Recently, when I was talking to a friend about my struggles with depression, I was going through the litany of why my life was fine. And he looked at me, and said something that really made an impact.
"What you just said are all absences of pain. Not the presence of good things."
He was right, of course. The state of my life right now is absence of pain--most of the time. And don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking absence of pain. I don't think he was either. But it's hard to live a joyful life when you don't feel any joy.
I know I am depressed. I know that's not something in my control, and that it's an actual mental illness. But I can't help feeling guilty that I can't find the joy in my life. It feels like a failure on my part. Like a selfish, greedy way of looking at the world; to want for more joy when so many people are dealing with such agonizing pain.
I, personally, know of someone who just lost a child. I would stop breathing if I lost my children. Why is it so hard to translate the knowledge that my children are whole and (mostly) well into some kind of joy?
I don't know.
I know that, emotionally speaking, my life has been hard for the last decade. I lost my partner. I am a mostly single parent. I moved. I started a job. My children have atypicalities that make school hard for one, and almost impossible for the other. My health has not always been great.
I have taken every meeting at the school. I have signed every piece of paper. I have managed every phone call, sometimes multiple ones a day. I have learned a new industry and a new way of working in the space of two months. I have rearranged my life schedule and planned alternative after-school plans and tried to figure out how to still do the laundry. Speaking of which, I have done every load of laundry. I have done all the dishes. I have cooked all the meals, dealt with all the dead mice, shoveled all the snow, and taken out every load of trash. And the weight of knowing that these things are all mine to do--not individually, but collectively--that it is all mine to do--is heavy.
I grew up in a home where there were never less than four adult to share the load. Sometimes I think wistfully of what that would be like. Even two would be pretty swell. But I don't have two. I have me. And me is trying her best, but anyone who walked into my kitchen right now would see that some things are slipping.
And yet... there is an absence of pain. Sure, this is hard. I'm not trying to say it's easy. But I have dealt with the children's school issues, and both of them are doing better. I have gotten the job which will provide me with my own financial security. My children are healthy, and getting happier. So why is it that every day seems to be so hard?
I really don't know.
But I do know that I'm not the only one who feels this way. That this is actually a common problem. And, in the wake of the past four years, where the nation has seemed a terrifying and out of control place for many of us, the macro crisis of the world at large has sent a lot of us with this very common problem into a tailspin.
As another friend recently put it... we're struggling.
But we don't talk about it all that much. We feel shame that we can't find the joy in the simple absence of pain. We feel guilt that things are hard.
We really don't want to talk about the state of our kitchens.
And the thing is, I think we need to. Depression isn't a safe thing to keep quiet. When it's serious, it can be a terminal illness. And when it's less critical it can still take a life that ought to be vibrant and full of joy and leech all the color from it. And worst of all, it spirals downward. When you're depressed, it's harder to do the things that can pull you out of depression.
So we need to talk about it.
My friends are a lifeline to me, because they know, and they don't let me slip too far down the spiral. Not because they can fix anything, or change anything. Just because they're always there, and they keep reminding me that they care. It's amazing how strongly knowing that someone else cares can anchor you in place. But people aren't mind readers, and they might not see that we're slipping if we're too embarrassed to talk about it.
So, I'm going to keep talking about my mental illness. I'm going (to try) to let go of the shame of the things I keep let slipping--
Seriously. Those fucking dishes.
--and I'm going to encourage others to talk about it as well. None of us need to sit in silence when so many of us are in the same damn boat. None of us need to feel alone in this. None of us need to make the isolation any bigger.
Hi, my name's Jessica, and I'm depressed.
*the art in this post is from a photo shoot on grief that I did with a friend.
An open letter from a part time pedestrian, on a rainy day, to Dudes in Trucks, with their giant wheels, and their immense insecurity about life;
so very immense
Dear Dudes,
Here we are again. In the summer I reached out to you to let you know my feelings about your demographic. Now, obviously, #notalldudesintrucks, but a huge percentage of the catcalls, yells, and general douchey behavior I got while out walking in the warm months came from you guys. Now that it’s fall, I find we gotta have another chat about your need to take up as much social real estate as possible.
