Day 37 Reduce, Reuse, Recycle… Reinvent?

When I was a kid, we lived by many rules, one of which was “use it up, wear it out, make do or do without.” Yes, we were environmentalists before it was cool. My people can stretch a dime, an onion, a teabag, a pair of jeans, like you wouldn’t believe. My mother sewed our clothes, patched holes, let down hems, and when the garments were truly unwearable, cut them into squares for quilts. And despite their deep distrust of all things artistic, Mennonites make quilts of breath-taking beauty. 

Long-time tillers of the earth, we also take pride in growing and/or creating our own food. (Which leads to an aspect of stretching-the-jeans that isn’t so admirable.) I love to garden, but I’m married to a pave-paradise-put-up-a-tennis-court kind of guy with a deep distrust of things without UPC codes, so I mostly keep this to myself.

Crunchy-granola type things just excite me, though. I can’t help it. It’s in my genes.

I’ve been reading Katrina Kenison‘s memoir, The Gift of An Ordinary Day, recently, in which the author transplants her family from their comfortable urban home to a tumble-down rural saltbox, to live a “simpler” life. Their house is quickly deemed unliveable, however, and the project takes on a raze-and-rebuild complication, which she describes with guilt and mourning, as if it’s a kind of euthanasia. At the last second, however, they are able to salvage some of the 200-year old bones to incorporate into the new structure.

Perhaps because I spent a few formative years in a rehabbed school-house, I can understand this desire to “rescue” a building. (I’m a sucker for lost causes. Always have been. I once tried to save an abandoned, epileptic Pomeranian puppy, who turned out to be a nasty little land-shark. Sweetest, most adorable ball of fluff you’ve ever seen in your life – when he wasn’t convulsing or trying to take your hand off.)

So I was intrigued this morning to read in the Vancouver Sun about Barry Joneson. A self-described skid-row addict who dissolved after the death of his little boy, he now combines “social reconstruction” with his “deconstruction” project, in which houses slated for landfill are instead salvaged, and kids heading down a rough road are given a crowbar and a second chance. Talk about your reusing and recycling – and social justice too! This guy could be Mennonite!

*

By the way, for those of you joining me recently, this day marks 37 consecutive days of Bikram yoga, my personal foray into fitness, personal growth, self-awareness and mid-life inner peace. 90 minutes every day in a room kept at a minimum temperature of 104 degrees, and 40% humidity. It’s hell on hamstrings, but that’s kind of the point.

I’ve reached a stage in my life where I need to change things up, body and mind. A rescue-and-reconstruction project on myself, you might say, and this is where I’m documenting the journey. Thanks for joining me.