Category: low-footprint living

“Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness–”
— Albus Dumbledore to Voldemort in Harry Potter.

The fact that there are things worse than death doesn’t mean it’s unreasonable for humans to fear their own death. After all, most of us don’t know for sure what happens after death; we have to go on faith. Still, reminding ourselves that there are “much worse things” can help ease our fear of death.

Worse things than death: Not living fully while we’re still alive. Reaching the end of our lives with amends unmade; rifts unmended. Living an imitation of someone else’s life; never discovering one’s own true self. Knowing who we are but always putting up a false front and never sharing our true self with the world. Stumbling around never waking up. Never making mistakes but also never stretching, never growing. To list a few.

Just as there are worse things than death for an individual, there are also worse things than death for society as a whole. At a time like this, with people getting sick and dying; people losing their livelihoods and maybe their homes, this is a hard thing to say and a hard thing to hear, but it needs to be said: There are worse things for society than a pandemic or other crisis that threatens the very future of human life on earth. The main “worse thing” I can think of, is that after the crisis passes, we just slip back into our old default ways, with no changes, nothing learned, no lasting corrections to the craziness that passes for “normal” in everyday life. I like to think that won’t happen in this case, but it is always a possibility.

Today, I “attended” my church (the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ormond Beach) for the second week in a row, together virtually with many other members, courtesy of live-streaming technology. The sermon was titled, “Befriending Our Fears,” and you can catch the recording of Reverend Kathy Tew Rickey’s service on YouTube. The theme of befriending our fears could not have been more relevant to me this morning.

I’d gotten up fairly early, around 6, and gone outside to catch the beauty of the morning and water some plants. Fairly quickly, I found my fresh morning joy spiraling down into anxiety and hopelessness as I contemplated the lengthening drought and my still-insufficient gardening ability. Plants were looking peaked (the lack of rain adding insult to the injury of my innate plant-cluelessness) and I had run out of things to try. Water more? Water less? Nothing seems to help.

But as I sat with my feelings, the deeper fears that underlay them started to rise to the surface. And as I faced those fears, fully acknowledged them one by one, I began to get relief. There were more layers than I was expecting. There was a fear that my ineptitude would kill these innocent living beings I had taken into my care. That’s a tough thing to bear.

There was a more prosaic fear that the native plants I’d bought for privacy hedges (as well as for the benefit of wildlife and the land) would never grow, and I’d be stuck needing a fence forever, and also would never be able to screen out the obnoxiously bright streetlights. For the first time, I fully felt that I could handle any of that; that there were worse things. I realized how I’d been hanging onto this idea “I must have tall high shrubs and I must have them now!” Realizing I could just deal with things as they are helped me relax.

I realized that I could let myself off the hook, quit spending money on lovely plants only to live in constant fear of killing them. I could just be happy with what’s growing right now, as it is, the unflappable native wildflowers, a few stunted but scrappy herbs and veggies, and other buoyant survivors, and let the rest unfold in its time. Surely plants, like people, can’t thrive in an atmosphere of nervousness, and I’ll give them a better chance at life by cultivating a more relaxed loving attitude. And I can just focus on the unchallenging but (to me) richly enjoyable activity of layering my yard with the oak leaves, grass clippings, and other riches (termed “yard waste” by conventional wisdom) that I gather from curbside in my hand-cart, and let this earthy lasagna do its magic of attracting the teeming community of good microbes and bugs that form the foundation of healthy soil. And trust that this evolution will take place to a sufficient degree and in sufficient time for the soil to be more plant-friendly when I really need it to be, if such a time should come to pass.

Another layer of fear I noticed was a primal fear of starving to death because I haven’t been very successful at growing food. Could I handle it, if it came to that? I realized I could, because there are worse things to me. For example, spending my life ignoring other people because I’m so wrapped up in worry about my own fate — that, to me, would be worse than starving to death. Anyway, I have in fact grown food quite well at times in the past — just never alone. Always in cooperative arrangements. There’s a lesson there. Find nearby likeminded folks; grow stuff in partnership. I’m working on it.

I am of course worried about drought; I have been for a long time here in Florida. Our conventional landscaping practices (which I sometimes refer to as land-scalping or land-scraping) — the relentless clearing and incessant mowing that leaves just a thin film of turfgrass and increasingly bare patches of compacted sand — strip away the green buffer and ground-sponge, creating conditions ripe for ever more intense drought-flood extremes. What I’m calling the “crispy” season seems to be lengthening here, and now maybe we’re going to be having it in March-April as well as in October. (The past two years’ Octobers here have been brutal, with seasonal raininess stopping short while summer heat was still in full force.)