Now, I know that your truck means a lot to you. You get to climb into that big ol’ cab set up on those big ass wheels and look down on the people around you, in their tiny, fuel efficient vehicles or—more embarrassing still—moved by nothing but their own two legs. I get that this gives you a warm feeling somewhere in your nether regions. I’m not trying to take that feeling from you.
But Dudes—my dudes—we gotta talk about the rain.
Today, for the first time, I learned just how far those giant wheels sling the rainwater they scoop up from the road puddles in their deep, chasm like tire treads. I learned this not by academic study, but by walking innocently down the sidewalk. One member of your brotherhood passed me by, and lo and behold, I was wet from the knee down.
Sort of dirty, too.
Now, I can enjoy being wet and dirty as much as the next person, but I tend to prefer it to be at a time of my own choosing, not when I’m headed to the train to go to work.
I realize that asking you to drive a more reasonably sized car—for the sake of the environment, if nothing else—would be an infringement upon your right to do as much damage to the planet as you possibly can in your short span upon it. And I realize that asking you to give up your monstrous tires in the name of “why the fuck does anyone need tires that big unless they are hauling produce across the country in an 18 wheeler?” would similarly be insupportable, since you need them for the aforementioned warm feeling in your nether regions.
But for fuck’s sake, can you at least slow down when it’s wet out, and you’re driving past pedestrians?
Okay, it's very important that we start this story with the following reassurance:
It's important because, at various times over this tale, you are likely to wonder if (a) the house burned down, (b) Elliot is okay, and (c) if I had the state called on me as an unfit mother.
So, I repeat...
EVERYTHING IS FINE.
On with the tale.
Yesterday was my first Friday at work. For those of you who don't know, I've recently taken a new job. It's great, I'm super happy with the company, and, more importantly, it has the best working mother schedule in the world. Most of the time I only have to be in the office every other Friday; when they cater lunch and then have cocktail hour at four and we all play Beat Saber.
Right?
RIGHT?
Bask in the glory.
Anyway, since I was just starting I've had a few extra office days recently, but they always either were scheduled so I could be home around the time the kids got out of school, or someone else was here (for instance, I was down in Boston all day Wednesday, but my mother-in-law was here so that was no big.)
Yesterday was the first day I was (a) in the city and (b) no one else was home.
On top of this (and this detail is critical to the story) Elliot is currently awaiting a new school placement. So he's at home, being homeschooled until the new placement goes through.
If you're quick, you've realized that this means he was going to be home alone yesterday.
Now, to be clear, I did not just swan out the door without a care. Elliot has a way to contact me on his computer. I had also previewed the day with him, set him up with the school work he needed to do, made sure he had set an alarm for lunch time so he'd remember to eat, and put out food for him. He felt confident, I felt--well--at least moderately okay, and I figured we'd give this a shot.
So I go to work and I'm not really thinking too much about it until my phone rings at 11:30.
Now, this call is coming from Charlotte's account on Hangouts. (Hangouts is the google messaging app.) This confuses me because Charlotte is supposed to be in school. I answer the phone immediately.
"Chaz?"
"NO! It's me!" My son sounds slightly panicked. "I fucked up really bad!"
I die. In this moment, I am dead. Something has happened. The world is coming to an end. I am forty minutes away from my son and something is horribly, horribly wrong.
He continues. "I locked myself out of my email account!"
The world stutters and my heart starts beating again.
"Oh." I say, barely able to speak due to the adrenaline spike that now has nowhere to go. "Ah, what happened?"
