simple.green.organic.happy.

Author: Robin Strong Elton

  • Henry David Thoreau’s Walden

    I am still wending my way, slowly, deliciously, through Walden.

    I so fervently wish that, like Thoreau, I could go off and stake out a piece of land, cut my own lumber to build my own cozy little abode. I will have to be content with slinging Jeff’s machete to take down the vines squeezing the life out of my trees. Except I’m not allowed to play with the machete. Or the axe.

    My favorite part, as a child, was how he tallied up the costs of building his house on the land he claimed “by squatter’s right”:

    Boards………………………………………$8.03, mostly shanty boards.
    Refuse shingles for roof and sides 4.00
    Laths………………………………………….1.25
    Two second-hand windows
    with glass……………………………2.43
    One thousand old brick………………4.00
    Two casks of lime……………………….2.40 That was high.
    Hair…………………………………………….0.31 More than I needed.
    Mantle-tree iron…………………………0.15
    Nails……………………………………………3.90
    Hinges and screws………………………0.14
    Latch…………………………………………..0.10
    Chalk…………………………………………..0.01
    Transportation……………………………1.40
    I carried a good part on my back.

    In all………………………………..$28.12 1/2

    It was with particular delight that I encountered this passage again. It was just as I remembered it; for some reason that doesn’t happen a lot when I reread childhood favorites. The telling is shifted and changed in my memory, by time and circumstance.

    Anyway, the boards were recycled from a shanty that Thoreau buys for $4.25, after a particularly pretty recounting of his experience hewing and mortising the main timbers (no, I don’t know what that means, but it sounds manly). He reflects that

    “They were pleasant spring days, in which the winter of man’s discontent was thawing as well as the earth, and the life that had lain torpid began to stretch itself.”

    He sees a snake “run into the water” and lay there for a long period of time, because it had yet to leave the torpid state. He muses,

    “It appeared to me that for a like reason men remain in their present low and primitive condition; but if they should feel the influence of the spring of springs arousing them, they would of necessity ride to a higher and more ethereal life.”

    In the next paragraph, he describes the shanty he is about to purchase from James Collins;

    “James Collins’ shanty was considered to be an uncommonly fine one….The roof was the soundest part, a good deal warped and made brittle by the sun. Doorsill there was none, but a perennial passage for the hens under the door-board…It was dark, and had a dirt floor for the most part, dank, clammy, and aguish.”

    Ah, yes, it does sound uncommonly fine.

    So here we have a man who is obsessive, frugal, preachy; recycles; uses his communing with nature to inform his poetic musings on the nature of man; and then, in the next paragraph, gives a snarky description of another man’s home.

    I am so in love with Henry David Thoreau.

    The edition that I have borrowed from the library (and sadly, will soon have to return) is the 150th (!) Anniversary edition, an oversized hardback with lush photography of present-day Walden Pond. It is the sleek black Jaguar XK edition of this book. It is beautiful.

    As much as I covet Amazon’s Kindle and its ability to fit 200 books into its seven-and-a-half inch body, its search feature– oh, how I long for the search feature– there is no way it can compare to the experience of supporting the heft of this book, and turning its crisp, smooth pages.

    I just flicked over to Amazon to grab the code for the Kindle link, and read through all the features, and now I really really want the Kindle.

    Thankfully, I have my lovely stoic Henry David Thoreau to stay my hand. He reminds me that putting $399 on my credit card, plus the cost of uploading books thereafter, is a loser’s proposition. After all,

    “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation…
    But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.”

    Buying things on credit is never the solution. Debt is slavery;

    “Always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow,
    and dying today.”

    Yes, Henry David. I am calmer now.
    I am so lucky to have you here, at my bedside, for another twelve days. So glad to

    “follow the bent of [your] genius,
    which is a very crooked one…”

    A humble house I found in the woods. Wonder who resides within?

  • Book Review: Sink Reflections by Marla Cilley

    I have been focusing on the greening of cleaning over at my family blog this week; indeed, cleaning house has very much been a prominent topic in my mind for some time now.

    I think in some ways it was the emergence of Spring and the change in attitude that comes with that; the quickening of the spirit, the surge in energy, the need to throw open the windows and see sheer white curtains billow, to let the sunshine in.

    Of course, that sunshine then illuminates the dirt, the clutter; and one is inspired to clean, to free up one’s space, within and without; to begin anew.

    However, if I am being honest about the true source of my newfound passion for keeping clean and tidy, I would be remiss if I did not credit Ellen at Everyday Crafty Goodness for introducing me to the phenomenon that is the Flylady.