This morning I sat with my fear of drought. Yes, this place could become a desert in my lifetime. Yes, we could all become displaced; there could be horrific wildfires, widespread famine, the utter decimation of all life from the lush paradise Mother Nature had provided. Hard to imagine worse than that. But as I felt my commitment to doing my best to save the lives of other people, present and future, who may not have had the opportunity to live as long or as many lives as me, my own fear began to dissipate. I’ve got a post in the works for you about simple things we can all do to help mitigate drought-flood extremes, wherever we live.

Another primal fear I contacted was the fear of being useless, superfluous, having no skills of any use to anyone, ultimately being alone and unwanted, no community. (This is one I’ve been peeling away layer by layer for decades, but today I found a new layer.) I asked myself could I handle it after all, if it came to that — if really I ended up with no place to live, no way to make myself useful? And I realized that yes, I could; that somehow I would find a way to move forward and love life and somehow be in service, not be a burden on anyone. That there were worse things.

Facing each fear, experiencing it deeply and feeling it dissipate, I ended up feeling simultaneously calm and energized, and had a beautiful morning, capped off by the sermon on “Befriending Our Fears.”

Later in the day, the theme of facing fear and coming out stronger on the other side of it continued, as I spotted an extremely powerful article on a friend’s Facebook feed:

It’s Time to Emotionally Prepare for What’s Coming, by Elad Nehorai on medium.com. Anticipatory grief — preparing ourselves emotionally for the loss of life (our loved ones’, and our own) — is a heavy task but an essential one, and I really want to thank my friend Flip Solomon for sharing this article. Flip is a talented and hardworking visual artist, fashion designer, and all-around creative soul. You can see Flip and her work by visiting her Facebook page The Art of Flip Solomon and her website. Enjoy!

Because, yes, we can have joy too amid all this pain and uncertainty. Life is wondrously fractal and layered. The deepest, giddiest-yet-most-solid joy I’ve ever found in life has always been on the other side of fear and pain.

P.S. Another treat for you! Beautiful talk that a friend just now shared with me. “Remaining True in a Time of Crisis.” About taking the crisis as an opportunity to slow down, “grow inward,” engage in self-discovery, become centered in our true nature. (The speaker, Mooji, points out that fear comes from not being centered in our true nature.)

Though I have not yet heard anything to the effect that the pandemic has fueled an increase in consumption of single-use plastics as a consequence of the rise in takeout meals, I would not be surprised to hear it.

To tell you the truth, my consumption of single-use plastics has gone up slightly in recent weeks as I’ve been trying to make a point of supporting local restaurants at a time when they’ve been compelled to shut down their dine-in operations. I figure it’s OK to ease up a little to offer a bit of support in a time of need. (I also sometimes ease up on plastics/styrofoam at ordinary times; for example, when ordering from a minority-owned restaurant and/or one that’s struggling to survive in a rough part of town.) In the long term, of course, I remain committed to avoiding single-use plastics to the best of my ability.

So I was happy to see in my inbox today an email from the Surfrider Foundation, offering a map of ocean-friendly restaurants across the USA. Ocean-friendly restaurants are ones that avoid use of plastics, since plastics are wreaking such havoc on the oceans and the creatures who live there. Just input your location/zip code to find OFRs near you. As it says on their website, “One restaurant, one customer at a time, [The Surfrider Foundation’s Ocean Friendly Restaurants program] increases awareness, drives behavior change, and ultimately creates scalable impact to reduce our plastic footprint.” Bon appetit!

One unintended consequence of the pandemic is happening for sure: Human beings are demonstrating great flexibility and creativity in adapting to the challenges. Then again, adaptiveness is one of the core defining attributes of human nature. And while the situation that’s motivating our inventiveness is tragic and scary, it is reassuring to see human creativity rise quickly to meet adversity.

Today in my local paper (the Daytona Beach News-Journal), an AP article reported on how hospitals are accommodating increased demand for beds:

“With capacity stretched thin, U.S. hospitals are rushing to find beds for a coming flood of patients, opening older closed hospitals, turning single rooms into doubles and re-purposing other medical buildings. Louisiana is making deals with hotels to provide additional hospital beds and has converted three state parks into isolation sites for patients who can’t go home. Illinois is reopening a 314-bed suburban Chicago hospital that closed in September. In Seattle, Harborview Medical Center is turning a homeless shelter into a 45-bed coronavirus recovery center.” (Makes me worry about where the homeless people got put, but anyway.)