Turns out my dude had tried to fix the ad settings on his YouTube (yes, some of his school work involves educational videos on YouTube) and had, in all innocence, given google his real age, whereupon google had promptly booted him. He was calling from Charlotte's account because he was locked out of his own account. I logged in, fixed it, proved I was an adult with the right to do this, and got him set back with his account and told him to leave the ad settings alone. Crisis averted, right?
Well...
About 90 seconds after I hang up with Elliot, my phone rings again. This time it's an unknown number.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Jessica, it's Linda."
This is Linda Rosa, the social worker at the school that Elliot used to attend and Charlotte currently attends, calling me (I can only assume) from her personal cell phone. That does not normally happen.
"Is Charlotte okay?"
"Charlotte is perfect, but I've gotten this email from Elliot..."
My son--my brilliant, problem solving, alternative thinking son--had apparently not immediately thought of using his sister's account to contact me, and had instead logged into his school email account and used it to contact Linda. According to her his email was as follows;
"Help, I've fucked up really bad! Please call Mommy and tell her I need her."
I feel like maybe Elliot and I need to sit down and have a chat about how to word things.
After assuring Linda that he was fine and that I had spoken with him and that it had actually been a fairly minor issue, we hung up the phone and I moved on with my day.
Well, I tried to move on with my day.
Three minutes later, my phone rings again.
This time it is the Parker Elementary main number.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Jessica, this is Chrissy, I'm calling because I've got this email from Elliot..."
Y'all... I cannot accurately describe my emotional state in that moment, but it was a bizarre mixture of guilt over their worry combined with wild hilarity.
Chrissy (the current principal of the Parker) told me that she had heard from (in no particular order) Elliot's third grade teacher, his fourth grade teacher, the Behavioral Analyst, and the old principal, all of whom had heard from Elliot and were worried about him.
I sent them all an email.
Then I contacted my son.
Y'all...
So anyway. I get home from work yesterday, and Elliot comes bounding down the stairs with a big grin on his face.
"Well! That was quite an exciting day, wasn't it?"
I've got some furniture I'm selling. That's not the point of this story, it's just a critical detail so you can understand what is to follow. In the process of selling this furniture I'm talking to a lot of strangers. The conversation I am about to relate is with one such stranger, whose name has been changed out of respect for his privacy.
Such sources of drama.
"Hi, Dudebro? This is Jessica with the king bed."
"Oh, hi!"
"So, I have some unfortunate news. The box springs were stolen out of the back of my van last night, so I'm calling to--" "That's illegal!"
"Yes, I know, I'm--"
"Someone went into your car and took your property, that's breaking and entering!"
"Yes, I know. What I'm calling about it--"
"Have you talked to your husband about it?"
beat
beat
beat
Now, for anyone who knows me even the slightest bit, you will understand that this question pushed the rage button in multiple directions. For one thing, there's the assumption that I have a husband. For another, there's the assumption that, if I did have a husband, I would be going to him in order to deal with this. For a third, there's the fact that once upon a time I did have a husband and, frankly, that's a slightly touchy subject for me.
So I really don't know what to say in cases like these.
or just a light maiming?
Do I say "Well, I would talk to my husband about it, but it turns out he was a figment of society's collective imagination and the woman he really was is arguably more feminine than I am, so, really, I'm the butchest one around and I'll have to make do?" Because, let me tell you, the temptation to unload that one and just really confuse the fuck out of them is SO STRONG.
Or do I say, with a catch in my voice, "My husband is no longer with us." and then start sobbing? Because, I'll let you in on a little secret y'all, some days remembering my husband does actually make me cry. I mean, mostly I'd be doing it to lay the world's largest guilt trip on this asshole making assumptions, but there would definitely be an aspect of authenticity about it. And if I have to get the little stab wound of being reminded that I no longer have a partner to help me deal with the difficult shit, then I don't see why I shouldn't spread some of that misery around.
Or do I say, with every ounce of radical Feminist condescension I can muster, "That is an outrageous thing for you to ask. March your feet to the base of Mount Shame and begin your climb, oh wretched man, and return not here until the wounds of self-flagellation can be clearly seen upon your hide-bound flesh."