    The Flylady is, in her own words, part cheerleader and part drill sergeant, and she is on a mission to save us from our own clutter, a condition she calls CHAOS: Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome. This refers to the fly-off-the-handle crisis cleaning we do when visitors are unexpectedly on their way. I think we’ve all been there.

    Her website is a treasure trove of inspiration and motivation, but for me, the most important service the Flylady supplies is an option to receive daily emails, reminding you to declutter, to plan out your meals, to do zone cleanings. It provides the little extra push I need to do all the little things I have been meaning to do.

    And yay, Marla Cilley (aka Flylady) has written a book titled Sink Reflections, gathering all her optimism and advice in one brightly colored pink paperback. Let’s start with the title.

    The Flylady’s first task for you is to shine your sink. Physically scrub the bejesus out of your kitchen sink and then buff it up to a high shine. Why? She wants it to be your beacon of clean and shiny hope, to start you off on your way.

    “When you get up [in the] morning, your sink will greet you and a smile will come across your lovely face. I can’t be there to give you a big hug,but I know how good it feels to see yourself reflected in your kitchen sink. So each morning this is my gift to you.”

    Yes, it is a little corny. She is like a very affectionate aunt. And at first the notion of shining your sink seems silly. But eventually I was worn down by her enthusiastic admonitions by email, and I went and shined my sink. And, yes, it felt darn good. And it made the whole kitchen look cleaner.

    Here it is today:

    Shiny!

    Step two is to get dressed to lace-up shoes. Again, this seems nonsensical. I am an at-home mom, I bake a lot, I garden. I am a filthy mess at the end of the day. Why should I get dressed?

    I’ll tell you why. If the UPS man drops off a package, or if some guy runs out of gas and knocks on my door, I’m not embarrassed by what a sight I am. If I suddenly need to leave the house, I can leave right away. And most importantly, because getting dressed to shoes makes me feel better about myself, and ready for the day.

    Step three is a before bed ritual: pick out your clothes for tomorrow, and get a good night’s rest. The Flylady scores again: My tomorrow morning goes a lot more smoothly when I follow this step. (It helps that the Flylady reminds me to turn off the computer and go to bed each night. )

    The Flylady program starts with the premise that we have become paralyzed by our need for perfection, that the knowledge that the mess in our houses is so immense that we don’t know where to begin.

    “This mess is so big
    and so deep and so tall,
    We can not pick it up.
    There is no way at all!”
    -Dr. Seuss
    “The Cat in the Hat”

    Well, she ‘s going to tell us where to begin. Enter the”Babysteps“, a progression of daily habits that enable you to take control of your life. Steps one through three I have covered above. After you’ve internalized these, you are ordered to start digging your way out of your clutter, through a series of “27 item flings”, “5 minute room rescues”, and 15 minute decluttering sessions. (A chirpy reminder that “You can do anything for 15 minutes!” often greets me when I check my Inbox.)

    After the clutter is under control, the Flylady has a system of zone cleaning that ensures that every part of your house will undergo a seriously thorough cleaning at least once a month, and a more general surface cleaning once a week. Everything is broken up into quick tasks that take fifteen minutes at most, so you are never overwhelmed.

    It seems like voodoo magic, but it works. It just takes commitment, and time. The emails definitely help keep you going, as do mantras like:

    • “Your house did not get messy in a day, and it won’t get clean in a day either.”

    • “Stop whining cold turkey.”

    • “Your dryer is not a laundry basket.”

    • “You can’t change anyone but you.”

    • “Set the example in love and quit being a martyr.”

    When I started receiving the emails, I would open and read and delete them. I don’t even know why I signed up, initially. Then one Monday morning, the Flylady asked me to wash out my bathroom trash can. I deleted the email. But then I felt bad. She’s so nice, she’s so positive, she has dedicated her life to trying to help people be comfortable in their own homes. How long could it really take to wash out my bathroom trash can? The thought rankled the back of my brain all day. Finally I heaved myself up and washed out the damn bathroom trash can. And man, it was dirty. It’s funny how you don’t notice those details because you see them every day, and it just becomes white noise. But just like the kitchen sink, it made the whole room look better. The Flylady is good for that.

    Unless you are some sort of weird Martha Stewart drone, I am going to hazard a guess that you don’t get everything done, all the time. Marla Cilley is like a very helpful neighbor. She is a little over the top, but I am willing to overlook that, because her program really does work. Don’t believe me? Go shine your sink, and see how much better you feel.

  • Green Cleaning 101: Social Responsibility

    Quick recap of the Green Cleaning series thus far:
    1. Chemicals are bad. Don’t bring them into your home.
    2. Children like to help and they should be helping to clean, every day, until a habit is formed.
    Today I want to talk about green cleaning on a global scale.

