Author: jennynazak

I hear from a lot of people (either directly, or via posts in online forums) that they don’t feel like they can “do” sustainable living in their current location.

Many people have the idea that they ultimately need to find a way to move out to the country and buy land in order to “do” a sustainable lifestyle. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sustainable living (ideally regenerative living, which is what permaculture is) starts right where you are right now. Anyway, not all of us are at all interested in rural living.

To offer encouragement to a person who expressed that “gotta move out to the country” feeling in one of my online permaculture groups, I posted the following comment:

I live in a city too, in a neighborhood that has not “embraced” permaculture per se … but I love where I live, and if you love where you live, that makes it an ideal place to be a hub of permaculture. Even if it’s just you as an individual at first (as it has been for me til relatively recently).

Not everyone has to “get” permaculture, or even know the word, for your permaculture mind-set to start to “beneficially inoculate” a neighborhood and community. It can be something as simple as setting up a Little Free Library in front of your house. Or posting on NextDoor when you have extra seeds or plants to share. Or if you’re ordering a load of mulch, offer to coordinate a group order for your neighborhood. Start a music jam or poetry jam in someone’s yard or driveway. Have an art show in a vacant lot. Organize a Zoom chat for local people interested in “Zero Waste” or other sustainability stuff. Use those as vehicles to share permaculture ideas, ethics, design principles.

The “culture” part of permaculture is huge, and your potential impact in your urban area has the potential to greatly outweigh the impact of moving out to a rural area and getting a big piece of land where there are no people around.

Yes, it can feel scattered and unfocused sometimes. Especially when I hear from fellow permies who live in cities where the permaculture movement is more organized, has made deeper inroads. But if you love your community, it’s a worthy effort. Try to think of yourself as a valuable resource, a “beneficial spore” of regenerative culture. Isn’t your community lucky to have a permaculture person of its own.

(And, More likeminded people will appear, as you keep moving forward with your efforts. You never know when a seed you’ve planted in the past is going to burst forth.)

For ongoing practical & moral support, continue to draw on your online permie groups like this one.

She just now thanked me, said she had found my comment inspirational. Made my day! It’s always a delight to help a fellow “city mouse” who is into sustainable living and wants to take it further.

Further Exploration:

• Building a Community By Design in 5 Simple Steps (Jonathon Engels; in PermacultureNews.org): “When looking to build a permaculture community, some aspects will take root quickly and flourish; other parts require extra watering, a special microclimate, or even replanting. Nevertheless, it’s important to observe the group, interact socially, design activities, produce yields, and adjust to the feedback. Communal situations, like guilds, are replete with connections and synergy that can be harnessed for the common good. When the right notes are hit, the outcome is beautiful music. But, when we all play to our own beat with no consideration for the orchestra, the different songs create a calamitous cacophony. Too much isolation, too much aimless energy, or too much disconnect and communities can take a turn for the worse. Akin to a garden severely out of whack, weaker parts of the village dynamic become victims of destructive pests. We have to plan accordingly, recognising things won’t always be perfect.”

“You seem to have a lot of free time on your hands. Some of us have to work.”

If you are an activist of some kind, you’ve probably heard those words or some variation on them. Well, I’m here to assure you, activist IS a real job, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

More in a bit, getting ready to make coffee and read the daily news right now. (Just got back from scoring a curbside haul of some leaves that some other homeowner thought were trash, but my yard knows are treasure.)

OK I’m back.

Environmental activists. Peace activists. Anti-racist activists. Grassroots educators. Social-justice activists of all stripes. We are so often labeled as freaks and troublemakers and loonies. (All the more so if we are non-male, non-white, non-cis, or all of the above.) And hear people tell us “Get a job! You have too much time on your hands!”

— As if:

1) making time to prioritize the work we feel deeply called to do is a sign that we have “too much time on our hands.” When actually, what we are is good at deliberately managing our time and energy and oh by the way also our MONEY; and

2) their chosen work is “real,” whereas ours is not.

People who clear land and cut down trees for a living are not engaged in more “real” work than people who set out to protect trees and preserve land. Neither are people who go to war on the order of the government engaged in more “real” work than people who feel called to be warriors on behalf of Mother Earth, or warriors for peace and social justice.