SHAME!
Of do I say none of these things, because I do not want to deal with this man right now, I just want to deal with my furniture?
If you've selected that final option, you have, in fact, sussed out my chosen path.
With one little question I was suddenly ass deep in frustrated anger, but hell, I had other shit to do that day, so I simply ground out;
"I don't have a husband."
At the time it truly seemed like the better part of valor, but I had cause to regret my forbearance.
"Oh! I'm sorry."
It flashed through my mind to wonder if he was apologizing for his question, or if he was saying he was sorry I wasn't married. Like, honestly, it could have been either. But I was goal oriented here, so I pressed on.
"Yes, but what I'm calling you about is--"
" I just meant you've had a B&E. What you should do it call the cops and report it and--"
"YES." There was a deep breath in here while I tried to find a way to say what I needed to say without being utterly rude. "I am completely capable of handling that myself. The reason I called--"
"You can handle a B&E yourself?"
"yes."
"Oh. Okay. It's just my family is in law enforcement."
"Well, what I'm calling you about is to find out if you still want the mattress."
"Oh. Yes."
"Fine. Then come pick it up."
So, recently I've been having a lot of conversations that surround--not art itself, but the commercial aspects of making art. That's gotten me thinking about artists, and value, and, you know... advocacy. Because with me, everything is about advocacy, right? So, I thought I'd write a brief little note about art, artists, and value.
And if you yourself happen to be an artist and want to print this on paper airplanes and sail it at the people around you, please do feel free.
Artists Have Imposter Syndrome
Okay, like, obviously #notallartists. But, seriously, yes, all artists, this is a thing. The artists in your life do not know that they are any good. They make their art because they love it, and they delight in it, and they can't imagine NOT making art. But they also know what they're not good at. The woodworker you love knows how difficult they find dovetail joints. The watercolorist knows all the places where the color bled the wrong way in their last painting. The sculptor knows where they had to completely change their last piece because they couldn't make it form the precise way they wanted. And because artists always want to be better at their art, they frequently look at a piece and only see the flaws. What they got right isn't particularly relevant to them. It's what they need to improve that they focus on. And that's good for growth and what not, but it's bad for appreciating your own skills.
So, hug an artist.
But not me. I'm not an artist.
I'm just not good enough.
#impostersyndrome
Art is a Demanding Sugar Baby
Art is so expensive to do. SO EXPENSIVE. Okay, (since apparently I'm doing this) obviously #notallart. You can do beautiful things with paper and pencil. But then you start thinking about how much better your work would be if you just had that really nice sketch paper that handled your eraser better. And, speaking of erasers, you could really use a super high quality one that doesn't make such a mess when you use it. OH! And wouldn't your line work be better if you had varying pencil leads?
It's a slippery slope, people.
Anyway, art is expensive. High quality paper, pigments, clays, fabrics, woods, yarns, beads--ALL THINGS ART. They cost money. They cost LOTS of money. And here's the thing: the only way you ever get better at art is to make art. Which means there's no way to practice your craft without sinking in at least SOME money. Which you do. You do for the joy! You do for the love! You do for the satisfaction!
But sometimes you look at your art supplies (of which you have a vast plethora and still not the thing you really need to do the latest piece that is obsessing you at the moment) and you wonder if art really loves you back, or if it's just in it for the things you buy.
Artists Don't Make Money
FFS YES, #NOTALLARTISTS, MKAY?
But, statistically speaking, artists don't make money. I've already established that materials are expensive. But, on top of that, artists don't work for a big art company. They don't get health care, or dental, or 401k's, or work spaces, or paid time off, or ANYTHING. There are none of the support things that come with a regular job, which you can supply yourself, but all cost money.