This ability to be flexible and make more from less, particularly for the hospital sector to be flexible and make more from less, is reassuring. I would like to see such inventiveness applied to cutting the costs of hospitalization and other health care. Having lived for some years in Japan, where the hospitals were nowhere near as plush and spacious but everyone had access to low-cost health care, I have a bit of resistance to the large, shiny, cushy nature of USAmerican hospitals.

Never once in Japan did I doubt the quality of care I was getting, nor did I or anyone else lack access to basic health care. A lot of hospitals I’ve seen in the USA (particularly in recent years with the rise of the for-profit hospitals) feel more like luxury hotels. It’s kind of creepy actually. The problem is, of course, not everyone can afford the price of admission to these luxury hotels.

Well, I’m rambling a bit here. Long story short: It’s good to see citizens of the Land of Extreme Luxury demonstrating that we have not lost our ability to make do with bare-bones solutions. As in, suddenly deciding that older hospitals are good enough to use after all; that people can deal with being in double rooms; that a state park can serve as a quarantine facility. Maybe if we can be that flexible in an emergency, we can carry that flexibility into the future. Then maybe our hospitals over the long run can become accessible to all, and not eat up so many of our financial and other resources.

And while we’re at it, maybe we could apply that mentality to our colleges and other schools too. School facilities have gotten over-the-top fancy over the years. Maybe we’d be willing to trade some of that fanciness for “less fancy but more affordable.” I’m indulging myself a bit here by allowing this tenuous thinking-tangent to make it into a blog post. I will scout around for some more authoritative voices to support my thinking, and will add any good links I find. But for now I’ll leave it at this.

What do you think of my comments about the fanciness of hospitals and other facilities?

And, what are some unintended consequences you’re noticing (either positive or negative) of the pandemic? By the way, when I ask you questions in my posts, they aren’t rhetorical; I really enjoy hearing your opinions. In fact, I’m thinking of taking the plunge and enabling comments on this blog, even though it opens the door to spam. (A blog I had in a long-ago chapter of my life even got taken over by Soviet hackers; I woke up one morning, circa 2000, to find the Trailer Park Girl blog turned all Cyrillic and cartoon-risqué). I may try enabling comments for a week or so to see how it goes. I guess the worst thing that can happen is I find out that the dreaded Dmitri, hacker of obscure blogs, is still alive and well.

Update March 28: I just read about another unintended consequence of the pandemic: Gasoline prices have dropped below $2 a gallon here. That might explain why I’ve seen several motorists lately idling their cars for 15, 25 minutes or more. Then again, people were doing that even when gas was over $3 a gallon. That always amazes me, because the people doing it just look like everyday folks who don’t particularly have money to burn.

Another unintended consequence I just read about: Bait & tackle shops in my area are seeing a surge in business as people seek safe outdoor activity to escape cabin fever and the 24-hour news dripfeed. Now that’s a happy thing on many levels!

Further Reading:

Is This a Hospital or a Hotel? (Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times): “Some hospitals in the United States … have long been associated with deluxe accommodations, and others have always had suites for V.I.P.’s. But today even many smaller hospitals often offer general amenities, like room service and nail salons, more often associated with hotels than health care. In the current boom of hospital construction, private rooms have become the norm. And some health economists worry that the luxury surroundings are adding unneeded costs to the nation’s $2.7 trillion health care bill. … American hospitals are looking less and less like their more utilitarian counterparts in Europe, where the average hospital charges per day are often less than a quarter of those in the United States…” This article ends with a link to a quiz “Can you tell a hotel from a hospital?” It’s actually even harder than I thought in some cases — I got several answers wrong!

In challenging times, wise people start to look for investments that won’t lose their value, and will pay bigger and bigger dividends as time goes on. The return on what I call “solid investments” or “real stuff” isn’t financial (unless, for example, you end up growing enough food to sell). But, to paraphrase an old saying from the 70s, “Real stuff will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no real stuff.”

Today I’m starting a list of the most solid investments I know. No money to spare? Got you covered with cheap or free alternatives.

