an organized mess

the newspapers in denmark are full of environment-related stories in the lead-up to the COP15 climate meeting here in copenhagen in december, so living a more green life is at the forefront of all of our thoughts. but in all honesty, denmark is pretty far ahead on that front. it is, after all, the home of modern wind technology (think vestas). but for me, one of the most tangible signs of denmark's commitment to the environment is how organized our dumps are.

when we went last sunday, i snapped a few pictures to show you.

husband and mig unload stuff from the ancient toyota

ancient toyota might need to be recycled itself.

maybe in the large metal container?

one for newspapers, telephone books, etc.

and another for bottles and jars

put your old carpets here.

small burnables.

keep it under 1 meter, please.

large burnables (tho' this one was closed - there was another one).

small metal things.

it's here that husband found the fabulous sewing machine.

appliances

clothing donations
and yes, that was a bag of old linens in front of that one.
and maybe i did appropriate a couple of choice patterns.

mattresses and other feathery furniture.

separate containers for ceramics and tiles, cement, marble, stone, bricks

and i didn't even get pictures of the whole area where you can put old paint cans and batteries and electrical appliances and tires and garden debris and insulation. it's amazingly organized and there are little guys in orange suits patrolling and just waiting for you to accidentally put a ceramic flowerpot in with the glass, so they can yell at you. and odin forbid you try to put something longer than a meter in the small burnables.

but it makes me feel better to go there and to separate things and know that they're being recycled (tho' to be honest, i don't really know where they go). in the spring, you can go get rich compost for your garden, as much as you can carry away for free. it's the result of the trash they collect from our houses, where we separate into green and non-green trash. and i know that the burnables are burned in a big central place where they then capture the heat and use it to heat water for the fjernvarm system that heats much of copenhagen.

i like that the environment is the central topic around here at the moment and i like feeling that i'm doing my part by separating our trash and taking it to the organized dump.

what we've apparently forgotten along the way

i've been rereading laura ingalls wilder's little house books (thanks bee for the idea) and i realize that we don't know how to do anything anymore (except google stuff). i'm so struck by how much ma and pa could do. everything from process maple syrup from tree to a usable sugar supply for the winter, to tanning hides, to butchering a hog, to building a sod house to sowing and harvesting crops. we have become so distant from the food chain that the coming climate change is downright frightening.

all of this is on my mind thanks to the lifestyle change that husband and i are contemplating and blogging about here (after all, the blog is the medium of choice for thinking things through). regardless of what happens with the COP15 meeting here in copenhagen in december, we are all going to have to change the way we relate to the world. we're simply going to have to use less energy and what we consume will have to come from much closer to our local area. the life we know now is simply not sustainable. it's more and more indefensible that we treat the planet the way we do (she says as she's packing her bag to go to singapore next week, so she does realize she has a ways to go in transforming her thinking and her lifestyle).

so, in thinking about how to live in a more responsible way towards the earth, we're thinking about getting a large farm house that would be a property big enough to share with at least a couple of other families. farms houses here tend to be one big main house with often three barns/outbuildings forming a square courtyard. most of the places we're looking at have barns of solid construction that could be easily converted to living space (especially if you know an awesome polish guy who can help you with that). the idea isn't to go amish, but to have space to raise more of our own food and to share some of the things--like a kitchen and a car--that today we all think we need our own of--all while keeping your regular job. obviously that's the short version, but you can read more about how our ideas are evolving over on the livet på landet (life on the land) blog.

but i feel a little overwhelmed, reading the little house books. there's just so much i have to learn. so i guess i'm off to google a few things...

emancipation day

it's appropriate that i was awakened this morning by an earthquake that was 4.7 on the richter scale, centered across the sound in southern sweden. as strange as it sounds (and no offense to my dear san franciscan, who i realize faces true danger from earthquakes on a daily basis) but i really like earthquakes. that shifting of the earth, shaking me out of slumber and making me feel immediately alert is somehow delicious and life-affirming for me. and no one was hurt. so in more than one way today feels like a day of celebration....

i survived an early morning earthquake and it's been one year since i realized that i couldn't work for someone who looked like uncle fester but behaved with less manners and compassion. someone who would make decisions--harsh, life-changing decisions--without knowing the whole story and then not be man enough to be able to say he'd made a mistake. this despicable person actually fired several hundred people without looking into whether there would be a union issue--made a big proud announcement of the act to the newspapers about the fantastic (and fictional) sums he was going to save and then, when it had to be retracted because it was a HUGE union issue with major repercussions, didn't bother to even send a press release about the reversed decision. i knew i couldn't continue to get up in the morning and look myself in the eye as i brushed my teeth if i continued to work for this man. so i decided not to on this day one year ago.