So, that really, really, really expensive painting that's hanging on your wall that cost $400? Well, your artist probably spent at MINIMUM $50 on supplies. Then they spent a week working on it. And $350 a week for fifty weeks a year is a whopping salary of $17,500. That's below the poverty line. AND they're covering all the things normally covered by a regular job.
And yeah, it's about the art, not about the money. But it's about the money if you want to live long enough to keep making art. So, forgive my mercenary moment here, but REALLY YOU AREN'T PAYING ENOUGH FOR YOUR ART.
All of Which Is to Say:
Appreciate your artists, folks.
Art is important in our lives and culture. And the people who make it often do it despite how emotionally taxing it can be, and how it's generally a path to lifelong impoverishment.
Hug an artist.
Pay their asking price without blinking.
And once in a while buy them some nice art markers, okay?
You know what's funny to me? Bitterly, soul-twistingly funny? The way the #metoo movement made public figures say, "It's a scary time to be a man in America."
Because, you know, mens' jobs were at stake if people judged their behavior to be inappropriate.
They weren't going to get raped.
They weren't going to get stalked.
They weren't going to get beaten or killed for refusing someone.
They weren't going to have their bodily autonomy stripped from them.
They were gonna lose their income. And that made it a scary time for men.
The other hilarious bit was how cranky they got if you didn't empathize with them. They wanted a "yeah, I know, it's a really scary time for men, and I promise I'll always give you the benefit of the doubt, so don't worry, you've got at least one woman vouching that you're a good guy," kind of response. And if, instead, you gave them a "boo-fuckin' hoo" then they got their manly britches all up in a wad.
Must have been really hard on them. Having to behave to keep their money, and having that self-inflicted wedgie.
I'm really reflecting on that a lot, as I watch six states strip women of their fundamental right to bodily autonomy. As they make horrifyingly restrictive laws with the full intent of taking it to the Supreme Court and having Roe v. Wade overturned thanks to our new Cheeto-appointed Supremes. As I consider what it means to be a woman in America, and as I struggle with the almost overpowering sense of rage I feel.
Men, I love some of you. But I am so tired of your bullshit.
Even our so-called allies slip so easily into making it about them. About their feelings. About the cookies they need to feel appreciated. About their offense that someone might point out how they're-- well--acting just like a man in a particular scenario.
Here's a fun story for you about me realizing my own internal sexism. Ready?
When my spouse transitioned, I realized I was far less forgiving of her than I had ever been of him. It took me a while to notice, but once I did, I made a profound realization. I've always been more forgiving of men. See, I just don't expect that much from them. I think most women don't. We expect them not to understand. We expect them to need "lots of tries" to get emotions right. We expect them to be lesser beings in almost every way, while insisting they continue to hold the majority of the power.
As it happens, I approve of the standards to which I hold women. But, obviously, I couldn't keep holding men and women to a different level, could I? So, it was either relax my standards for women, or tighten them up for men.
Guess which I chose?
I'd tell you I regretted the fact that a number of men now think I'm kind of a bitch, but that would be a blatant lie. Every man who gets offended that I'm not smiling and laughing along with his privilege anymore is another human being I can stop giving a shit about.
You know what else is funny? The horror over the anger of women. Everyone is just ass-over-teakettle that women are so angry, and that some of us are showing it. Men are terrified, women are shocked, and everyone is just all aflutter. Because, honestly, what do we have to be angry about? Don't we know that in other countries, we might be asked to die on our husband's funeral pyre? Shouldn't we just be grateful that we have it as good as we do, and stop making trouble?
Our spouses can no longer legally rape us. I mean, if we can prove it was non-consensual. And, I mean, if we report it. Because despite the extremely low rate of false reporting, there's still an incredibly high rate of disbelief. And, of course, if we do prove it in court, they'll get less jail time than a woman in Alabama who has an abortion after her husband rapes her.
BUT WHAT DO WE HAVE TO BE ANGRY ABOUT?!