• Food garden: Seeds; seedlings; soil; pots or containers. Buy from your local nursery if at all possible; we need to support these guys, whose role I predict is only going to get more essential over time. No money? Connect with neighbors who grow food. Most gardeners produce a surplus of seeds, seedlings, and crops, and sometimes are actually scrambling to give this surplus away. As part of growing food, be sure to invest in building your soil via mulching and composting. This can be done cheap or free with leaves, grass clippings, your kitchen scraps. As part of your food garden, plant native wildflowers for the pollinators (and to give your neighbors a gift of beauty whenever they walk by). You may not even have to plant wildflowers; often they will emerge if you simply let the grass grow out. People are calling this a “meadow yard” or “freedom lawn.” (The latter is a phrase coined by native gardening expert Ginny Stibolt (Climate-Wise Landscaping and other books).)

• Rainwater harvesting: A golden investment that not enough people are doing. I can hardly think of any place on earth that isn’t dealing with chronic drought-flood extremes, and I predict that this situation will continue if not get worse. Barrels and other containers can be expensive but keep an eye out; for example, sometimes restaurants give away food-grade barrels. Don’t get discouraged thinking you need to shell out for a 5,000-gallon cistern or something. In fact, that’s probably not a good idea. Too many eggs in one basket, so to speak (cost of a leak or other failure is large), plus which it’s a kind of hoarding. I was impressed when I heard Brad Lancaster (Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond) say in one of his public talks that he and his brother only have a total of 1,500 gallons of cistern/tank at their house. That was some years back, but I doubt they have significantly upped their capacity; Brad always counsels against “tank envy” and encourages us to do small earthworks that help the land do the heavy lifting, collecting and retaining more water itself so we don’t have to be collecting so much in a tank. If Brad can do this minimal-tank approach in Tucson, Arizona USA (which only averages 11 inches of rain annually), you and I can surely do it too.

• Renewable-energy, grid-free cooking equipment: Woodstove (conventional or Rocket Stove) is a big one. My personal favorite is the solar oven. It’s great not only for cooking but also for tasks such as drying food, pasteurizing potentially contaminated water, sterilizing washcloths and dishcloths, heating water for washing dishes. A sun oven is basically a plain box that’s painted black and covered with a glass lid. This combo turns the sun’s rays into heat enough for slow-cooking. A medium-temperature oven that needs no fuel! Sort of like a crock pot that needs no electricity. The Global Sun Oven is my personal favorite; I own two of them. Such a high-value investment. If you just don’t have $300 or more to spend, other companies make lower-end versions, or you can make your own. Ditto for a Rocket Stove; I’ve made and given away a number of them.

• Renewable home energy: Look into getting solar panels to meet your home electricity needs. It’s not physically or economically feasible for everyone, but it’s ideal for many, and you might qualify for rebates. Contact your nearest solar company for an assessment. (A company local to me, Solar-Fit in the Daytona Beach area, offers free assessments and seminars; your locals might also.) Even if you’re not a good fit for rooftop solar, consider investing in a portable panel to charge your smartphone and tablet or laptop.

• Resilient transport: bicycle, panniers, bicycle trailer. And, good walking shoes, or feet tough enough to walk barefoot. To go with this, you’ll need a certain general level of physical fitness, but you don’t need to be mega-fit. The human body is designed for foot travel, at long distances if needed. Even if your distance radius is relatively small, you can expand it fairly quickly and easily just by walking a little each day (this is assuming you are able to walk; if you aren’t, you may have to rely on neighbors for resilient transport; more about that in the next bullet item). And the bicycle is a highly efficient machine (the world’s most efficient machine, according to what I’ve read), designed to take maximum advantage of human power. If you have the physical fitness for human-powered transport, reach out to help your neighbors who are not mobile.

• Social connections: also known as “social capital.” Though the idea that building relationships with your neighbors is an “investment” may sound crass, the truth is that for decades, the trend in our hyper-affluent, widely geographically scattered society has been to DISinvest from neighborly connections, because our relative economic affluence gives us the illusion that such connections are not essential. Of course this is a huge mistake, as witness the toxic effect of social isolation on people and communities. Our social fabric and our economic resilience have suffered greatly. So, we can think of (re)building neighborly ties as a long-overdue “correction” (to use another word associated with financial markets) to a highly dysfunctional norm. To get on the right track, think of all those quaint, old-school things like asking if your neighbor needs anything from the store when you’re going; bringing your neighbors tomatoes from your garden; initiating a block party or potluck; offering help with onerous yard tasks.

• Skills: Educating yourself on basic life-skills is truly a blue-chip investment in your household and community resilience. Besides the above-mentioned skills, you can study and practice food foraging, food preservation, berm-building and other small earthworks, weaving from locally abundant natural fibers, carpentry with hand-tools, and much much more. Pretty much anything you could possibly want to know can be found for free online or at your public library. It just takes an investment of your patient attention. Bill Mollison, known as the father of the permaculture design movement, said that education is the most portable and flexible investment you can make. Truly golden advice!

