The Last Straw

There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Bar-b-que sandwich from Hog Heaven and hush puppies yes they were good!

February 1, 2010

The title of this entry sounds Buddhist to me, or slightly like  something one of my elementary school teachers might have said to her class in frustration, “Pay Attention.”

Paying attention is what I have been trying to do when I get near any sort of commerce.  The minute I forget, it seems, then voila, I get some plastic I did not bargin for.  And there are always, always, surprises.

A few weeks ago, when I exited the highway, very close to my home, on my way back from a day on the road, tired and hungry, I spotted my local bar-b-que joint (no, I am not a vegetartian), and thought my life would be complete if I could only have a good ole NC Bar-b-que sandwich with cole slaw and hot sauce.  “No problem,” I thought, as I waited in the drive through.

I would be fine ordering the sandwich wrapped in wax paper,  and I knew not to order any wonderful southern sweet tea, as that would surely come in a Styrofoam cup, complete with plastic top and straw.  So when I reached into the white paper take-out bag, imagine my horror when I pulled out one  of those stryofoam clam things, with another plastic container of hot sauce inside, plus, a plastic covered plastic fork.  I felt like a fallen woman, a true sinner,–“How could I have been so dumb?”, I kept asking myself.

It is about remembering, paying attention, to what is in front of me.  Perhaps, if I had gone inside and spoken with the young woman taking orders she would have obliged me with leaving all of that plastic out of my order.  I am pretty sure she would have thought me a bit demanding, or at the very least, peculiar, and one day I will find out.

As I write this, I am safe and warm in my own home, the world outside covered with at least 6 inches of snow.  Being snowbound has been such a luxury.  I made yogurt for the first time–delicious, and I made 2 batches of crackers.  One batch was amazing, and the other like 100 or so little sawdust hockey pucks.

When I took that innocent walk in the woods last fall, and had the small epiphany about trying a year without disposable plastic, I really had no idea of the complexity of what I had chosen for myself.

Earlier last year, as I had begun the basic attempt of always bringing my own bags to the grocery store, a young cashier said this to me, when once again, I had forgotten my bags–“Mam, whenever I forget my bags, I always go back to my car, or home and get them. That way I trained  myself to remember.”  His voice is one I have carried with me.  This 18 year old young man is paying attention and so should I.

I quickly trained myself to bring my own bags to the grocery store, and have been good at spotting styrofoam and plastic silverware before I come in contact with them. What I only slightly understood last fall when I made this commitment to myself was, how totally saturated we are with plastic packaging.  At that time, I had not noticed that the bags inside of most boxes of cereal, cookies, sugar–whatever, are plastic. I had not noticed that almost all cleaning products come in plastic bottles. The list continues and so far I am still enjoying the ins and outs of figuring my way around most of this stuff.   Some days I feel like Sisyphus and somedays I feel the joy of discovery.  And I am making new friends along the way.  All of this for trying to pay attention to the plastic around us.

Oh, and on this paying attention thing, for some reason, I have begun observing the beautiful forms of the trees around me.  As I drive here and there and find myself at a stoplight, or when I open my front door, I have been looking up and noticing the branches of the trees against the sky, their beautiful graceful forms.  When I do this, just for a moment, life stands still.  Nothing more or less.  Just that.