Sexual harassment is now widely frowned upon. I mean, unless you know the guy really well, and he's really a good guy. Unless maybe we just need to cut him some slack because he grew up in another time. Unless you're really just making a big deal out of nothing and his value far exceeds yours so, if there's an issue, maybe you could just go away and stop making trouble for him? And if you do actually, beyond a shadow of a doubt, prove that he was harassing you, then yeah, maybe he'll lose this job. But someone else will employ him. And people will always, always, ALWAYS question if you weren't just making it up to get attention. Your reputation will be ruined far more thoroughly than his.
BUT WHAT DO WE HAVE TO BE ANGRY ABOUT?!?!
Boys will be boys doesn't mean anything anymore. Unless he's raping high school girls and only five girls have come forward to report him. Then the school will still allow him to attend and offer to transfer the girls if they're really uncomfortable.
Men are supposed to respect boundaries. Unless you declined to give them your contact information and so they cyber stalked you until they found your name and address and phone number on your professional listing.
Boys aren't entitled to your time or attention but you know, sweetie, you could have just gone out with him once and it would have really helped his pride.
BUT WHAT DO WE HAVE TO BE ANGRY ABOUT?
Maybe the fact that our bodies don't legally belong to us. That it isn't just society, that the law itself is regressing, to tell us that we are obligated to make ourselves into a vessel for whatever a man demands of us.
So, I've gotten a little obsessed with carbon recently. Those of you who speak with me on a regular basis may have noticed, but don't worry. I'm not going to go on a rant here about climate change. If you don't live under a rock, you already know, and you know that our time may already be up. We need to start dealing with this ten years ago, and it's absolutely out of the question to just wait for "someone" to do "something." The Green New Deal has been getting a lot of press lately, and I'm really pleased about that. But the truth is the wheels of government grind slowly, and even if it passes (in two years, assuming we actually have a president who will sign it by then) a whole lot of precious water will have passed under the bridge. We can't wait on Washington. There are two major things we have to do in order to survive. The first is lower our carbon footprint, and the second is sequester the current carbon in the air. Neither of these things will be enough on their own. We need to do both, we need to do them in tandem, and we need to stop arguing over which is more important. That's a stupid fight. So, since I've gotten a little obsessed with this, I've been doing research. And I've decided to share my research with all of you. If you think it's worthwhile, share it with other people. Share it as many places as you can, because the more people we get working on this the better.
Lowering Our Carbon Footprint
So, when we talk about lowering our carbon footprint, we're really talking about a multi-fronted fight. There's our personal carbon footprint, and then there's the social carbon footprint, and we need to take responsibility for both. It's not fair, but it's also not f'ing optional.
If you already know how to lower your personal carbon footprint, feel free to skip this next section and go straight to social footprint.
Personal Footprint
Your control over your personal carbon footprint is basically directly proportional to your income. If you're wealthy then you can put solar panels on your house. You can drive an electric car that you charge off that solar energy. You can buy local, organic produce and local, ethically-raised meats. You can buy organic, sustainable food-wraps and underwear and--hell, I don't know. Everything.
The problem is that "organic, sustainable, local, ethical" etc. have all become buzzwords for the new "socially-conscious" middle class. Slap one of those words on a product and it immediately costs twice as much. We're letting the market make it harder to live more sustainable lives, and if I start talking about how angry that makes me we're going to REALLY get derailed here. So, instead, let's focus on what we're working with, and ignore my anger over capitalism for a second. If you have the money, make the changes. Period. Don't wait for a more efficient option, or a better chance, or the next gen. Just do it. The money in your bank is not worth as much as the air you breath. Get over it. Insulate your home properly. A lot of our energy goes towards heating and cooling, and a well insulated home reduces that significantly. Put solar on your house. Hell, put solar on a friend's house, if you can afford it, and then get them to pay you for electricity. It won't cost them anything more than they're already paying, and that's one more house on clean energy.