• Mental health: Whether or not you consider yourself to have mental-health “issues” (I myself do; fairly serious ones though manageable), mental health is an investment that always pays off. Barring a chemical imbalance or other condition that may require medication or other special treatment, it’s not about “fixing” yourself so much as really getting to know yourself. Become a brave explorer of your own mind; learn more about what makes you tick, how the human mind works (your own, and minds in general). Some call it “inner permaculture” or working on the inner landscape. I will post some of my favorite resources for this in a follow-up post. For now, be assured there is much available for free online, and you can trust yourself to find what’s right for you. I can truly say that every dollar and every hour I’ve spent on learning to navigate and master the operation of my own mind has paid off thousand-fold. More than all of the above investments combined. Note: If you are experiencing any kind of mental-health crisis right now or at any other time, don’t mess around: Call a hotline or seek other immediate help from a professional.

• Music, visual art, storytelling: These arts have been shortchanged in our education system and in greater society, but make no mistake, they are essential to human survival, even if we were only using them to transmit valuable information in memorable form (which of course, is far from being their only value). Solitude and isolation are silent killers; the arts can help bridge the gulf of social isolation. Even in solitude, engaging with the arts reminds us of our connection with all our fellow humans and all of life, across time and space. The elevation of STEM and denigration of the humanities in recent years notwithstanding, a society composed only of scientists, engineers, and MBAs would quickly wither. Resurrect your long-buried art-heart. Sing; play music; even if you simply shake a gourd or bang on a can. And while you’re at it, if you’ve studied sociology, philosophy, anthropology, history — bring those out of the closet as well; we need that knowledge.

• Spirituality, metaphysics, the divine: I know not everyone is into this, but I have to mention it since it is the main theme in my life. Everyone who chooses, can cultivate a connection with the divine, the beyond-earthly realms. Ample resources exist online and in libraries, as well as via priests and shamans, established meditation techniques, spiritual sanghas. I have often found all of the above sources helpful. But also, the divine realms are accessible directly by anyone who is willing and interested. No special training or tools needed. Going out in nature and being quiet is one reliable way. Another is engaging in nondemanding repetitive tasks such as sweeping a sidewalk or path, shelling nuts, and allowing your mind to range untethered (when worries come, let them float past rather than engaging with them; this gets easier with practice). Still another is via our dreams. Yet another is listening to music or tuning in to nature’s sounds (rivers, surf, and the sound of trees and grasses rustling in the wind are some of my favorites). The highest prize in life (in my experience) is being able to engage fully on earth while staying connected with the divine (whether you call it God/Goddess, higher self, the cosmos, all-that-is, the transcendent, or some other name).

In the interest of brevity, I have not gone into deep specifics on any of the above solid investments. But I will be adding to this post and/or making follow-up posts on each topic. In the meantime, a wealth of information on food gardening, rainwater harvesting, and other essentials is available free, via sources such as YouTube and public libraries. If you notice anything I left off this list, drop me a line!

In my recent post about the value of reducing one’s financial overhead (even after the economic shutdown from Coronavirus eases), I mention doing without a car as one major way to cut overhead. I could have sworn I had written you a post awhile back, offering a compilation of articles on the benefits of car-free living. But it seems I did not! Or at least I can’t find it if I did. So … Rustling up some links for you now:

• I Live in the Suburbs Without a Car — Here’s How You Can Too (Realtor.com). I agree with her tip about setting aside $1,000 per year for taxis and other car service. I probably spend about $200-500 a year. A tiny fraction of the cost of car ownership, and none of the headache of car trouble.

• 9 Big Reasons Why You Should Choose To Live Without a Car (The Frugal Gene). Cost, safety, no more parking hassle, etc.

• A House in the Suburbs, Three Kids, and No Car (USA.Streetsblog.org). “The Montgomery family in Brampton [Ontario] realized that the mother’s salary was consumed by the costs of car ownership and day care. They sold both cars three years ago, and now she stays home and the family of five bikes and uses transit.”

• Car-Free Living (Payette.com): Three people’s perspectives. I like how one person ended up expanding her “walkable radius” to 5 miles.

• Living Car-Free in American Suburb (RayAtkinsonPlans.wordpress.com): A transportation planner who loves city life ends up taking a job in the suburbs because the job is very rewarding, offers great opportunity to make a difference.

