earth citizenry

Here are some things I’m ashamed to admit:

I just recently started recycling.
I still use paper towels…. a lot.
I have a whole shelf full of plastic bags.
I waste in more ways than I’m probably conscious of.
Last month, I ate fast food probably 28 times.

Maybe it’s a result of the Green Frenzy or maybe it’s just my own awakening process, but lately I’ve become startling aware of my bad Earth Citizen behavior. I always look with awe at those people that seem to have this eco-awareness thing down. Like they were just born wearing Tevas and hemp shirts and carrying their own canvas bags.

Or those who are less obvious, like some of my friends who live in what outsiders refer to as “the dirty kid compound” which is actually a cluster of houses within the same few blocks that are bustling with magical stuff like container gardens, rows of bicycles, piles of salvaged wood, compost toilets and busy people living life for a living.
(Sure they don’t bathe as ridiculously often as us “achieving” folk, but they also don’t waste 8 hours a day in a fluorescent-lit nonsense land.)
I spent last weekend with them, when my kids were out of town and I had scheduled a No Agenda weekend. It was like a reunion. I’ve known most of them since we were kids. We went through all the same phases: from 11 year olds who listened to NWA to 14 year olds who wore flannel and only listened to music no one had ever heard of before to 18 year olds, who settled into themselves and listened to whatever they wanted. Some of us ran like hell to get out of Oklahoma, moved to cooler cities like Portland or Boulder or Boston and came back when we realized it was too damn expensive and others (like me) got burned out on bong parties and waking up in piles of Milwaukee’s Best cans and decided to get married and have kids and do all that making of the home stuff.
Several of my friends trainhopped across the country and went to Survival Camps to learn how to make their own tools and eat off the land. Some made statements through graffiti, protested the WTO, went to jail for their loud beliefs. I made babies, tested my own survival capacity learned to meditate and read books about evolutionary enlightenment. We’ve struggled with addictions and bad relationships but mostly we have grown into our own Beings. We’ve found our art mediums, our causes, our delights and vices. And I guess what has remained the same in us all is an idea that we live in a world that needs a tune up and we are trying our best to get the tools and the skills necessary to help with the repair. Sometimes our ideas aren’t popular. Sometimes our small selves pummel our Big Selves into unconsciousness with boos and such.

So, that weekend, because the Universe is a ninja that knows exactly what I need, there was a Garden Party. The Central Park Community Garden was buzzing with friendly neighbor chatter and glowing sun warmed bodies. We ate freshly picked strawberries and baby green salads. We played on the sun dial and sat in the Earth Chairs sculpted from leftover sod. I felt so at home. At one point, I went to give a friend a hug and she spilled her pulpy carrot juice all over my shoe. We laughed and she showered me with apologies and I remember thinking, I really don’t mind all this aliveness being spilled on me. We talked at length about our new discoveries and plans. I asked her about her latest artwork and she said she got tired of painting on drywall and now she was just having really great conversations and taking good care of her cat. This girl makes art every time she exhales.
When we went over to wash our cups with the garden hose, I paused as I watched her wash her cup. She sprayed a bit of water into the cup then released the nozzle and swished her hand in the cup to clean it, then rinsed it one more time quickly. It was just a simple still frame that illustrated the mindfulness that I had been lacking in my own habits. When I started washing mine, I noticed the urge to just forcefully spray the residue out without ever touching it, but I swished and conserved reverently.
The evening was full of still frames like that. Things I picked up on that, if I hadn’t been seriously re-thinking my behavior lately, would have gone unnoticed. Like the bulletin board with the water bill pinned to it, $30.00 for a house of 6 people. And the makeshift room built from salvaged window panes and old doors, the sign sarcastically scrawled above the door, “shabby sheik”. There were signs posted everywhere to communicate the needs of the house.
“Your mama still don’t work here.”
“Turn the compost.”
“Don’t put paper products in the toilet, homies”
The most beautiful thing was the overwhelming creative energy that washed through the place. Like you could just hold your cup out and drink from it. Two girls banged on drums with out regard to whether they could keep a beat or not. Outside, three boys bounced from freestyling to hilarious graffiti stories and back again. I sat with a fellow poet and scribbled poems in the empty spaces of a photography book. Words just came out so willingly. As we sat with sweat beading up on our necks and smiles dripping from our mouths, I noticed that the major difference between this gathering and maybe one I might have with my “successful” friends, the ones with mortgages and important jobs and carefully coordinated accessories, is the shift of priorities. The conversations were not filled with remodeling plans or shoe sales. There were real life smells like lavender and bicycle- riding- body instead of apple pie candles and mountain air disinfectant.
The overwhelming concern with convenience didn’t lurk in every corner. Instead it was just the desire to be. To create. To not exist frantically.
Though there are still some comforts and conveniences I am not ready to trade in, the experience reminded me of some of practices in my life that are not in alignment with my values.

Stay tuned for more on the Evolution de Lauren.