People who perform surgery or dispense medicines for a living are not engaged in more “real” work than people who embark on a path of healing earth’s ecosystems.

Many (most) activists are not paid for their activist work, whereas the people working “real jobs” get a steady paycheck (as well as lots of social admiration).

I’m not knocking any honest thing someone chooses to do for a living. But activism is a “real job,” just as mixing concrete or building roads or constructing buildings is.

This goes out to all of you, my fellow activists.

For all of you who have ever gone hungry or run on too little sleep or otherwise traded your health and comfort to protect the planet, rally for peace, call out injustice, push to ensure equity for all fellow humans, or whatever your chosen “lane” is.

For all of you who have sat at a dinner of “successful” family or friends and felt like you needed to apologize or hide for not being financially successful or having a prestigious profession.

For all of you who’ve burned the candle at both ends, working a “money job” that isn’t your calling, to subsidize your REAL job, the one that doesn’t pay.

For all of you who’ve ever been homeless, or near-homeless, because you knew that the life-energy you’d need to work a “real job” (40 to 50 to 60-hour week, steady paycheck, W2 thing) would crowd out your activism and that was not an option ever never now or ever, so instead you patch together a living gig to gig: cleaning houses, clearing brush, or whatever other odd jobs you can find, whatever it takes.

And speaking of patching together, this is for all of you who run yourselves threadbare trying to catch every paying gig when the fat times come, because you know the lean times are so, so lean.

For all of you who’ve put yourselves in harm’s way for the greater good with no hope of an official government seal of approval; no promise of glory.

For all of you who have ever sat with tears streaming down your face, and wanted to scream or tear your hair out (and maybe did so), because you had something really important to say or ask, and couldn’t get a single living soul around you to listen.

For all of you who’ve really needed help but refused to ask for help, and made a big mess of things and ended up hating yourself, instead of hating the situation you were trying to fix.

For all of you who’ve ever gotten egg on your face when you didn’t have your facts straight, or you said the wrong thing, or you didn’t communicate though the appropriate channel — but instead of using this as an excuse to quit and slink away, you had the humility and integrity to admit you were wrong, correct yourself, pick yourself up, and keep right on doing your work.

For all of you dealing with serious chronic health issues (mental, physical, or both) who have felt that your issues made you ill-equipped to bring to the work that is your calling the full strength you wanted to bring to it, but you keep doing it anyway, giving it whatever you’ve got because no one else is showing up to do quite what you do, fill quite the niche you fill — and if you don’t do it who will?

For all of you who’ve ever been shamed, chastised, castigated for getting emotional in the line of duty. As if “ability to stay calm, cool, and collected” were the highest measure of what constitutes a true professional — when actually, isn’t passion and relentless dedication a better measure?

For all of you who’ve ever been dismissed as “not a real professional” for not having a bunch of letters and degrees after your name. Never mind that long after the paid professionals have clocked out for the night or the weekend, you’re still going like gangbusters. And never mind that while nothing could get you to quit your so-called “not a real job,” they’d leave their so-called “real jobs” in a heartbeat to go work somewhere else for a fancier title or a two-bit raise.

For all of you who’ve endured being branded crazy or a loser, while the real crazies and losers plunder natural resources, exploit workers, and extract wealth from underprivileged communities.

For all of you who’ve ever been told, “Oh, I used to be a dreamer like you, but then I grew up and faced reality.” Or, “Give up. It’s too late” — and you totally refused to buy into that; just let it dart glance right off your activist heart-armor like an annoying little mosquito off an armored tank!

For all of you, my fellow earth-loving, tree-hugging, peace-clamoring, social-justice-fighting, battle-bruised, unpaid undecorated foot-soldiers: Activism is a real job. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.

By the way, musicians and artists of all media, you too are included in this tribute. Art is absolutely a form of activism too.

As promised, this is the companion to my post the other day for people who hate the cold. Although I love warm weather and am very heat-tolerant, even I have been known to feel too hot. Here are some of my favorite cheap practical ways to cool off quickly:

• Put your feet in a tub of water. This is more effective if you have a few ice cubes to put in the water, but even just water helps.

• Dump a cup of water over your head and the back of your neck.

• Sit in a shady breezy place (under a pier at the beach, under a tree by a river or creek, etc.)

• Rub an ice cube along the veins of your inner arm and wrist.