• Living Car-Free in Rural Areas (discussion thread on bikeforums.net)

I haven’t finished rustling up links yet but those should hold you for now! If you try car-free living, let me know how it goes. Or if you’re already doing it, share your favorite tips!

Photo shows my trusty errand bike, a single-speed Trek Earl with cage-style panniers. The shopping bags are “new”; I sewed them this past week. The fabric is canvas from discarded beach furniture that looked practically new. Love the bright color: Bonus for cycling safety.

The daughter of a friend had set her wedding date for this spring, but has postponed it til fall. If it were my decision to make, I would go ahead with the original wedding date — but have the celebration online, maybe with only immediate family members physically present.

Life goes on. Young couples ready to get married, start families and all should go ahead and get married, not wait. For that matter, same with old couples who are ready to get married. We shouldn’t assume that things will be “back to normal” at some future date. (And in fact, fall being hurricane season in this part of the country, I would not plan an event for that time of year anyway. Learned from experience.)

Am I saying we should forget about celebrations? No! An online event is still an event! In many ways it opens up possibilities: More people can attend. And there can be more room for heartfelt creativity in the tributes we make. You could send the happy couple a congratulatory meal by delivery after the wedding’s over; you could video a congratulatory performance of some kind, such as singing them a song.

And in-person celebrations aren’t gone for good; just for now. I do see this shutdown of events as a “correction”; an opportunity to rethink the mass long-distance “travel at the drop of a hat” to which many of us have become accustomed. So accustomed, in fact, that a person almost feels like a spoil-sport or a renegade for choosing not to travel across several states to attend a wedding, graduation, or other gathering. But if nothing else, I figure a young couple could use money, and at least part of the money I’d spend on travel and hotel, I could instead give as a gift.

I feel the same about graduations. Whatever we lose by not gathering in person, I think we make up for by saving travel footprint, time, and energy. And money (at least some of which is then freed up to be given as a gift if we choose). Northeastern University is holding its graduation online, reports Channel 10 Boston.

I feel bad for the hotels and event venues that are losing bookings. But the individuals who run those places, and the individuals who work there, are sure to devise their own creative strategies for earning a livelihood that does not depend on events or long-distance travel. (As just one example, a lot of my musician friends are live-streaming performances. Online art shows are happening as well.)

Even funerals are going online. This is not just a response to the Coronavirus; it’s actually a trend that’s emerged over the past decade or so, according to funeral industry experts. I like the idea. We have all this great telecommunication technology and broadband infrastructure; what better use for it than to bring more people together, while taking a load off of people’s schedules and wallets, not to mention Earth’s ecosystems!

Yes, of course telecommunications has an eco footprint. Servers use quite a bit of electricity. But I think that if you add up all the costs of a physical gathering, you come out ahead with a virtual celebration. The present circumstances invite us to really push the envelope of what it means to have the best of both worlds: We get to (are forced to) spend most of our time at home. And at the same time, thanks to technology, we also get to spend time gathered in each other’s living rooms, collapsing distance and time.

Further Reading:

Virus could change funerals; how we handle death (Daytona Beach News-Journal): Live-streaming funerals, and using social media as a gathering space for celebrating a loved one’s life, has become a growing trend over the past few years — and one that could continue to grow even after the virus panic passes, say experts quoted in the article.

Other examples: Sports events are a kind of celebration. They are starting to go television-only, with athletes playing to empty stadiums; see photos and report in Wired Magazine. (But then many have canceled their seasons entirely.) The Olympics might even get canceled — or maybe it’ll just be online/TV only! NASCAR has introduced simulator-based racing, which is televised and offers the excitement of crashes (without the blood) and familiar star racers.

Movie studios are starting to release films onto DVD and streaming at the same time as the theater release date (not that the theaters are open). Universal Studios was the first studio to do this, reports Vanity Fair.

Many churches I know are streaming their Sunday services. I just listened to my pastor, Rev. Kathy Tew Rickey of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ormond Beach, on YouTube! Check out her sermon to hear some comforting words amid the pandemic — and to see a beautiful example of how a church can keep many of its programs going, and maintain a sense of family, via phone and online channels.

And finally, April 22, 2020, marks the 50th Earth Day — and the first-ever digital Earth Day. Visit EarthRise2020.org to register and to invite friends.

“What would happen if the shutdown taught everyone they can live on less of everything they thought was important?” — So goes a Facebook meme that’s been making the rounds the past few days. It’s getting a lot of Likes, and I am one of them.

