28 Feb 2011
Donatella was a jewelry artist for 18 years in Calabria before moving here. She made beautiful jewelry obviously catered to a market to sell, but also artistic pieces. Here she has one tiny piece in their home that if she didn’t point out, I never would have seen. It’s a beautiful waving, earth, wind, and fire design on the front, and in the design on the back are three rings. In order, there is one of two bodies reaching out for each other, the next with them embracing, and the last…a little erotic. AsI am gathering about Angelo's past, she also, clearly, lived a different life before this. It is so good to see this part of these people, to be reminded that they are not people who grew up removed from society but rather grew up immersed and chose to step out.
That said…am I allowed to wait until I’m 28 or 30 (about the age they left) to move away from a resource consuming, selfish, modern life? Or is it only defendable to wait until that age if it takes that long to realize that my society’s way of life is profiting from taking advantage of the rest? At my university, I carried around reusable silverware and a metal water bottle in my purse; I road my bike everywhere; and I helped lead environmental groups/awareness/initiatives on my campus. That was what I knew, so in my small way—relative to what I knew—I was making a difference. But only so long can I continue to live in a city and pat myself on the back for purchasing local or organic produce, taking public transportation, and unplugging my appliances when I’m not using them. Relative to what I know now, I’m not doing much. I am still completely dependent and thus necessarily using many resources at the expense of other people having enough, and I am still living a life necessarily tied to crude oil and supporting the status quo. If I want to live in the most sustainable way possible—and lead by example—it means I need to produce for myself, according to Angelo. So does this mean I should go back to the land entirely and produce for myself, like Angelo did?
Or maybe I can defend being selfish for some seven more years? As one of my Couch Surfing hosts put it—also a psychologist, coincidentally—“knowing one truth but continuing to act as if there were another is a mental schism, as bad as any mental illness.” Ouch. So what do I do? New York is far from sustainable, whether I like it or not (although, for what it’s worth, it has to be much more sustainable than suburb living). Do I stay in New York? I can try to change New York (I won’t change it into Angelo's Tempa del Fico, but a couple more bicycle lanes, public compost drop-offs, and public recycling would be a big step up).
Can I? As my friend Eric and I had cunningly planned, maybe I can run a rooftop organic garden and build my house out of mud in the garden. But making an earthen home in the middle of concrete NYC is hardly sustainable, either. Organic vegetables will not be so healthy produced in the air of smoggy Brooklyn, and my dream of beekeeping will surely die when the sensitive bees die from the pollution.
Before I knew how much of a drastic change Donatella had made and was trying to express my conflicting interests, she said, “Devi fare un cambio vita”. You literally “must make a life-change”. Simple as that: you decide what it is that you want most, and you make the life-altering decision to do it, even if it means that you will do only that. Donatella now spends her days working in the garden, canning, cooking from scratch, driving her girls from their isolated farm to and from school, and spending all of her time making day to day life work. (Summed up implication: frequent tango, blues, or salsa dancing are not what should take priority in my future.)
This all said, I still haven’t completely given up the idea of city living. I can reduce my impact to almost zero, or I can impact others to reduce theirs by five percent. And five percent for everyone in a city of eight million people…
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