter was assigned the monkey. The enclosed instructions were four pages long, involved 45 steps, and required me to research "origami symbols" so that I could decipher them. One little sheet of enclosed brown origami paper would somehow, miraculously, become that monkey. And it was due in just a couple days, the exact couple days during which I wasn't sure how I was going to get from all the point As to all the point Bs where I or some member of my family needed to be.
I never touched that brown paper. My daughter, perhaps intrinsically sensing her mother's inability to participate in one more thing, took it over to a friend's house one afternoon and together they made the monkey. No, it doesn't look like a monkey, and yes, they added tape in a few places, which I'm guessing is a major origami no-no, but they had fun and they got it done.
My car has broken down several more times, by the way, which is starting to feel like a message from the heavens to me, and my friend Judy of the CSA drove way out of her way to pick me up at seven in the morning Friday so that I could join her at the always-excellent monthly Sustainable Atlanta Roundtable meeting, and I told her about the monkey origami.
"I think you're going to be the one buying that thing, Pattie," she said. And then we got to talking about the "monkey origami" of sustainability. The thing that breaks our back, that all of us seem to experience at one time or another, that feeling that what we are doing doesn't matter. That the water is already so filled with toxins that does it really make a difference if we bring our own bags to the supermarket?
"Perhaps we have to stop thinking of our actions as effective," I suggested to Judy, "and think of them more as symbolic."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Perhaps we have to accept that change will not be significant until the next generation, and our job is simply to plant the seeds of sustainable action in the memory banks of children, so that one day, when policy and process and practice all catch up with each other, they can achieve significant, real change. So, maybe it is less important that we recycle everything than that we recycle some things, particularly when children are watching or participating. That we ride our bikes occasionally so that they can see us from the back seats of minivans. That we simply try when we can, and not beat ourselves up when we can't. That we allow our advocacy efforts to skip a few steps and not look perfect and perhaps even require a little tape."
"So perhaps we pursue a different outcome?" Judy suggested.
"Yeah," I agreed. "And maybe lighten up on ourselves, and everyone else, a bit. Because, you know what, Judy, I've been thinking. Perhaps, ultimately, it all simply comes down to kindness. Good things seem to happen when we are kind, you gotta' admit. It changes the entire energy of the day, of the world. So maybe that's all that really matters, especially right now when things are so hard. Maybe the best way to create renewable energy is to just be kind to each other."
We rolled that around in our heads for a minute, until I had to say it, the ultimate "what if?' that has a way of putting things in perspective.
"I mean, once you accept the limits of a lifetime and the potential for the annihilation of humanity, what else is there to worry about?"
Judy laughed, but I could see a calm coming over her as well. And let me tell you, if you have a friend with whom you can share thoughts about the annihilation of humanity and somehow both find it relaxing, I say do whatever it takes to keep that friend. These are rare and valuable people.
As we hugged goodbye, feeling better about the world after boiling it down to its simplest essence, I suddenly felt a wave of gratitude. For a broken-down car that brought me together once again with this friend. For two children who didn't care about perfection. And for a mom who knew, somehow, that I needed the unexpected gift of the monkey origami this week.