    In my post about encouraging kids to clean, I mentioned that bedroom cleaning is an everyday must, because if you allow kids to let it go for a week, they will become overwhelmed. Faced with the magnitude of the mess, they become paralyzed and unable to begin. And they will give up. You, as a parent, will come back to that room after an hour and it will look exactly the same, and your child will be holed up in the corner, drawing. Your lectures will fall on deaf ears, because the child has already decided that he cannot do this by himself. And really, he can’t.

    This is what has happened to our world. People have not done what they are capable of, to pick up after themselves. They became busy, or they found it inconvenient, or they stopped thinking about it, or they just stopped caring. And the mess has grown to the point where the magnitude is overwhelming, and people have given up. They have turned their back on the obvious and are busying themselves with pretty pictures.

    They say that there is no proof of global warming. They say that recycling is pointless because recycling trucks and plants pollute too. They say that they didn’t make this mess and it’s not their job to clean it up.

    That excuse doesn’t hold water in our house. I don’t care if it’s not fair that everyone has to pitch in and help clean up the aftermath of an afternoon of unbridled three-year-old origami. We all live in this house and we hold a shared responsibility to keep it clean.

    No one is going to tell me their mother taught them differently.

    Like I’ve said before, it all starts with you. You need to take those first baby steps, make a small decision like using non-toxic cleansers at home.

    This in turn allows your kids make a real contribution to the family by chipping in and doing what they are capable of, which boosts their self esteem. They feel that their actions have an impact on their immediate environment. They eventually form lifelong habits of picking up after themselves, and a general aversion to clutter and mess. It becomes natural, a part of their character.

    Soon they will be pointing out the litter on your street. And at the park. Maybe you, as a family, will do a little clean-up after going on a hike. Maybe you will start a community clean-up. Learn about your local watershed. Carry canvas grocery bags. Compost. Buy less and recycle more. Look for more and more ways to reduce your ecological impact, and increase your impact on others’ awareness.

    This is when it gets exciting. You start getting up on your soapbox. You get loud. You point out changes that could be made at local businesses. You write your congressmen. You send out petitions. You speak at the local school. You start a blog.

    Your enthusiasm is infectious. Other people, maybe, make small changes in their own lives. This ripples out to the people whose lives they touch.

    I know that some people will never care, and that sucks. They will find you annoying. They will attempt to attach their labels to you, like you are some beast on exhibit at the zoo, something deviant and possibly dangerous. They will dismiss you as a hippie, a treehugger, a bleeding heart, a granola girl, whatever.

    Thank them for it, because their labels mean they are taking notice. You have broken through to their consciousness, at least a little bit. Maybe you are making them think.

    (Here’s my bleeding heart.)

    It’s not enough to preach to the choir. We need to break out of our comfort zone, be willing to look like a zealot. We need to start reaching people that wouldn’t change their habits otherwise. Make them uncomfortable. Make them think.

    Maybe they make fun of you to other people. But, maybe those people are more sympathetic. Maybe they can more effectively build on the foundation you have set. The ripple effect is unstoppable and on your side.

    We may have already passed the tipping point, environmentally speaking. We can’t wait for lawmakers and nonprofit groups to help us along, tell us what to do. We can’t wait for other people to see the light. We need to act.

    “The man who travels alone can start today;
    but he who travels with another
    must wait until that other is ready.”
    -Henry David Thoreau

    We need to start today.

    • We need to do everything we are capable of in our own lives,
    • We need to do more than our fair share to compensate for those people who don’t care,
    • We need to talk about it but not complain about it,
    • We need to infect people with our enthusiasm,
    • We need to inspire others with our actions,
    • We need to lead by example.

    “You must be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
    -Mahatma Gandhi

    Now, I don’t feel that I am a leader or that I am inspiring, generally speaking. But I know that I am, to my kids. So I am starting there. Every kid, remember, wants to be helpful and useful; and every adult has one of those kids inside them.

    It’s not enough to just preach to the choir, either. We need to remind people that taking care of our earth, our shared home, is a social responsibility. We all live here and we have a shared obligation to keep it livable.

    We need to help them remember the lessons and values that their mothers taught them.

    And we need to do it today and every day. Until it becomes a habit. A part of our character.

    “Do something every day that you don’t want to do;
    this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.”
    -Mark Twain

    Further reading:

    Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, wrote an article titled “Why Bother?” that covers many of the same points I have here, only with more credibility and eloquence, and less hands-on-hips lecturing;

    50 Ways to Help the Planet. Yes, another list. Is there anything else you can check off?