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Musings on my seaside urban driveway nature-world’s evolution; the nourishing quality of urban slowness; the petty brutality of operatic harassment and more

Sometimes when I get discouraged about my progress or work, I will get some small reminder that cheers me up a bit and encourages me to keep going. In this case, the reminder came yesterday via a Facebook memory from four years ago.

First picture is my driveway four years ago; the other pictures are from today and yesterday.

I have sought to create a little bit of an urban nature oasis, very small scale and intimate, that would feel a little bit like a coastal Florida version of how it used to feel living in Japan or walking around cities in England or the European continent (back when I still traveled).

In my spaces, I see nature not as an escape from the urban environment; but an integrated part of it.

The other day when talking with a fellow civic activist about ADUs and thickening-up our beautiful but depopulated historic neighborhoods, I realized fully for the first time that I could never move back to Japan even if the opportunity were there.

One, I would miss my siblings and nieces too much even though I only see them once a year. At least now we are on the same side of an ocean, and the same coast of the USA.

But also, I realized fully, maybe for the first time, that I could never just go live someplace where I once lived or visited, just because I felt comfortable and alive and aesthetically nurtured there.

I realized that for me, part of my happiness and calling lies in bringing sweetness and a kind of slow urban intimacy HERE and NOW to a place that I feel would be nourished by it.

Here in most parts of the USA, the roads are wide; designed to prioritize monster vehicles and speeding as fast as possible.

Shops are set up for huge bulk cardboard-food shopping, and food takeout is set up for drive-through and drive-out. Minimal interaction, no messy inefficiency, pure speed.

It’s pretty much the opposite of the slow intimate urban feel that nurtured me in my era of working and traveling outside of the USA. (Late 1980s-mid 1990s mostly.)

Patrick Lydon, a blogger I know of via his talks and presentations at The Nature of Cities (virtual worldwide conference) this past time, has a couple of really wonderful pieces about traveling in Japan. He talks about slow and urban in the same sentence. (Check out Patrick Lydon, The Possible City, he is on Substack as a lot of activist/writers are these days.)

Lydon and his partner Sujee (I believe she’s Korean) now live in Korea, but lived in Japan for some years before that, and recently took a trip back to Japan via the ferry from Pusan to Shimonoseki.

His writing about his Japan life and travels really brought back a lot of memories for me.

The way he describes how his tiny streets nurtured life and art had me a little bit nostalgic and teary for a couple of days. I sort of felt unmoored, the way I do sometimes when I get to missing Japan. But Japan is someone else’s country; and my place is here.

Slow and urban weren’t two words I would’ve thought to pair before I heard Lydon mention them, but once I read it, it totally clicked in me. There is a slowness, a delicious messiness in dense urban spaces. The sense that something matters more than speed and efficiency. A density of interaction. A human-scale aesthetic intimacy. Yes, even in the most rushed time of day in Manhattan or whatever, there’s just a certain feel that makes it feel OK and exciting to walk and just be. And there is a feeling of being sheltered, not exposed on some windswept plain of asphalt and merciless utilitarianism.

In Donna Lyons’ highly addictive crime novel series, the Commissario Brunetti books, the characters never tire of walking around their native Venice and admiring the streets and shops, magnificent art and architecture.

I fell in love with Daytona Beach and the people here. The early part of my falling-in-love was visual/aesthetic: I was grabbed by the narrow streets and charming houses and commercial buildings that constituted the old bones of an old pre-car-dependent neighborhoods. The neighborhoods between the A1A and Nova Road. They were designed for a community-centered life before cars and cavernous, harshly lit big-box stores dominated everything.

I say my early falling in love with Daytona Beach was the visual aesthetic. But there was additionally a later, deeper falling in love, which had to do with the people and the culture of this city specifically. As distinct from the neighboring cities.

I don’t necessarily have anything against the neighboring cities except when their leaders openly disparage Daytona Beach from the dais of their commission and board meetings. But my love and loyalty and heart is with Daytona Beach and the people here.

I want to bring and share a magic to this place. Some of the magic I’ve experienced in my life. A lot of which is centered on artistic and aesthetic experiences that I’ve had the luxury to be able to digest over many decades.

On a seemingly unrelated but actually related note, this morning on my beach / neighborhood walk I stopped for a coffee at the 7-Eleven as I sometimes do even though I have perfectly good coffee at home.

