seasons

I apologize for my long hiatus over the past few weeks. I've been traveling a lot (weddings and such) and busy with various things. I've also been having trouble motivating myself to blog, which is typical for me--I have a personality that tends to get excited about new ideas and then tire of them quickly. But that started me thinking about some of the most difficult challenges for me personally with this whole environmentalist lifestyle.

The first lifestyle changes that I made to lower my environmental impact were strikingly easy. It wasn't just because they were the "low-hanging fruit," the small, simple changes that anyone can make; many of them were dramatic, even extreme. We moved downtown; we stopped driving almost entirely; we ate mostly vegan; we lived in a very small apartment. But even the most drastic changes were surprisingly easy for me, not because they were easy in themselves, but because they were novel. Riding public transportation is a fascinating adventure for someone who for most of their youth wasn't allowed out of the suburbs. Living in small spaces is an exciting experiment in thrift and organization when you don't think of it as a permanent home. Cooking only vegetables is an exercise in creativity when you've hardly ever even cooked before. But as time drags on, gradually these things begin to lose their sparkle.

In the past few weeks, my early delight in living small has begun to wane. I've been craving protein more and more often. I've been getting tired of figuring out another way to cook the squash and beets we get from our CSA. In the hazy heat of a Georgia summer, just the thought of riding my bike anywhere is exhausting, and the air conditioning of my car is more and more attractive. And as the heat saps my energy for cleaning and organizing my tiny house, I find myself wishing more and more for just a little more space to live in, energy use notwithstanding.

But these are the expected challenges of any discipline. C.S. Lewis calls it "the law of undulation": all human activities and interests go through seasons. Like most things in nature--for our appetites are part of the natural world--we wax and wane. That is the whole reason for disciplining ourselves in any area of life: our desires to pray, to go to church, to eat healthy, and to reduce our carbon footprint will vary over time. It's the choice we make to keep going through the dry spells that makes us what we are and what we become.

And so, I will choose to keep on in this path, and I'll be gentle with myself when I need to be. I will do what I can for now, and trust that my excitement for this adventure will renew itself naturally in time. Yesterday I cleaned my house, and today its small space is feeling a little more cozy than cramped. Today I will go to my garden, and if I can't use all the squash I find there, then I'll give some to my neighbor. I'll do what I can, and remind myself that the dragging heat of summer never lasts forever.

pirate rubber duckies

This story was just too funny not to post. I have to feel sorry for the poor rubber ducks. Washing up on shore at last, after fifteen years of the freedom of the open sea! Do you suppose that any of them will be consigned to the doubtful pleasure of becoming what was once their purpose in life--a bath toy? A baby and a tub of bathwater will seem awfully boring to them after years of circling the Pacific in the wild currents of the sea.