it has proven to be one of the best decisions i've ever made. i had a conversation with someone last week who said i looked five years younger (at my age, that's pretty significant!) and i can see that my life is immeasurably better. there were great things about the job that i had, but four bosses in three and a half years was exhausting, especially as each one came in and decided that anything the last guy had approved was automatically bad. there was no continuity and no one with an over-all big picture view. each guy waltzed in and wanted to make his mark and then walk out again on to the next job within the company. looking back, it was mind-numbing, the constant battle state one was in. and my mind was numb.  it took me nearly this entire year to be well and truly over it.

i have been so fortunate to have the opportunity to have a job that perfectly enabled me to get over it and i'll always be grateful for that...some amazing planetary alignment clicked into place and i found exactly the situation i needed. to be mostly at home and there to pick up sabin so she didn't have to spend such long days at school and her after school program. to work with people who it felt good and comfortable to be around. to travel enough to stay gold (i know, i'm shallow, but this is strangely important to me) and to get the outside input i needed. it's been a marvelous year.

we should really be more grateful to the monsters we come across in our lives, because they do have a way of making us look in another direction, one that we might not have otherwise seen. so in a way, i'm grateful to uncle fester for being such a monumental ass, because it forced me to see the situation i was in for what it was. and it wasn't good. i was run down, i had seemingly forgotten how to sleep, i didn't do anything creative, my laughter had become forced and i didn't have enough time for the things that are important in my life--in fact, i had sort of forgotten what those things were in the haze i was stumbling through. it was no way to live. and now, one year later, thankfully i don't live that way anymore.

now i'm able to separate the great experiences i had in that job--seeing parts of the world i'd never seen, some of the truly wonderful people i worked with and who are still in my life, the network i built, the things i built up which couldn't be undone by uncle fester--e.g. my reputation, the time i spent with smart, creative people who furthered my thinking and helped me push borders. i can look back on all of that fondly now. and be grateful for those people and those experiences.

sometimes the earth moves under our feet and our world subtly shifts, we are shaken into awareness and find our way back to ourselves. that feels worth celebrating.

what is the world coming to?

my jetlagged brain awoke me at about 4 a.m. it was full of a jumble of thoughts. a strange mixture of images from murakami's wind-up bird chronicles, some gorilla show watched on animal planet before bedtime, work colleagues, returning a rental car (that's a weird one, i haven't rented a car in months) and the shipload of water that recently arrived in barcelona. needless to say, these thoughts were not immediately conducive to falling back asleep.

my sunday berlingske tidende had a 4-page in-depth reportage on rising food prices around the world. the article looked at ordinary items that go into people's grocery carts. here in denmark, a loaf of good rye bread has risen 20% in the past two years. milk has risen 28% and eggs 15%. however, it's worse other places--take china, for example. food prices across the board rose 22% in april alone and the price of meat has risen 46% in a year. the article indicated that this was not ordinary inflation, but the disturbing signs of a new era.

an era in which climate change has already had drastic effects on farming around the world. an era in which the use of corn for production of ethanol to feed thirsty american cars rules over using the same corn to feed people or to feed the animals that feed people.

either the world needs new priorities, or we, as individuals, need new habits. the far east had better get used to eating less rice--recently, the philippines imported $2billion in rice from thailand because they had only 2 months' worth of rice reserves. either the philippines has to make more efficient use of its' rice-growing fields (which won't happen overnight), or people have to get used to eating less of their staple food.

the article interviewed danes in a large grocery store and found that people had noticed the rising prices, but that most hadn't really changed their habits as of yet. but, that's because this is a wealthy society--people's salaries have risen in tempo with the rising prices, so it doesn't feel the same. we might consider the odd meatless meal, but overall, i personally continue to choose the more expensive organic foods whenever they are available. this is a luxury choice to have. and it may not be here for long.

what about poor people in developing countries who don't have that choice? the article showed a woman in haiti sitting on the ground making "clay cakes," a blend of clay, salt and vegetable fat dried in the sun and used to close the hunger gap caused by the fact that rice and bean prices in haiti have risen 100%.

