The Blank Page

Here is this blank rectangle. What shall I fill it with today? Let's see. I think I will put in a mountain, a courtyard surrounded by an adobe wall, a flock of bluebirds sitting in the tree just outside the wall, the junipers again and again, the sky filling with clouds, the voice of Bruce Cockburn singing about Kit Carson, while sitting in a valley that Kit Carson used to ride through on his missions for the President.

This part of our country has arguably the oldest known history in America of outsiders messing with the indigenous people. The Spanish started arriving here 500 years ago. Some stayed. More of them arrived 300 years ago. More stayed. In the 18th century, Bishop Lamy arrived from France, via Ohio, and more more settlers of all backgrounds. There is a balance between the cultures here, often tenuous, but worked out over time. Water, being most precious of all, has been closely regulated with a system of water rights and acequias (ditches). Again the balance is in danger since the wealthy anglos have started arriving from California and Texas, with their desires to flaunt their money with super large houses and LAWNS and unlimited water expectations, disregarding the balance.

How much of the common resource pool is fair for each person? How much water? How much beef? How much oil? How many plastic bags?

It is time to change the paradigm. How about if we start to value how much we can give away, how little we can personally use, instead of how much we own, how big, how expensive?

It is so easy to say and so easy to point the finger. John and I are in a magnificent house, surrounded by exquisite views and land, plenty of heat when it is cold, plenty of privacy, food in the freezer, and two more houses in Tennessee which we own, one of which is enormous.

Not intentionally, really. Just rolling along in a country with a booming real estate market, making plans to change from one house to another Life happens while you are making other plans, is the old saying. So as we rethink our priorities and want to lighten up our footprint, we actually are committed to a very large one.

This is another blank page we have been filling for our entire lives. What we do, how we grow, where we live, what we buy, who we love. John and I started a new book about five years ago and we have filled it with love of one another, love of our children and grandchildren, the houses we have lived in and the cars we own. The new friends we have made and the old ones we have kept. But in the process we added a lot of baggage which we now wish we could unload. Keep the people, dump the stuff. We would like to dramatically change our footprint.

We don't use plastic bags (much) anymore. Does that count?