Garbage
We have a problem with garbage in this country. The first time this hit me was when we visited the land-fill in Idaho. I do not even remember why in the world we were driving through the mountains on such a fine Saturday afternoon to visit "the dump". There we were, however, my husband and I with our load of unsavory or unwanted items in the back of the neighbor's white, rusty pick-up truck. The sun was warm and bright that day, the air whipped playfully through our hair as we had the windows unrolled. With such a scenic view, we checked our GPS more than once to make sure we were headed in the right direction.
"Why would the land-fill be in the mountains?" my husband laughed. "It seems like we are headed for a picnic in the foot-hills".
"Yes! I should have packed us a picnic-lunch!" I said as I looked out at the surrounding Juniper and pine trees.
We rounded a shoulder in the road and suddenly the scenery changed. There amid the conifers and wild-flowers, strange ,unnatural mounds appeared. Workers were busy raking, no they were busy hiding the heaps and heaps of plastic bottles, rotten food and debris. The contrast was startling. I looked beyond the mountain of trash to the fertile country-side and my heart started hurting. I realized I had never thought about what happened when I threw something in the garbage, I just did it. I took for granted that once I was done with an item that some magical genie just came by with their magic wand and "poofed" my fickleness into oblivion. My discarded clothes, papers, even electronics became "invisible" to me so they had to obviously cease to exist, right? I heard a large groaning and racket and I thought it might be Mother Earth, sighing and shifting beneath her weary load. I turned toward the sound and saw that bulldozers had been added to the cause. The way they sifted and sorted the piles reminded me of a toddler with an unwanted plate of food, twirling a spoon and thinking the movement itself would make the excess on the plate disappear as he squirmed in his high-chair.. I actually got a little queasy and I remember telling my husband, "Let's see if we can go through our stuff again and donate more to Good-Will or see what we can use again."
He gave me that "look". The look of "Happy wife, happy life, but it took me two days to borrow this rusty heap from the neighbors, get a day off and beg and borrow favors to get our crap loaded up, but you have a bee in your bonnet again so...yeah...I know THAT means I better just shut my trap and undo all my hard work."
Honestly, one reason I had married the man is he was fully cognizant of my occasional "bees" and my "bonnet" and yet loved me enough to not try to fumigate my rogue bees even when they seemed to have morphed into some type of dangerous African variety. Perhaps coming from a family of literal bee-keepers(look up Budge honey sometime), my husband had automatically inherited the unique traits required of every patient keeper of things with barbed stingers.
Later, after we had made a couple of runs to donate at Good-Will, I hugged him and told him I was forever changed by that day. I am not saying I am the best recycle person in the world. I especially have a problem with wasting food and letting my kids waste food. I throw milk cartons and water bottles in the wrong bin. Overall, though, I find myself getting by with a lot fewer clothes, shoes, items.
Our problem with brash consumerism and the need for new and improved unfortunately seeps into other areas of our lives. Just like when toasters are broken or when a button falls off our jeans, when friends or even family members let us down, do we hide all things broken in the disappearing cabinet and hope the genie of the magic lamp will take them off our hands? Do we find PINTEREST or Facebook quotes that say, "I've walked away from drama in my life and I can walk away from you"?
Our discarded relationships greet us on urban street corners. Their hands stretched out, their cardboard signs saying, "No job, no food, no friends". We push green paper into their hands so they can join us on the hamster wheel of consumerism and chase their tails like us, productive citizens. We don't talk to them or offer a listening ear...we are on our own wheel. It is going so fast and we can't stop the circle long enough for an afternoon chat. Sometimes we worry if we get off the wheel we won't be able to get back on. Or, worse, we will be sucked into the vortex of street corners and grocery cart living.
Last week our family disembarked from the hamster wheel for a couple of days. We helped someone who had been misplaced in not the recycle bin, but the discard pile. My mind kept going back to the land-fill and even to my own busted relationships. As we helped this person, I took a look at my own life. I cannot honestly say all my own belongings or even my own relationships are in stellar shape. Helping this person, get a new beginning , made me want to go back through my own closets and clean house. It made me want to work on my own relationships and see what I could improve. I have a long way to go, but somehow helping this person has made me start to want to tend to my own beehive and become a better bee-keeper. According to Wikipedia, "The term beekeeper refers to a person who keeps honey bees in beehives, boxes, or other receptacles. Honey bees are not domesticated and the beekeeper does not control the creatures. The beekeeper owns the hives or boxes and associated equipment. The bees are free to forage or leave (swarm) as they desire. Bees usually return to the beekeeper's hive as the hive presents a clean, dark, sheltered abode."