And, as in recent weeks, was greeted by the robotic flashing blue light of our little 7-Eleven community’s newest addition: a 20-foot-tall metal police robot effigy thing. Standing tall and flashing its blue cyclops eye. The spindly metal creature is mounted on a trailer parked at the corner of the parking lot, and in its hollow recorded voice it repeats: “For your safety, this parking lot is being recorded on film.”

This does not in fact make me feel safe.

Neither does the blaring opera music that spews from the outdoor speakers installed on each side of the low brick building of the convenience store. Opera music meant to discourage homeless people from napping at the sides of the building.

Now, opera has just never been my kind of music, I just don’t really get into it. Other than a couple of the humorous Gilbert and Sullivan operas that I always get a little chuckle from. (“Never? Well, hardly ever!”)

But, my Mom and Dad loved opera. It was one of their treats. So to see opera music being used in this way as a weapon was heartbreaking. It was one Italian tenor this morning, maybe even Pavarotti, my dad’s favorite.

Also, my cousin Jim Kay, an artist and educator born and raised, and returned in midlife and lived out his 87 years, in Fall River Massachusetts, taught art and dance to kids, largely immigrant children who came from low-income families.

When he started to try to introduce classical music and ballet to the kids, at first they scoffed. They wanted to hear hip-hop and all. But Jim took them on a bus to go see some performances of opera and classical music and ballet at the performance hall, and they loved it.

I’m sure cousin Jim and my parents would be heartbroken to see classical art forms weaponized as just one little extra touch of cruelty and reminder of the brutal aspects of our culture that seem to have taken over in recent years. The aspect of our culture that not only normalizes but actually encourages and rewards punching-down on those more vulnerable than ourselves.

And I walked home in tears, wanting to make a sobby video for you guys, but ended up being drawn to write, and being reminded of why I prefer to be mainly a writer rather than mainly a public speaker. Because if I had made a video I would possibly still be sobbing right now. Whereas something about writing allows me to get it out and share it in a way that might be helpful and nurturing to somebody.

Well, thanks for coming on this journey with me if you have read this far.

You can see this post with the pictures here on my Facebook page Art & Design by jenny nazak.

This is one of those eco stories that people are either going to think is really cool and thrifty, or turn up their noses at.

Confession: I have not purchased laundry detergent in maybe 10 years or more. It’s not that I don’t like clean clothes, it’s just that it’s really easy to get a steady supply of laundry detergent for free.

How? By picking up an empty jug from someone’s curbside recycling bin in your neighborhood. Most of the time, the amount of detergent that’s left in the jug after it seems “empty” is actually quite a considerable quantity, as becomes apparent once you add a bit of water and shake it up. The leftover detergent, diluted in this manner, will sometimes be enough to wash several loads of laundry.

What ended up happening for me, though, is that I acquired multiple jugs full of diluted detergent but I have no hope of using up in this lifetime. It’s just too much! The smell of commercial detergent is super intense and I don’t even have enough laundry to use it all up.

And my skin allergies are starting to act up. So, it’s probably going to be Bronner’s and baking soda, essential oils etc. from now on for me. Or maybe soap-flakes (packaged in a cardboard box) if those still exist, those were very handy and seemed more gentle. And then the box can be composted.

I now additionally just have to put my foot down with myself, and refrain from feeling like I have to rescue all those “not really empty jugs” from people’s recycling, and add water and properly use up the product.

It’s just way more than one person could ever use. But, if you want to save money, try this weird trick. You’ll also be keeping countless of these thick sturdy plastic jugs out of landfill over your lifetime.

Saving 7 or 10 bucks a month, or however much this stuff costs — I literally have no idea anymore since I haven’t bought it in so many years — may not make a difference to most people.

But for some of us, who are (either voluntarily or involuntarily) living on a very low income, It makes a huge difference! Plus it’s just really really satisfying to not be having to buy this stuff, and not having to think about the endless piles of thick plastic containers which mostly probably don’t get recycled.

BTW there are reuses for these type of jugs; I have written about that too on this page and in my blog. My favorite dust pans were made by cutting up large-size detergent jugs.

You can also hang out in some of the many reuse and non-consumerist groups to get tips on finding reuses/upcycles.

PS. Despite the very precise instructions on the container of detergent how much you need to use, you actually can use a lot less if you want. Particularly helpful if you or your family have chemical sensitivities. We get to decide how much product we need to get our clothes clean. And, in case it’s not clear, I am not advocating for people to start using commercial detergent if they’re not already. I’m only posting this as a way to help people save money and reduce their footprint.