• Eat some hot peppers, Thai curry, or other spicy food.

For most of us, it’s winter right now and we have the opposite problem. But these tips will be ready for you to try once the mercury soars again. (Also, a hot-weather “don’t” I learned this year: Don’t eat ice cream when it’s hot out. Sherbet or sorbet maybe; ice cream no. Your body will get heated up trying to digest the dairy product. Sure enough, I tested this out on a blistering hot day this past summer and it is true!)

Do you ever feel like you and some of the people in your life are living in different worlds? This thought was sparked by my observations of how differently people have responded to official health guidelines during the pandemic. Now that a lot of the official lockdown measures are lifted (at least in some parts of the USA), it seems to have intensified the disparities in individual behavior.

Some people won’t even leave their homes to go for a walk. (Mostly older folks with preexisting health conditions). At the other extreme, some people are attending large in-person gatherings, flying in airplanes (even to or from other countries), going to church in person, having multi-household gatherings indoors, and so on, as if circumstances were completely normal. And of course most people, including me, are somewhere in-between.

I started asking myself, “How do I (we) deal with reality when the people around me (us) seem to be living in different worlds?”

And various answers came into my mind.

• The first one is that ultimately I am the only one who can take responsibility for my own health and for setting my own boundaries. For a little while there (til mid-fall?), I was attending very small (outdoor) gatherings (4-6 people max), with sharing of food. But now that the disparity in people’s everyday choices seems to be widening, I have pulled back on that. Now if I want to see people in person, I stay 10 feet apart and don’t share food or drink. The main thing for me is sharing conversation. Eating together is something I love but it’s not essential. (By the way, my geo-distant family and I had a lovely Christmas visit by video-phone app. I got to “sit” at their table!)

• But. Work is a whole other matter. People working in jobs requiring front-line face-to-face contact (as opposed to working home-based or outdoors, like me) don’t have the option of calibrating their social distance. With those workers in mind, too, I really try not to go inside anywhere unless I really need something. Grocery/minimart, plus (the other day, first time since pre-pandemic that I’d been inside a building other than my own house for more than a few minutes) my eye doctor for eye checkup, bank for special business not able to be done by phone or drive-thru, and bicycle shop for new helmet and other safety essentials.

The second level of answers to that question is more complicated. So, “How do I (we) deal with the people around me (us), when they seem to be living in different worlds?”

• One short answer that came to me: The same way other people deal with me when I seem to be living in a different world from them.

(To be continued shortly! I want to go for a walk while it’s still light out, and before the temp starts to dip for the evening.)

OK, I’m back from my walk. And, as sometimes happens with my posts, what started out in my head as a short-seeming post has grown a bit more lengthy. Things came to me as I was walking.

Earlier today, without my realizing it, a friend sent me the “punch line” to this post. He texted me a meme titled, “An Old Farmer’s Advice.” It was all basic sound practical advice, but the one that stood out for me most was, “The biggest troublemaker you’ll probably ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every morning.” That’s the punch-line of this post, I realized while I was out on my walk. I’ll fill in the middle as it comes to me.

Nutshell: Judging other people’s choices is not a way to make anything good happen in the world. A very old lesson, but one I seem to need to learn repeatedly. Life on Planet Earth is always humbling.

So, other thoughts in answer to that question:

• We all live in different worlds, in a sense — even while sharing the same physical platform. People have different beliefs about health, medicine, the environment, government, and so on. So “dealing with people who are living in different worlds” is nothing that any of us is new at. It’s daily life.

• I can’t speak for anyone else here, but I’ve noticed that the best way to deal with people, period, is to care more about the people themselves than about my idea of “what’s right.” It’s tricky when it comes to, say, a pandemic, or the environment. Because I think I’m advocating for the good of everyone. But then I look into myself and see some little twisted pocket of something other than “caring for others.” Could just be me wanting to be right (always a popular feeling on Planet Me). Or (in the case of people traveling and gathering despite public-health warnings) me envying them for getting to see their families while I stay home “for the good of all.” Well, if I’m really doing something for the greater good, that envy or whatever other emotion subsides quickly; does not stick around. If it sticks around, that’s a sign I need to look into myself and correct something.