During disasters, life gets turned upside-down, and people focus on toughing it out “til things get back to normal.” But I think we’d be better off assuming that this is the new normal, and adjusting our lives accordingly. In particular, I really think it behooves us to adjust our finances, so we can live well on far less money. Right now, most people I know of are very financially vulnerable even if it were not for the quarantines and shutdowns prompted by the Coronavirus. Over the past few years, people’s livelihoods have been interrupted by hurricanes and other weather extremes. Even among those who are able to earn a steady income, many people’s lives are adversely affected by student-loan debt, medical debt.

The best advice I can offer anyone is, Learn to live on less. In permaculture design courses, the saying was, “Reduce your need to earn.”

For those of you who are thinking, “I shouldn’t have to be uncomfortable! Why should I deprive myself?” — I say, this isn’t about deprivation; it’s about lowering your overhead so you’re not a financial slave to anything or anyone.

Here, I’m going to cover the top culprits in high overhead, and offer tips for getting out from under them.

A roof over your head: Rent or mortgage is the top expense for most of us. Even if you own a house free and clear, you still pay rent to the government as property taxes. Lower this overhead by choosing the simplest, smallest place possible, and, even more importantly, by living with other people. Live in multigenerational community with family or friends. Living alone is not only expensive but isolating. When living with another person seems like too much of a hassle, remind yourself of how much money you’re saving by not having to pay for a whole place yourself. And learn the art of taking turns letting the house’s other occupants have the house to themselves: Don’t always be home! Go take a walk around the block; run errands.

And speaking of roofs, if you’re paying for a storage unit, now would be a great time to cut that expense loose. Find a place for your stuff inside your house, or else sell it or donate it right now to someone who has immediate use for it.

Entertainment: Bar tabs and coffeehouse receipts can add up fast. Treat yourself but don’t make it an everyday thing. (This is one area of expenses that’s been curtailed by the virus.) Write down what you spend; you might be surprised. Ditto for travel and electronic media.

Travel: warrants its own category. Be it for entertainment or for social visits, maximize the innovative use of teleconferencing, and don’t look back. I hope a lot of the teleconferencing innovations (such as musicians giving concerts by Zoom) will stick around, as people wake up and realize how exhausting and expensive all that travel was.

Home energy use: Be it electric or gas, heating or cooling your home is most likely your biggest energy expense. Cutting back, or doing without in regions where that’s feasible, can save you hundreds of dollars a month. Other energy-bill elephants are the clothes dryer (use a clothesline or drying rack instead) and the water heater (turn it way down, or do without if you can).

Transportation: Automobile ownership eats up a huge chunk of your income. Ditch the car. I know it sounds harsh but so is opening up a vein for the car payment, gas station, insurance company, and auto repair shop. If you want to free yourself of a real albatross, ditch that car and live close to where you work. Or make a home-based business. (At the very least, if you cannot or will not do without a car, then please do yourself a favor and share it with multiple other people.) Yes, doing without a car requires a bit of planning and coordinating, but instead of focusing on the inconvenience, focus on how much money you’re saving and how much you enjoy being free of the ever-looming specter of car payments and engine trouble.

Student loans, medical debt: These are pretty much impossible to get out of. But by reducing your overhead in the above ways, you can get free of them faster, and live a less stressed life along the way. If you haven’t yet taken on debt for school, don’t. Just don’t. The fickle job market should be proof enough that student loans are a dicey bet.

Does the above advice sound too extreme? What’s really extreme, is how financially vulnerable we’ve allowed ourselves to become. High overhead breeds insecurity, and it’s hard to enjoy our prized material possessions or any other aspect of life if we’re insecure.

When I was a kid, I’d see pictures of people in “poor, primitive” countries, and wonder why they had such big smiles on their faces. Well, now I know: 1) They owned their homes free and clear. Might’ve been a grass hut but at least they owned it. (And, they knew how to build themselves a new one if it burnt down or washed away.) 2) They were surrounded by family and community. They knew their neighbors. 3) Everyone had jobs to do. From little kids to elders, all knew they had a role in the economic life of the community. 4) They knew how to grow or forage their own food, get their water from streams or the sky. 5) They were physically and mentally acclimated to the prevailing temperature and other weather conditions.

None of which is to say that modern life doesn’t have its great riches and blessings. I’m using one of those blessings right now to get these words out to you. But let’s be smart: Let’s use the economic challenge of the Coronavirus to get our household economies truly, deeply in order. In the process, we will also be reducing our eco footprint. Hooray!