PPS. You can see this post with a photo here on my DEEP GREEN Facebook page.

BWTM (But Wait, There’s More!): And, Interesting story, an older gentleman from the Philippines once told me that he used to be one of the workers who were hired to wash the uniforms of the US Navy when a ship would come in. They washed in nothing but salt water! They literally immersed the uniforms in the sea, and then line dried them! The uniforms, linens, etc., came out all nice and white and crisp.

I actually do a version of this with some of my really grubby landscaping clothes and other outdoor clothes. I just run into the ocean for my dip with those clothes on. And when I get them home, I wring them out and hang them on the line. Or, just hang them on the line still dripping, which I call “ironing by clothesline.” No additional washing stage, no soap. I’ve only done that with my outdoor-labor clothes so far, but I’m going to try and experiment with some of my indoor clothes as well.

“There is too much talent trapped in poverty.”

So said a meme on Facebook.

And this is one major reason why I have always been so hardcore about refusing to buy/own certain things even if it’s a bit less convenient. Every little bit less that we can manage to need, is a little bit of freedom we carve out for ourselves to do our real work.

I really loved Walz’s speech last night, and particularly love what he said about neighbors. He grew up in a town of 400, and you couldn’t afford to just ignore or not know or not speak to your neighbors. Regardless of their political stripe.

A lot of us, regardless of where we’ve lived, have never been able to afford to not know our neighbors, and remain mystified that it’s even possible to go through life without ever talking to or knowing one’s neighbors. Across all political stripes. I consider it an artifact of capitalist/colonizer culture and extreme income inequality.

Some people are able to buy their way out of knowing their neighbors, because they can use money for everything. Or so it seems, until an emergency hits and they are calling on a neighbor for help.

I’m not talking about social warm fuzzies, although those are certainly a great benefit of connecting with neighbors. I’m talking sheer survival: economic and social and physical/logistical.

On a related note, the Democrats need to continue working to reform the party’s culture/reputation of elitism that alienated millions of regular people over the past couple of decades or more.

The Democrats used to really be known as the everyday people’s party, and they can be again. But they/we can’t keep dismissing the other side as being illiterate, stupid, and so on.

On a related note … I really love this article by Brandyn Gallagher – on the wider deeper harm of so-called “micro” aggressions toward hillbillies & rednecks.

The article — titled “Hillbilly Hate: ‘Micro’ aggressions, macro impact” — is really good, and the wider truth of it goes beyond hillbillies and rednecks to many many segments of society such as immigrant communities. The deplorable’s, the flyovers, etc. — all nicknames that the Democrats have bestowed upon those they deem to be inferior.

Imagine having such reliable access to healthcare and dentistry that you don’t see the problem with making fun of someone’s teeth.

No more punching down! Democrats need to focus on policies, not punch down on people less fortunate.

Highly recommend following Brandyn River, who I found via Terra Vance – Marked Melungeon. Two recent additions to my go-to favorites for nuanced wisdom.

It’s so deep, and when we really dismantle the rottenness at the root of colonizer culture, we can have hope to actually move forward and be better.

A few years back, I stumbled on a MOOC being taught by a professor named Dan Ariely. The subject was behavioral economics, and the title of the course was “A Beginner’s Guide To Irrational Behavior.” (It was offered via the Coursera platform. Not sure if it’s still being offered. I can’t seem to find it there, but if you search you may find it.)

I took the class and found it immensely enjoyable and valuable, not just personally but also for my work as an eco communicator and motivator.

As Dr. Ariely explains on his website, “Behavioral economics is the study of humans and their (occasionally irrational) interactions with the world.” For me the class was like a fusion of psychology, sociology, and consumer behavior.

Yesterday, I went surfing on the web to revisit behavioral economics and Dr. Ariely. I found an interesting interview (linked below), where he brings up the phrase “choice architecture.” This phrase isn’t referring to one’s ideal house or the crème de la crème of buildings.

Rather, “choice architecture” is the idea that a lot of our choices are actually not as free or as rooted in our core beliefs and principles as we think. We are very influenced by our physical surroundings.

For example: If the store is only a few blocks away, but I drive my car instead of cycling or walking because the roads are hazardous thanks to high-speed traffic and no sidewalks, would you assume that I don’t care about climate change? Possibly!