• Similarly with “self-sacrifice for the good of the environment.” If it’s really for the greater good, then I can just feel positive about my choices and not need to be judgmental of others. My job, if I truly believe the choices I’m making are best for the greater good, is to make it easier and more attractive for other people to make similar choices.

• Sometimes the “person living in a different world” is right there in my own head. An opposing faction of my own self, who rebels against my higher judgment. For example, she wants takeout food even though she knows the server will be putting on a fresh pair of plastic gloves just to prepare her order, and will then throw those plastic gloves away. (Ugh. I’d be happier to take my chances with someone’s bare hands than generate that awful single-use plastic.) Or she wants chocolate even though she just read that children are kidnapped to work on cacao plantations.

• To a vegan who grows all their own food and never orders takeout and doesn’t have a sweet tooth, I am one of those “people living in a different world.”

• “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Words of enduring greatness. The Lord’s Prayer is my favorite readymade prayer and I say it pretty often.

• At Thanksgiving, I was worried my friends would get mad at me and never speak to me again, when I said I wanted to visit but outdoors at a distance and bring my own food. They understood; they celebrated in their way; I got to spend time with them later in the way I felt was safe; and we are all still speaking to each other.

• Many of us at one time or another have done things that were bad from a public-health standpoint. When I was young I’d go to work sick, and not even think about other people! When I went to live in Japan in 1990 and saw people on the trains wearing masks, I thought it was because they were germophobes. I found out that, in fact, the mask-wearers had headcolds and were trying to protect other people from their germs. That mind-set was a major revelation for me. I’m not one of those people who were born naturally thinking of others before themselves, and I’m still not naturally that way, but with a little voluntary evolution I have become a bit more that way at least sometimes.

• When I first got seriously into environmental activism (in the mid-1990s, when I moved back to the USA from Japan), I’d get filled with anxiety about the state of things and wonder how the human race was going to survive, given how some people were living. At that time, I was also getting into long-distance road-cycling (both doing it for recreation, and watching professional races on TV). I learned about a kind of time trial called a “team time trial,” where no individual can win. There’s no prize for an individual who shoots way ahead and gets the best time of anyone. The way that a team gets the best time is by everyone working together — drafting off each other, etc. Seeing this, I realized that human life on this planet is one big team time trial. Except instead of competing against other teams, we’re all in it together.

Further Reading:

“Why Travel During Pandemic?” (Opinion piece by Robert Pawlicki in Daytona Beach News-Journal 12/30/2020.) “… the person who has chosen to travel has a belief — typically a very strong belief — that their physical and safety needs are being managed and therefore their need for family deserves attention. … During this period when we are so divided, we may not condone or agree with each other’s thinking. It may be useful to at least understand the rationale of others.” Interesting piece; goes into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Some of us hate the heat; others can’t stand the cold. I’ll do a post for the heat-haters later. This post here is dedicated to people like myself who feel like crawling in bed and staying there all day when the weather turns chilly. There are lots of ways to instantly feel warm. Like, build yourself a sauna. Or install a nice hot Jacuzzi in your backyard and submerge yourself up to the neck in it from about November through March. But I’m trying to focus on cheap, practical ways here.

• Do a task, any task: Sweep or mop a room. Rake leaves. Even the small exertion of pumping up a bicycle tire, I notice, makes me feel much warmer right away, and the effect lingers for a time after the activity is done.

• Cover your head and neck. I’ve read that 25% of our body heat dissipates through our heads. Great in hot weather; not so great in cold. Hats and scarves help a lot.

• Take a walk. Even just a lap or two around the block. If it’s a sunny day you’ll get the additional boost of vitamin D.

• Cover your feet. Socks make all the difference! When sitting out on the porch on a night that turns cool, I’ve found I can greatly extend my cool-tolerance by putting on socks.

• Cover your middle! For some reason, I feel disproportionately cold (and cranky) if the bottom of my shirt fails to overlap the top of my pants or skirt. That gap is lethal! I’m a huge fan of high-waisted tights and haramaki. (I’ve often made my own “American-style haramaki” by cutting the top part off a stretchy shirt, leaving just a stretchy tube to pull over my middle as a super-warming layer.)

Oh, and all of that said: If you can get away with crawling in bed and staying there on a cold day, you have my full approval! Now, more than at any previous time in history, there’s a staggering amount of productive activity you can accomplish without leaving your quilt-burrow. Writing, online banking, paying taxes, social-media tasks, and attending Zoom meetings, to name just a few.

