What Would G&G Do? What to do when you lose hope.
I’m not gonna lie. I’m struggling right now. I know I’m not the only one and that so many of us are grieving many things at this point in time. But lately much of my grief (and anger) has mainly been for Mother Earth. I am an Earth Lover, a environmentalist of sorts, and a self taught conservationalist. The main holiday I love to celebrate is Earth Day. I actually started writing this letter that day while sitting on a Moraine looking out across Wallowa Lake at the STUNNING Wallowa Mountain Range. Ya see, this year was the first year it didn’t feel like a celebration. I felt hopeless and like I was mourning her abuse. I’m sure being in the middle of a global pandemic with heightened emotions exacerbated it, but still.... I’ve never cried on Earth Day before. Usually when I go to Mother Nature and I’m depressed - she helps lift me out of it.
Then I started to think about G&G Rhodes. That’s how they still are in my address book, even though neither of them are alive any more. Vernon (AKA - Grampa. AKA - VR) would have celebrated his 93rd birthday on April 21. I have always thought it so fitting that his b-day was the day before Earth Day. To be clear.... he/they didn’t celebrate Earth Day... but every single year as I celebrate Earth Day - I have always thought of how he and Dorthy (AKA - Gramma) celebrated and respected the Earth every day in their own way.
They had the most amazing garden. They had a double plot of land and so they built a home on one plot and a garden in the other. It spanned from the sidewalk to the alley with the most beautiful flowers as well as the BEST tasting produce. Each year they produced much of the food their family needed from that garden. If I was there for a meal during the end of spring, summer, or autumn - it usually meant that I would go out with a bowl or a basket to help harvest, clean, and prep much of what we would then eat. If I ate there during the beginning of spring or winter I would be asked to go down into the cellar to collect mason jars of food they had preserved. Or maybe go to the freezer to get out some of Gramma’s famous (and friggin delicious) Raspberry Freezer Jam or some other bit of nectar from the last harvest season.
They saved money by not having to go to the store for their produce. The food held more of it’s nutrition and it wasn’t filled with preservatives. Add to that that they had a ton less packaging and therefore had very little to throw away.
Oh - on that note... They were so ahead of their time on the reduce, reuse, recycle! Every year they left a plot in their garden fallow. Throughout the year they would bury all of their produce food scraps in that plot to restore it’s fertility so they didn’t have to use chemical fertilizers and they threw less in a landfill. They would wash out any jar (mayonnaise, cottage cheese, and the like) and use it either to store leftovers or for sorting hardware or what have you. Each bread bag and plastic food bag was saved to bring home morel mushrooms and watercress on our amazing mushroom hunting adventures or to put the bit of garbage they did have to throw out instead of buying huge garbage bags. Before Menomonie, WI had it’s city-wide recycling program - my grandparents found ways to recycle almost everything that came into their home. They were so ahead of their time.
Let’s go back to the food for a minute.... yes - at times they would follow a recipe and buy specific items to put into a dish, but more often than not - they looked in their fridge and would cook something to use the food they had on hand. They were brilliant at seeing that the beef, the spinach, and the tomatoes had to be used “in the next day or so” and building a delicious meal around it and making sure it got used so it didn’t go to waste. (Most people throw leftovers, spoiled food, and unfinished food at restaurants into the garbage and I won’t go off on the fact that green waste going to our landfills is the 3rd largest source of methane gas emissions and is HORRIBLE for our environment! Oooops - I guess I just did go off. Don’t throw food, leaves, or grass clippings away people. PLEASE!!!)
They only purchased what they needed. They used something until it was broken down and couldn’t be used anymore. They always hung their clothes to dry whenever they could. And yes, some of that was because my Grampa was a bit of a miser. And yes, some of that was because they grew up having been “conditioned” by The Great Depression. But I can’t stop thinking about that way of life.
We have moved so far away from that way of life. We never have enough. Bigger is better. We buy most of our food in packages from the store with no concept of who made it or where it came from. We order tons of shit online where the amount of fossil fuels it took to make it, package it, ship it, and get it to us is astronomical. And then we only use the product for a month before we tire of it and give it “away”. Or we don’t even finish eating it before it goes bad and we send it to a landfill.
Oh, and one more thought on this. How we think we are giving stuff away. “I’m giving it to a friend.” “I’m selling it at a yard sale.” “I’m giving it to Goodwill.” I have done all of these things and recently heard a show where they talk about how eventually we as a society are giving our stuff to thrift stores thinking we are doing good. But that they have soooooooooo much inventory that they start to throw stuff away that doesn’t sell (landfill) or they send tons of it to foreign countries just to be rid of it. But many of the people in foreign countries don’t want it or can’t sell it either and so.... you guessed it - landfill. Where is our “away”? We buy it for a season. For a special occasion. For a trend. For a semester abroad. For a week on vacation. For a photo shoot. We think we can just give it to someone else and all is well, but is it?
I am not removing myself from this equation. On a daily basis I try to find the balance of living on this planet in a modern 21st century while trying to respect the planet that not only houses me, but produces EVERYTHING I own, eat, use, etc....
I own a smart phone. I have an automobile and take many road trips. But I keep asking myself, “”What are the ways I can live sustainably?”. So this Earth Day I made a little pledge to myself to try to live more like my G&G Rhodes. To ask, “What would G&G do?” To remember that there are finite resources on this earth. That means that the more of them I use, the less of them there are for others. Have you ever thought about that? Literally, the more of them you and I use - the less there are for others. I hadn’t thought about it in those terms until hearing someone speak about something else entirely in those terms. “When a resource is finite, that means there is only so much of it. So if you are using most of it, that leaves very little for someone else.” A light bulb exploded in my head as I immediately translated that to me using the Earth’s resources.
This musing was a bit more political I spose. I’m not trying to tell ya’ll how to live, but lately I have been STRUGGLING with feeling hopeless. That all of this loss and having all this time to pause and reflect isn’t going to change people’s behaviors. That we are all going to go back to the same way of living once we settle back into our “normal”. I’m struggling with feeling like I’m not doing enough on this planet, for this planet, for all beings on this planet.
And so I sit in the backyard by the RV home next to the garden I help to tend, where there are starts of apples on the tree, the arugula’s already bolting, and the seedlings are searching for the sun. In my peripheral I see the clothes gently swaying in the breeze. I gaze at the compost bin filled with beautiful Black Gold that will fertilize our plants and nurture them. I smile at the thought of the sauerkraut and beet kvass fermenting in the RV. And yes, I do all of this while typing away on my 21st century computer. What’s a modern girl to do?! Somehow these things make me feel a little less hopeless.
Gramma & Grandpa,
Oh my gosh do I wish I had you here as a source of knowledge now that I’m a responsible adult interested in all those things I found annoying or irrelevant as a child. I was a fool not to eat that all up while I had the chance. But then again, I guess you are with me more than I realize, cause here I am writing a musing all about the things you taught me. I love you and miss your physical presence every darn day. Thank you for being amazing role models on what it means to live lightly on this planet. I aspire to be like you and I know deep down in my heart I make you both proud!
May all beings everywhere be well (even those no longer physically with us)!
I love you fellow Earthlings!!!!!!!,
Christel Joy Johnson
PS - One of my favorite books I’ve read is “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall-Kimmerer. It is so inspirational and she speaks so beautifully about what it means to live in a balanced way while on this earth. The image below is from that book. I read this often to help guide me before I make purchases, work in the garden, pick wild blackberries, and just live in general. It speaks to me deeply.