Conversely, in cities and countries where it’s easy and fun to walk to the store or pub, people are more likely to walk, whether or not they particularly care about the ecological situation. It’s baked into the built environment.

Another example is if you’re living in a food desert. You’re more likely to depend on the corner minimart, which doesn’t usually have fresh produce. (Although some of them have tried to fill a bit of that need in recent years. I see lots of convenience stores carrying apples and bananas.) Whereas if you live in walking distance of the grocery store or farmers market, you’re more likely to be able to choose a healthier bag of groceries that includes plenty of fresh produce.

This “choice architecture” can even include how an application form is structured. For example, in one experiment, more people signed up to be organ donors when the process was changed from opt-in to opt-out. Meaning that the default was changed so that people were organ donors unless they specifically stated otherwise.

I think choice architecture isn’t just the physical built environment; it’s also social norms. And the entire culture we are steeped in.

Further Reading:

• This post on Dr. Ariely’s website (same page as I linked above) is a real goodie from a DEEP GREEN standpoint. It pertains to Black Friday consumer behavior. (For readers outside the USA, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving and is a day when big stores have what are supposed to be super bargain sales. USA-merican shoppers turn out en masse for the sales, and engage in some rather extreme behavior, such as lining up outside the store while it’s still dark or even the night before.) Here you go: The 7 Irrational Behaviors of Black Friday. Enjoy!

• Interview with Dr. Ariely, regarding choice architecture: “Dan Ariely: When Are Our Decisions Made for Us?” Audio recording and transcript. (NPR; host Guy Raz.)

What is a healthy measure of anger? There are some people who would insist that we must resist and suppress and stamp out any little bit of anger that’s in us.

The problem is, anger suppressed isn’t really dealt with, and it comes out in other ways. Anger needs to be felt and processed. Not only for our own health, but so that we don’t end up spewing it at those around us.

But also, anger almost always includes valuable information. It can be information to ourselves that a boundary is being violated. It can motivate civic activism.

Feeling angry can be a real drag, especially as a peace activist. But, I am learning to get better at experiencing it when it comes. Take a deep breath, identify what it’s about. Try to leave a huge buffer between feeling it and actually verbalizing anything about it publicly.

Ideally we can fully process our anger and then distill out what is the constructive thing that we want to do with it.

But, I find we don’t always get the luxury of a time-buffer between “feeling anger” and “speaking to another person.” Fortunately, the old folk remedy of “counting to 10” is often enough. (There are some old sayings that exist for a reason.)

But it’s usually possible to take a deep breath and have a few seconds in order to formulate an appropriate tone of communication. Which might or might not include any angry words at all.

Obviously if somebody has deployed the ride-on mower onto your yard without your permission, you might actually need to yell and scream right then and there to get the situation stopped.

Counting to 10 helped me just now, made the difference between me going off on someone who was cutting a tree, and me asking a calm question. Neighborly relations were preserved, and actually understanding was increased, and my worry (which was rooted in lack of information) got resolved.

I started out saying anger, but ended up using the word worry. One thing that I find is that usually when I’m angry, there’s almost always something underneath it like a primal fear or worry, which ultimately is self-centered. Once I sift out the primal self-centered part, though, there’s usually some constructive legitimate component too, which I can then channel out into my communication with the relevant people.

This is an ongoing process for me. I still all too often start talking before I have fully processed an emotion. So, I keep practicing, and am also helped along by observing other people who are a lot better at this. (I have a lot of mentors who don’t necessarily know they are my mentors.)

I don’t know a single religion that says it’s OK to increase the suffering in the world. We want to reduce the suffering in the world. Anger, expressed inappropriately, increases the suffering of the people around us and often of ourselves too.

But glossing over or suppressing valid emotion that contains information can also increase the suffering in the world, albeit in a less obvious and immediate way.

I look at how the mainstream environmental movement has really limited it’s effectiveness by having a culture of speaking calmly and rationally all the time so as not to offend and turn people off. Spouting science very clinically and counting on that to motivate people’s passion. Hey, when your house is burning, it’s OK not to worry about offending people! Get them to stop the fire!

It struck me that there are all different flavors of anger. If emotions are like all different flavors of ice cream, each emotion furthermore has sub-flavors.

There is boiling hot anger, and collected cool anger. There’s very physical and very internal anger.