articles like this always make me think about what sort of world we have left to sabin. what will be her reality as a grown-up? for one, i suspect the flying around the world she has become accustomed to as a child will be a thing of the past. it will simply be so environmentally indefensible to fly that people won't do it except when they absolutely must. i fear that will make her awfully sad. she expressed amazement just yesterday at the fact that a teenage friend of her big sister had never flown in his life. she's been flying since she was 3 months old and loves it and sees it as an integral part of her identity.

but, it's not all gloom and doom here on a monday morning--perhaps the food crisis will cause people to eat more locally-produced foods and to eat less processed foods, to eat less meat and more vegetables from their region. maybe we'll all waste less of what we buy--i know that i myself throw far too much away because i am a sucker for those 3 for the price of 2 kind of deals.

maybe the smaller farmer, who is using ecological, organic methods will have a better chance in a world where the big countries aren't exporting all of their grain at lower prices than it can be produced for locally and handing out indefensible farm subsidies. perhaps the market for a lamb fed locally on green grass in the pasture down the road will increase, so that the meat we do eat will be worth it--both taste-wise and environmentally-speaking.

and, humans have an amazing adaptability and spirit of invention which cannot be discounted. there will surely be more wind power. someone will come up with an effective method of desalinating water. hopefully, boeing and airbus are already working on planes that use alternative energy sources that leave a smaller carbon footprint, so sabin won't have to give up flying.

it's difficult from this vantage point to know what will happen. but, here and now, we need to change our habits--use more of what we buy, throw less away, choose what goes into our grocery basket in a more conscientious (and conscious) manner, don't let the water run forever until it's cold enough to drink, take a shorter shower. there are countless ways that we as individuals can collectively make an impact. so that the world is still here in a reasonable state for her to enjoy:

ponderings on a saturday night...make that sunday morning

"Can we change the world without changing the way we describe, structure and view the world?" asks truth cycles.

i set off last evening, after reading truth cycles' lovely post, to write about time and about memory and about changing the world. but, then life intervened, there were bedtime over-tired tears, a toe stubbed to bleeding, drama, a mosquito buzzing in an almost-asleep ear, more crying, then at last an exhausted little girl fell asleep after a very busy day of saturday activity.

sometimes, it seems that you have all the good intentions of wanting to change the world and how you're living in it and the impact you have on it, but then the real nitty gritties of life get in the way and divert your attention and your time. but then, who is to say that reading a story and comforting my daughter wasn't really a more worthy use of my time than sitting in front of the computer, composing a blog entry?

i studied in russia a number of years ago and during that time, i felt that time had slowed down. i had the strange sense that there was always exactly the amount of time in each day that i needed to do the things i had to and wanted to get done. i've often pondered why that was and never really come up with a satisfactory answer. but, perhaps it's because i was expressing time differently...in another language (in this case, russian). perhaps, as i have been provoked to think by the truth cycles posting, it was a matter of having oriented myself differently to time in another language and another setting. i simply lived with another relationship to time. since i assumed and expressed that i always had enough time to get things done, i in fact DID have that time. and in that, i always had enough time to go for a long walk arm in arm with friends, to drink endless cups of tea from the samovar, to go the opera or ballet every other evening, to do my homework, to attend classes, to journal and to stand in the queue outside the milk store, hoping to get some of that creamy chocolate milk, to look at wind-up watches in "watch world." all of that effortlessly fit into my days and months in kazan.

it was something about russia and perhaps russian because when i returned 3 years later for gabi's honeymoon trip on the volga, i had the same sensation...of time elongating, and being exactly as long as i needed it to be. those glorious golden days in the sunshine on the volga stretching out, the hours spent poking around in the little towns along the way, buying a basket from an old black-clad woman who had made it, taking a fantastic picture of a "dead piano" in a long-neglected manor house, wandering among the golden-cupolas of nizhny novgorod. it was a week, but in memory, it stretches into much longer. perhaps because it was such a relaxing time.

maybe that's why time seems to go so quickly in everyday life. because we're never relaxed. we're always rushing on to the next thing, never taking the time to enjoy and savor the moments as we are in them. so, although i perhaps didn't change the world yesterday, the fact that i took the time to comfort a tired little girl, to read to her, tickle her back and just be with her in that moment, maybe that was enough for that day. maybe it's the kind of thing she will remember one day and she will be happy her mom had time for her. and maybe thereby, one small gesture at a time, we actually do change the world.