SEALS AND SHOPPING CARTS

Thursday, May 13, 2010


Yesterday after (neatly) shoving all the stuff lying around the bathroom back in the cabinet I vacuumed the bedrooms and did some laundry and then I thought "Ha HA! Now I'm going to prove my last blog entry wrong by sitting down and doing some work! I CAN do everything!" But since I'd skipped dinner to do the housework I was starving, so I went downstairs for some fortification and wolfed down a huge piece of bread slathered with half a stick of butter and eight tablespoons of strawberry AND blueberry jelly, and then I made a cup of thick syrupy hot chocolate and guzzled it, and then I felt sick. Nauseous. Unwell. I'd thought the sugar buzz would be a good thing, but it was a scary thing; I tried to write but my fingers were shaking, and since it was late I decided to throw in the towel--take some Tylenol PM and go to bed.

I'd wanted to write about the movie I saw on a field trip with Lula's class yesterday. It was called "Oceans" and it was about...oceans...and though it was moving and beautiful--I loved the shots of the mother walrus hugging her baby walrus--it left me feeling depressed, because it showed photographs of polluted water flowing way, way out into the ocean and a seal swimming around a shopping cart on the floor of a shallow body of water, plastic cups and debris floating by and a cloudy blanket of trash on the surface. The shots of the pollution were bad enough, but the sight of the seal swimming around the shopping cart struck me because--I think--it must have been so totally incomprehensible to Lula and her friends. How does a six-year-old understand a seal swimming around a shopping cart? How does a six-year-old understand the plastic bags and other crap floating around the seal? Though Lula and her friends know a little about pollution, I think the seal and the shopping cart must have just looked odd to them. A seal? And a shopping cart, like, from the store? In the water together? Weird.

It was the thought that Lula and her friends are being given a world--a reality--where shopping carts invade a seal's home, where nature is constantly abused and compromised, that made me sad. It didn't help that the "strange-for-this-time-of-year" wind was still raging outside, blowing the message into everyone's ears that yes, natural disasters are happening more and more frequently and could soon happen in a place near you, so just think about that, you silly little mommy, as you're cleaning the upstairs bathroom, trying to put some order and sense into a world that's in so many ways incomprehensible...

It was the feeling of desperation--we NEED to do SOMETHING!--that made me decide, while putting a new box of diapers under the sink, that once these diapers run out Malko's going bamboo--as in, wearing reusable (bamboo) diapers. My brother and sister-in-law use reusable diapers (they wear a much bigger size than your average baby), and it's something I've thought about for a while; though of course I might change my mind, I felt pretty certain last night we'd follow through with this. I was a little apprehensive about breaking the news to Joedy (what if he refused?), but given his reply--"Okay! Why?"--I realized it wasn't his willingness I had to worry about...

I don't think our switching to reusable diapers is going to make much of a difference in terms of the earth. I don't think buying produce from a local farm is going to do much to save the planet. Frankly, I think we're fucked, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to try. It doesn't stop me from trying to give Lula, Malko, and their friends something better--a world where shopping carts and seals don't mix, a world where mother walruses can keep hugging their baby walruses for a long, long time.

2 comments:

uncleremus said...

I know exactly whats going on in your mind!!
The other night I watched a movie about Polar bears & salmon runs & lion packs in the Africa & I too worry about ALL the animals on this planet, whose natural habitat is being destroyed by the changing climate, caused by humans & the destruction of the environment etc---Made me sooooo sad!!!
& I agree,, we probably ARE fucked----
But we still gotta try right???
otherwise, we are REALLY, REALLY Fucked!!!
If we ALL make a slight adjustment to our lifestyles, it MIGHT make some difference to your children & their children!!!
Something we gotta do!!!

Anonymous said...

I concur! You vote with your dollar, put your money in the direction you want to see the world go, more reusable, less disposable!
XX
N

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