About 10 years ago, at an interfaith event for Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Day here in Daytona Beach, I got to hear an incredibly stirring sermon at a hugely packed Baptist church. A major theme was what Dr. King referred to as “The value of a bothered man.” The preacher was one Rev. John Gunn out of Jacksonville. Every cell in my body was on fire. (If you ever get a chance to hear Rev. Gunn preach, go!)

Sometimes managing anger is a matter of managing one’s attention. I noticed that if I keep putting my attention on something that’s bothering me, I can either get more and more frustrated, or I can go into a very creative solution mindset. It all depends on the kind of attention I’m using.

There’s a reason why there’s a whole chapter of my book titled “Get your mind in order.” The mind is Ground Zero!

When I first wrote my book DEEP GREEN, my audience was simply “people living in the USA (and other rich industrialized consumerist nations) who want to reduce their eco footprints.”

I have a narrower and more focused audience as well. And that is, people who are kept up at night by this goal! (In other words, people who share my perception of the level of urgency.) People who can feel that the level of urgency warrants a wartime-level, WWII-style, home-front mobilization. But who have come to recognize that no government or governments are ever likely to implement this. If they do, it’ll be great, but we can’t sit around waiting for it. The subset of people who feel this so strongly that they want to do whatever they can manage, to contribute to that grassroots green mobilization.

Over time, I also noticed there was a wider audience I was naturally including in my communication.

Besides the aforementioned segment, I realized that my communication about low-footprint living (or what I might call “voluntary austerity,” inspired by the name of the movement Riot for Austerity which inspired my book) is also something that could be helpful for:

• People experiencing involuntary austerity, because of increasing income inequality and wealth inequality (among other dysfunctions of a society rooted in capitalism).

• People experiencing natural disasters. Back in 2017 when I wrote my book, even that recently, natural disasters were nowhere near as common place as they have become with each passing year. Fires, floods, droughts, tornadoes — to name a few. And honestly a lot of us would call those at least in part unnatural disasters caused at least in part by bad human practices. Destructive land-use practices; excessively centralized systems of distributing daily essential such as food and water; etc. Speaking of which, I would also add the increasingly frequent and severe electric-power-grid outages as a disaster in themselves. Low-footprint living as a daily practice can help buffer a person and their community against the worst edge of vulnerability resulting from the above disasters.

In the words of Henry David Thoreau, “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.”

That’s true, and also, security is a measure of the things you recognize that you don’t actually need, although they may be nice to have.

The thing we have all too often been synonymizing with both wealth and security, money (and all its equivalents including gold, Bitcoin, Wall Street funds, etc.), is in fact very brittle in comparison with true wealth and security.

An everyday life guided by ultralow-footprint living is a great way to achieve both wealth and security, by the deeper and more robust definitions.

Who I’m not trying to reach

A lot of people I’ve asked me, what about climate deniers, what do you say to them. And my answer is “not much.” Not that I don’t speak to them; just that I don’t waste a whole lot of time trying to argue with them.

Or people will ask, How can we expect to have an impact when the big corporations are being so destructive? My answer is that I don’t dwell on what the big corporations are doing. Granted, corporations are given a bit too big a pass for “simply meeting demand.” When a lot of times they are actually creating demand. In other words, they are helping to form a choice architecture that isn’t good for the planet.

But, operations exist to make a profit. That’s what corporations do. They exist to serve themselves and their shareholders. If we don’t like what they’re doing, we have to try not to buy their stuff. Signing petitions is great; public shaming is great … but at the end of the day, if we are still buying their stuff, nothing’s going to change.

And with the corporations it goes even deeper. Because as everyday people, not only are we customers of their products; but nowadays, with the advent of 401(k)s and all that — the “financialization of retirement” — we are supporting corporations by actually being sort of like shareholders of theirs! This is why I try to encourage people to get off of Wall Street if at all possible. Don’t have any funds that are tied to Wall Street. Otherwise it’s tricky to get corporations to change. It’s like trying to pull up a rug to take it outside and shake it clean, while we are standing on the rug!

Another subset of the population who are not my target audience is people who just don’t care about the environment. If more of us who passionately care and worry start to apply pressure by using our voices and wallets, I really believe we will create enough of a change to nudge governments and corporations in a good direction, and the “choice architecture” around us will start to shift accordingly. When that happens, even people who don’t care about the environment will automatically be living in a more environmentally friendly way because the daily living environment is set up for it.