SHIFT HAPPENS – Part I

 

Finding My True Voice

When my big blue Yukon and I pull up to Green Bank, a “green networking event,” or to meet my new green friend Mona at Ruggles Green restaurant, I linger in my car for a few moments after turning off its highly non-green engine. I’m careful who sees me exiting this environmental nightmare of a vehicle. Though my heart is green, my lifestyle has yet to catch up to my good intentions.

On the one hand, chasing the American dream is what I’m told to do by. “They” send the message loud and clear.  Success means money, youth, the perfect home and children, and all the stuff I want and need. I deserve it.

On the other hand, a small voice inside often questions my auto-approach to life. As a kid growing up in a Midwestern home where my parents purchased a “side of beef” each winter for the family freezer, I often connected the meat on my plate to the animal that once owned it. Sometimes I even felt ill at the thought of taking an animal’s life to make ground beef. When I mentioned this idea one night during dinner, it was quickly dismissed as nonsense and I found out nobody else in my family ever had these thoughts. I must be a weirdo, I guessed!

I never liked plastic bags. As soon as I made the connection between reusable cloth bags and the grocery store I started collecting canvas ones from expos and events and using them instead of paper or plastic. Sometimes the grocery store cashiers and baggers were annoyed. “One day everyone will be using these kinds of bags,” I would say. “You’ll see.” Finally, this year, I see an occasional person in line with reusable bags. And I am delighted to hear that some cities are actually banning plastic bags. One day is getting closer.