Environmental Me

Or… Moving to the Beat of My Own Green Drummer

Nothing gives you a good ol’ kick in the tush like hanging around with people who are really making things happen.

At Green Drinks last night, I met more than a few people who are busy living a green life: they own an organic food business, publish environmental magazine, do green interior design, specialize in green building, or simply know everything there is to know about geothermal and photovoltaics.

Crap. You know, the one thing that can stop a person like me (and maybe others like me?) in their tracks is the weird notion that everything has passed them by. Feeling oblivious — even when you aren’t — blows.What should act as inspiration, unfortunately, often becomes a downward path toward that yucky feeling of personal obsoleteness.

If I by stopping for a moment — and I sometimes feel that I did, by disappearing overseas for a few years — I was certain to look up and see that The Movement had passed me by.

This is the dichotomy of green. On one hand: Slow down and live life real. On other hand: Hey COME ON you got to get that Momentum GOING!!! Get a move on! Let’s DO IT!!!! Move move move before all the poor Polar Bears DROWN!!!!!!!! ARHAH!!

Ugh… Hold on for a sec, would you? I have to hurry up and go do my Gentle Movement exercises and Meditation that I forgot was on my agenda this morning.

When I lived in London, I volunteered at The Passage, a soup kitchen in Central London that was often the first place the authorities sent the transients when they needed support. There was something to that, for me. I loved being there, first thing in the morning, seeing a new face. I am sure it was something I imagined, but I loved the idea of being on the edge of that person’s experience, their first feeling of warmth–quite literally with that morning cup of tea — in a strange and chaotic city.

I miss that space, and I am trying to relocate it. It isn’t in service to homeless, necessarily, I am discovering. It is in service to myself. I am — slowly! — realizing that my own choices are the speed at which the world travels. Others things are going on around me, sure. But the only Movement is my own. I am right here, at the edge of that chaotic place, making all the negotiations and discoveries, at my own speed.

I guess I do have to figure out the best way, though, to get with the other people who are making their own negotiations. Well, for now, I am writing about it, taking excellent notes on the idea, and always ready with a hot cup of tea.