I realized, reading this definition, that I am too much of a control freak and my bees are probably making less honey because of my controlling nature. In my quest to help, sometimes I overstep boundaries and forget my goals. I DO have some work to do! Well, being aware is the first step.
At least, today, I am looking at quotes like this on PINTEREST ,
I have moved the recycle bin closer to the kitchen counter ,
AND I am trying to live up to the example of the sweet bee-keeper who minds my bonnet.
"Why would the land-fill be in the mountains?" my husband laughed. "It seems like we are headed for a picnic in the foot-hills".
"Yes! I should have packed us a picnic-lunch!" I said as I looked out at the surrounding Juniper and pine trees.
We rounded a shoulder in the road and suddenly the scenery changed. There amid the conifers and wild-flowers, strange ,unnatural mounds appeared. Workers were busy raking, no they were busy hiding the heaps and heaps of plastic bottles, rotten food and debris. The contrast was startling. I looked beyond the mountain of trash to the fertile country-side and my heart started hurting. I realized I had never thought about what happened when I threw something in the garbage, I just did it. I took for granted that once I was done with an item that some magical genie just came by with their magic wand and "poofed" my fickleness into oblivion. My discarded clothes, papers, even electronics became "invisible" to me so they had to obviously cease to exist, right? I heard a large groaning and racket and I thought it might be Mother Earth, sighing and shifting beneath her weary load. I turned toward the sound and saw that bulldozers had been added to the cause. The way they sifted and sorted the piles reminded me of a toddler with an unwanted plate of food, twirling a spoon and thinking the movement itself would make the excess on the plate disappear as he squirmed in his high-chair.. I actually got a little queasy and I remember telling my husband, "Let's see if we can go through our stuff again and donate more to Good-Will or see what we can use again."
He gave me that "look". The look of "Happy wife, happy life, but it took me two days to borrow this rusty heap from the neighbors, get a day off and beg and borrow favors to get our crap loaded up, but you have a bee in your bonnet again so...yeah...I know THAT means I better just shut my trap and undo all my hard work."
Honestly, one reason I had married the man is he was fully cognizant of my occasional "bees" and my "bonnet" and yet loved me enough to not try to fumigate my rogue bees even when they seemed to have morphed into some type of dangerous African variety. Perhaps coming from a family of literal bee-keepers(look up Budge honey sometime), my husband had automatically inherited the unique traits required of every patient keeper of things with barbed stingers.
Our problem with brash consumerism and the need for new and improved unfortunately seeps into other areas of our lives. Just like when toasters are broken or when a button falls off our jeans, when friends or even family members let us down, do we hide all things broken in the disappearing cabinet and hope the genie of the magic lamp will take them off our hands? Do we find PINTEREST or Facebook quotes that say, "I've walked away from drama in my life and I can walk away from you"?
Our discarded relationships greet us on urban street corners. Their hands stretched out, their cardboard signs saying, "No job, no food, no friends". We push green paper into their hands so they can join us on the hamster wheel of consumerism and chase their tails like us, productive citizens. We don't talk to them or offer a listening ear...we are on our own wheel. It is going so fast and we can't stop the circle long enough for an afternoon chat. Sometimes we worry if we get off the wheel we won't be able to get back on. Or, worse, we will be sucked into the vortex of street corners and grocery cart living.
Last week our family disembarked from the hamster wheel for a couple of days. We helped someone who had been misplaced in not the recycle bin, but the discard pile. My mind kept going back to the land-fill and even to my own busted relationships. As we helped this person, I took a look at my own life. I cannot honestly say all my own belongings or even my own relationships are in stellar shape. Helping this person, get a new beginning , made me want to go back through my own closets and clean house. It made me want to work on my own relationships and see what I could improve. I have a long way to go, but somehow helping this person has made me start to want to tend to my own beehive and become a better bee-keeper. According to Wikipedia, "The term beekeeper refers to a person who keeps honey bees in beehives, boxes, or other receptacles. Honey bees are not domesticated and the beekeeper does not control the creatures. The beekeeper owns the hives or boxes and associated equipment. The bees are free to forage or leave (swarm) as they desire. Bees usually return to the beekeeper's hive as the hive presents a clean, dark, sheltered abode."
I realized, reading this definition, that I am too much of a control freak and my bees are probably making less honey because of my controlling nature. In my quest to help, sometimes I overstep boundaries and forget my goals. I DO have some work to do! Well, being aware is the first step.
At least, today, I am looking at quotes like this on PINTEREST ,
AND I am trying to live up to the example of the sweet bee-keeper who minds my bonnet.
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