I hope these tips help my fellow cold-haters enjoy winter more. They’ve definitely helped me! What else would you add to this list?

Someone on Zero Waste, Zero Judgment just asked for sites/channels of eco-minded folk who are not white, cis-gendered, or vegan. (Not that the person is against white, cis, vegan folk; just that she is wanting to hear viewpoints from people beyond those categories, which seem to make up the majority in eco groups.) Here is a list of suggestions from the comments. (Not clear which are YouTube, which are Instagram etc. — suggest just googling to check them out.)

• A Sustainable Mind podcast
• Green Girl Leah
• Manuela from The Girl Gone Green
• Biologist Imogene “actual wildlife biologist, talks a lot about personal impact (shes white, Hetero, non vegan or vegetarian I think, but I included her because she is a scientist by trade and she is a pretty good ally)”
• NatureChola, she’s funny and wholesome
• HowNotToTravelLikeABasicBitch- “She mostly is travel focused, but she’s got an environmental soft spot too”
• Simply by christine
• Kamea Chayne- host of Green Dreamer podcast
• Zero waste cutie
• TheEcoGoddess
• Climate Diva
• Queer brown vegan
• Sarah’s Tips for Preparedness (PuertoRicoWriter.com)
• PattieGonia
• Naturally Mermaid
• JHANNEU
• Hey Ashley Renee
• Thrifts and Tangles

This poem just hatched out of nowhere. It is not specifically about me or anyone else.

(Update Christmas morning: Well it actually didn’t hatch out of nowhere; it hatched out of grief I was feeling last night.

(This morning, Facebook served me up a sweet Christmas memory from 2008: “is digging a perfect Christmas with my loved ones; testing my lil bro’s theory that absinthe will re-activate my urge to blog 😉 ” Our parents were still alive; this was the second-to-last Christmas we were all together.

(This Christmas I really feel I did the responsible thing by not traveling. But, I really miss my brother, sister, brother-in-law & nieces, and wish I could have been there with them today and yesterday.

(Everyone says this, such a cliché but it’s true. Cherish your loved ones, tell them you love them; enjoy whatever times you can share.

(Also, sometimes memories may be all you have, but memories can be so rich. Also, grief can be channeled to offer so much comfort to others. AND last but not least: Technology used wisely is a great thing! We can and should use technology to stay connected, and even strengthen our relationships, even when circumstances make it difficult or unwise to meet in person. Yay for picture-texts, Zoom and all that, including the good ol’ voice-phone!)

This poem is a message in a bottle, floating across the sea of the internet to any of you who are spending these times alone (and don’t want to be), or maybe you’re not alone but still you’re dealing with loss or separation of some kind. Maybe because you lost someone over the past year. Maybe a favorite person or animal crossed over; maybe a friendship ended; maybe there was a misunderstanding that led to permanent disconnection. A lot of you have lost someone very dear this past year or two, and this is to share in your sorrow and let you know you are not alone.

Christmas, Old Style

Back in those days there was no internet
no Facebook
no Zoom
There wasn’t even any phone picture texting

So I told myself tonight, as I sat by the river (eating a convenience-store hotdog and hatching plans to open a bottle of discount eggnog later at the house):

Hey!! I have an idea!
Let’s pretend you’re not really gone!

Let’s pretend we’re just doing
Christmas old style —

And that, therefore, some days or weeks after tonight, I’ll get a cheery letter in the mail
or a scribbled postcard: “Had a good Christmas but missed you, all is well!”
and maybe even a photo or two. (Photos were expensive, and printed,
and a big deal
and not so commonplace
back then)

And just from seeing the envelope, I’ll be able to smell the resiny tree
and feel the warmth of the fireplace
and see the candle-lit faces of everyone
and hear the tiny golden notes
of that old candle-chime spinning
of so many Christmases past
that I took for granted.

“Let’s pretend we’re just doing
Christmas old style!” I said out loud.

And I sent that thought to you just now
across the country
across time
across wars
across the seas
across a pronouncement from a white coat or a blue uniform
across the veil

as I walked home alone.

(Then I look up in the sky
and in the stars I swear I see

a picture-text from you.)