Don’t wait for things to get back to normal. Assume this is the new normal. And adapt and thrive accordingly.

Further Reading:

How To Align Economy and Ecology (Open Collaboration Blog): “PROVIDE JOB TRANSITION SPACE for people to leave jobs in companies which are based on producing more unnecessarily. Provide space for companies to reorient more ecologically. TRANSITION TO NEIGHBORHOOD COMMONS. Shifting childchare, eldercare, sickcare, food cooking back into the commons, shifts money from runaway capitalism system into the commons, it recenters life in our neighborhoods so theres less travel and less gas use, and it leads to more sharing of goods which lowers consumption …”

In the Midst of the Coronavirus Crisis, We Must Start Envisioning the Future Now, by Masha Gessen in The New Yorker: “When we virtuously retreat to our homes, deserting public space and delegating all authority to one man armed with emergency powers, we are creating a society as close to the textbook definition of authoritarianism as has ever actually existed.” And, regarding how we choose to think about the changes prompted by the pandemic: “[W]ill we think of distance learning as a way to make education more accessible or as a way for colleges to save money on professors and classrooms? For younger kids, might the shift prompt us to stop thinking of school as a place to warehouse children while their parents go to work, and start thinking of ways to engage children in learning? Will we emerge more atomized than ever before, with all casual links severed, accidental connections precluded, and public spaces destroyed—insuring that the new authoritarianism continues—or will we take care to create our public space anew? Will we have the courage to resist trying to restore the world we have lost, with its frenetic pace, its air travel and traffic jams, and its obsession with growth and production?”

In these TP-troubled times, a device more worthy of consideration than ever is the bidet, which has long been used in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere but has only relatively recently caught on in the USA.

Bidets (or bidet attachments designed to fit on your existing toilet) can be expensive to buy and install, though they do come at various prices. My favorite option, and one that I’ve been using for awhile now (as have many of my green-minded friends) is the bidet bottle. This is, simply, a plastic squirt bottle that you use like a bidet. It can be any kind of squirt bottle; I find that a short squat mustard bottle is a handy size and shape. I even take the bottle with me on trips.

Not being dependent on toilet paper is great from an eco standpoint of course (some appalling number of trees are felled each year just to wipe North American bums). Also, many of us feel cleaner with a bidet. And now, with the coronavirus panic sparking a weird reaction of mass toilet-paper stockpiling (I keep trying to tell people it’s a respiratory virus, not intestinal!), not needing to be worried about t/p becomes even more appealing.

After using the bidet or bidet bottle, many people like to pat dry, which can be done either with a square of toilet paper (way less than you’d need if you were trying to use t/p to do the whole job!) or with a square of cloth. The “toilet cloth” (also known as “family cloth”) can then be laundered like any other household laundry. My favorite source of toilet cloth is old cotton t-shirts or terrycloth towels, which I cut up into squares.

(Not quite ready to give up TP? Try Who Gives a Crap toilet paper. It’s made of bamboo, recycled paper, and other “forest-friendly” materials. Or ReelPaper, made of bamboo — just now found out about them.)

I first learned of the bidet bottle via my fellow greenies in the Journey to Zero Waste group on Facebook (an absolutely stellar resource for reducing trash or other waste in any possible area of life). But as I did further research, I learned that a bidet bottle (or pitcher, or other container) is de rigeur in Muslim cultures, and is known in at least some countries as a Lota. Other cultures are so often a storehouse of riches for best practices in everyday life.

Further Reading:

Islamic Toilet Etiquette (muslimgirl.com)

Secrets of the Muslim Bathroom (Salon): “Instead of fearing the lota, we as a society should tolerate and embrace the diversity of booty-cleansing techniques that are now available to us. Americans eventually accepted hummus and Bollywood music. Could the lota could be next? Regardless, it’s time to put an end to the self-loathing and fear and let the lota proudly step out of the water closet.”

Reddit thread: How to use a bidet bottle/Lota: “Lean forward. With right hand, take lota (which you filled) and bring it to your back and lean it forward to get a flow going. You want a good flow, not Niagara Falls. While the water is hitting your buttocks, use your left hand to rub the water around there (nothing too aggressive just feel it out like you would in the shower). Repeat if necessary. Dry if you want, some people do, some people don’t. Wash your hands with soap. That’s basically it.”

“Issue With Tissue” Sustainability Scorecard Flunks Charmin and Other Toilet Paper Brands
NRDC/Stand.earth Report Exposes the “Tree-to-Toilet Pipeline” Destroying Canada’s Boreal Forest.