Sometimes I get really excited about things and work up a whole plan without really thinking through essential issues. Like deciding to organize a community garden when I have trouble keeping houseplants alive. I've decided that, yes, if we are here in this complex long term, maybe a community garden is something that needs to happen. Ok, yes, I feel that it definatly does have to happen, but right now is nt the right time for it, at least not for me. The more I read, the more overwhelmed I feel and I think that before I get deeply involved in something, I should have at least some basic experience in it.
Which leads me to the main point of this post. Please don't take this as whining, just ranting or venting or whatever. But the thing is, the more I read about permaculture and organic gardening and sustainable living and graywater systems and energy conservation, etc etc, the worse I feel. I feel like a horrible, wasteful, evil person. I use water, too much water. I own a fridge and use it. I don't always buy organic, local food. I barely garden. I own a bike but haven't ridden it in over 3 years. I own an air conditioner and, worse, I bought it new. I often buy new things. I even, on rare occasions, and please don't kill me for admitting it, shop at big box stores, including Walmart. And I haven't even been to a protest in about 3 years (when was March for Choice?). I am a bad evil person and the more I read about all the good people who are doing Wonderful Things to help the earth and living in unity with others and rebuild/heal some of the damage we've done and live off the grid and what have you, the more bad and the more evil I feel. I am a radical environmentalist wannabe and sometimes I think that's worse than being someone who blindly used and abuses this planet and her people.
But here's the thing, I am reading and watching and trying, which is more than 99% of Americans can say. I do watch how much water I use, I try to take shorter showers, I am careful about what I put down the drain, I do reuse water when I can, mostly in the form of using fish tank water to water plants. While living in an apartment complex, setting up a graywater recycling system isn't really an option, but I do know that as soon as we have a place of our own, we will set one up, as well as a rainwater collection system of some degree. We buy the vaste majority of our produce during the spring, summer and fall at the farmer's market and during the winter we buy seconds from the wholesalers that are there year-round so that that produce, although still grown in foreign climes and shipped halfway across the world, isn't just tossed when it doesn't look perfect. I do grow my own herbs and sprouts and, hopefully, tomatoes, with plans to expand next year. I have every intention of riding my bike starting next week, once I spend some of the very limited $$ I have to get new tires and tubes this weekend. I own an air conditioner for one reason; the rabbits; our apartment, being third floor of a building with a flat black roof, reaches temps of over 100 degrees, even with fans and shades, and the rabbits cannot handle it...Phina had to be wet down several times last summer because she was getting so out of it we were worried about heat stroke. I buy new things, but I also freecycle and use craigslist and thrift shops and trashpick like a pro. And yes, I buy things at evil big box stores, but only when its something that we can't find anywhere else or can't afford anywhere else...not a valid excuse, I know, since I know that a lot of those times we may have not needed whatever it was right then or in new condition, but we read the situation as it seemed at the time. We are trying, we really are, and though we can do better, we only have the future to do so...all the mistakes I have made in the past are nothing I can do anything about.
And I read, I read and research and learn and plan and plot and dream and when I can, when we have control over our land and home, I will plan a self-sustaining forest garden and compost and collect rainwater and recycle graywater and ride my bike everywhere, and not buy things new whenever I can avoid it and set up a home where the rabbits and cats and other things can survive the summer without freon intervention. And I will raise my children vegan or nearly so (cuz I want to raise chickens, because they rock) and they will not watch TV and they will not know what it means to look outside on a perfect day surrounded by nature and be bored and I will teach them how not to make all the mistakes I have, how to be part of the people who have woken up to what all of us have done and are doing to this planet so that maybe, just maybe, they can be part of the solution. I want to live in a house full of handmedowns and handicrafts, hav a kitchen full of food I have grown or made myself or that has been grown or made by my friends and family and have a home that is surrounded by gardens and forests and dogs and cats and chickens and children. I want to know that I have done what I can to help fix all the shit that is happening.
So yes, I am whining, because I am feeling overwhelmed by all that I want to do and all that I can't do right now and all that I don't know how to do. And I am overwhelmed by all that needs to be done, before its too late. But I also know that the resources are there, the community is there, the dreams are there that can make all that I want to do possible. I can live sustainably, I can give back. And even if all I succeed at is balancing out all the damage I've done in the first 25 years of my life with the good I can do in the next 50, 60, 70 or more years, plus pass on that knowledge to my kids and to whoever else will listen, then, ok, good.
So next summer, instead of starting a garden here, we will container garden and get a plot in an established community garden. We've already spoken with one of the people who picks up our bunny and guinea pig poop for compost and she is getting us in contact with the person who organizes the garden she is a member of. We will teach ourselves to grow plants sustainably. And I already have a reading list a mile long and a list of all the veggies and fruits I want to grow. And, who knows, maybe we'll start collecting the bathroom sink water and using it to flush the toliet. And vermicomposting is next on the list, a lovely little box of wormies eating away at the copius kitchen scraps we accumulate. And yes, the A/C is going in today, but only a small, energystar unit with energy conservation mode, in one room, to be used only when necessary. I may be a bad person, bu I'm trying to get over that. And that's a start, right?
