Change can be small

The California fires are probably what really got to me. The roads lined with burned out cars: we all can see what happened to the people in them. The look of abject horror on the men standing next to our criminal president as he called the town "Pleasure" and siad we'll have a good climate, when we all heard the estimate of twelve years left to fix something, some small part of our death sentence.

Yeah, we're all gonna die, we already know that, and lots of the conversations I have as someone on the verge of 70 are skirting that topic, which in itself is just something to accept and adjust to. Every day upright is a gain over the odds, a testament to having been lucky or careful. I got some good genes; my Mom's 92 and still with us, but that's an anomaly I get to enjoy. Can't count on anything about it, though.

Biking downtown in the smoke the summer before last, it first really sunk in that my future plans were delusional. We can't do outdoor retail in an apocalyse. There's not going to be any 50 more years of Market, with or without me, unless things drastically change. People will adapt, for sure...there will be lots of things we won't need and can't afford by then anyway, probably including cotton canvas and baseball caps with plastic inside the bills. And of course my years are limited, so I won't see that future, whatever it turns out to be. My son might, and whatever children he might have.

It's sobering, and desperate, and completely infuriating that people who don't know where they are or what they're doing are able to thwart people who are actually working on solutions and education. Infuriating isn't a strong enough word. I got a measure of hope from the elections, but seeing those determined people posing for a group photo in DC, all dressed in their suits and stillettos eroded that right away. Those people dress like that because those rules are tight. Even when they do dress like that they are easily denied the tools they need to make the changes we must make. Some of them will do some good work, and maybe all of them together will at least stop some of the bleeding. But hell in a handbasket is still our direction and mode.

Not my fault; I'm trying. We're all trying. But we have to try a lot harder. Not consuming mass-consumption geegaws and gadgets is a start, but if just the hippies are doing that, it's such a small drop in that bucket. I decided to stop buying seafood, so one more fish can maybe stay in the ocean, one more chink in the diversity of that zone can survive. Such a tiny, tiny step forward. I will work next on meat, then keep working on a plant-based, down on the food-chain diet, but such a tiny step. One person. One front in the giant war to sensible choices.

I had already decided long ago to severely limit my purchases of plastics. No new Christmas lights, no new so many, many little things I might ordinarily buy without a thought. Might help a little, and of course, collectively we will all help a lot if we can stick to it. But what happens when my phone breaks...will I quit taking credit cards and lose half of my customers? Will I stop buying ink because it comes in a plastic bucket. Will I really reuse my produce bags more than twice? What about my plumbing and rain gutters, my favorite tea bags, new shoes? How far can I get with that?

It doesn't matter how far I get, I just have to keep going in that direction. Decades of following the hippie way have shown me that we have been right since that first galvanizing Earth Day (I was in DC) and we can always do more to cement those values and teach others. Our children did learn some of them. Lots of our kids are carless by choice, as inconvenient as that is. Lots and lots of people are examining their choices and doing their best to be thoughtful and progressive.

It is not enough, but it is enough to keep trying. It's all we can do, just not stop trying. Forgive ourselves for not getting the big things done, and try hard to not dissolve into helplessness. That's the real danger, to give up, since we are so helpless in so many ways. You have your Go bag, your earthquake water jugs, your canned tomatoes, and yet, you might not have any choices when things happen. You might be helpless because your utility company failed to make the right choice. You might vote and have your ballot thrown out. You might holler loud as hell and still be silenced. You might be right and still be wrong.

We just have to keep trying. We've had bad kings before, Nixon on our side of the pond, Henry the 8th, Pol Pot. Plenty of them. We can barely trust the ones that seem good. But we've pushed our country back in the right direction, and we'll keep pushing, and we'll keep being smart and sensible and creating beauty and creating hope.

What if I made a list of all the plastic things I need, and picked one at a time to figure out better alternatives for? I can say no to lots of products and write to the stores or manufacturers to tell them why and ask for better choices. I can use my privilege to drive change.

I let my neighbor know what I thought of his new leaf blower (he said at least it was electric, as if that was really better.) I carved a new end for my broken rake handle. (Gotta get out in that forest and neaten things up...ha ha.) I decided maybe those alpaca boot liners might work even better than those foam ones. There's quite a lot I can do on that little piece of my personal front lines.

After finding two dead possums this fall, I saw a live one eating the earthworms I nurtured in my compost pile. I have hardly any garbage as it is, but I can make less. I will patch my gardening pants with my other gardening pants, and mend some shirts, and maybe even darn some socks. It's meditative. I'll read more library books and watch less TV, so the advertising won't seduce and depress me quite as much. I'll stop looking for things that bother me and look harder for things that warm me.

I'll enjoy the hell out of the Holiday Market that we are so lucky to have. I'll observe Buy Nothing Day in a meaningful way, and thank others who do. Even my worst customer at the Market is at least there, trying, instead of ordering online so we can waste more fuel and packaging buying empty boxes full of junk we don't really need. Being thoughtful and caring is a big step forward, composed of many tiny ones, and there, I can always do better. Always.

The sun came out of the fog, so I did all my laundry and hung it out on my wooden racks and clothesline. This time of year I have to move it around the yard a bit to catch that low sun, but I can dedicate my whole day to it if I want. I worked hard for a day off, so I can enjoy it. I'll purge my FB settings of the real-estate dealers and car ads that are somehow preying on my account. I'll be more careful what I like and share so I don't spread pernicious untruths and demoralize myself and others. We will still have to fight, every day, for equality and justice.

This has always been true. Our delusions can be comforting until they are not. When they crumble, we can always pick up and keep going, so that is what I will do. Maybe in the future we sell homemade smoke masks and smocks to preserve our last polyester fleece vests. We'll keep adapting, and we're good at it.

And we can support those who are better at it than we are. I like to drop twenties into the donation jars in Holiday Hall. There are neighbors of mine sitting in those chairs, backs to the sunny day, working for me. Working for real change. They aren't asking for much...your cooperation, your encouragement, your support. We can all give that. We can all keep moving forward, in the right direction, with our flawed selves and our ignorant choices and our thoughtless mistakes. We can forgive ourselves and each other, and be thankful we learned something.

Everytime I bring these little things up with people, I get new ideas and make new allies. We are stronger than we think, and we are doing better than we think we are. Let's keep going. Let's live while we are here, and leave a better planet when we go.

Thanks for your participation.