Drive a low carbon car. If you've got solar, that means an electric car that you charge from your own grid. If you don't, that probably means a hybrid or fuel efficient car, but do your research. No trucks or SUV's unless you actually have a functional purpose for such a thing. If you go camping once a year, get a tow-rig instead of driving a monster year-round. Shop the farmer's market if you can. If you can't, you can still buy local. I live in MA and apples are cheap as dirt here. In Florida? Eat a lot of citrus. I know we love produce variety but we love going outside and not being roasted in an earth-sized oven more, right? Limit your meat consumption. This one is hard for me, because my diet is basically nothing but meat and produce, but truthfully the meat industry is horrible for the environment. Got hunter friends? Buy from them. If not, try to buy meat that has been raised in a sustainable way. Barring that option, try to keep your meat to the lower impact species. And, of course, you can always go vegetarian, and eliminate this issue all together. Go reusable. Oddly enough, you don't have to buy those crazy hippie products in order to do this. Many types of food come in reusable containers. Mayo comes in a quart jar, y'all. Yogurt comes in a handy plastic tupperware. Is it the prettiest form of food storage? Nope. But it gets the job done. Just make sure you have a sharpie to label things. Also, if you want the crazy hippie stuff, sometimes YouTube is your best friend. I really want some of that beeswax wrapping paper, and I found this:
You can find instructionals for reusable shopping bags, environmentally friendly home-made cleaners, diy cloth pads--pretty much any simple product, you can make yourself. The key here is to try to make it out of stuff you already own. Don't go buy jersey for a reusable thing, use an old t-shirt instead. Oh, and that brings us to... Don't buy clothes.
Okay, that's not really realistic, especially if you have kids that insist on growing (if you personally find some of the non-growing type of children let me know.) But you don't have to buy new clothing. The fashion industry is a huge source of pollution. Huuuuuuuuge. You don't like the idea of wearing something someone else has worn?
Get. Over. It.
My three exceptions are underwear, socks, and swimsuits, not because of hygiene but because those things are already worn out by the time they make it to thrift stores. Aside from that, though, I buy probably 95% of my clothing used. Go get friendly with your local Goodwill.
Last but not least, reduce your trash. Reuse things, recycle things, and compost what you can. Maybe it's not always easy, but trust me... it's totally worth it.
Social Footprint
Okay, our "social footprint" is what I call the footprint created by the industries and lifestyles we allow to go on around us, even if we aren't directly accessing them.
Can we directly impact that? Yes and no. On the one hand, nothing we personally do will lower that social footprint too much. But, on the other hand, we can bribe people to lower their footprint, and that really does help. How it Works:
There are websites that will sell you carbon offsets. They do that by partnering with large projects that reduce carbon output in big ways. Critics call this a "license to pollute" but I call it "have your cake and eat it, too" carbon management. See, for those of us with some (not a lot, but some) money to spend on causes we deem worthwhile, this is a way we can help offset the carbon footprint of society as a whole. Reduce your own footprint, and then pay to reduce someone else's.
No, of course it's not fair. Remember? I said that at the top. It's not fair, but it's fucking necessary.
Anyway, passing laws is going to be our long term effective strategy against our social footprint, but, in the meantime... THROW MONEY AT THE PROBLEM!!!
via GIPHY
And there are some reputable websites out there that will allow you to do just that. TerraPass allows you to calculate your annual carbon footprint and pay to offset it. Then they take your money and apply it to projects that reduce carbon output in other places. Their projects are annually vetted and reviewed, and all listed on their website. Carbonfund does essentially the same thing, but they also work in reforestation, as opposed to simply clean energy projects. I'll be talking more about reforestation down in the sequestration section, for now I'm just notifying you of the difference. Cool Effect is a site that allows you to donate directly to a project with a price per tonne quote ($3.30 to preserve rubber trees, or $5.77 for biogas production), or just donate a flat amount and let the money be distributed as needed.
I'll be honest, I wanted to start a website just like this, but since they already exist, instead I'm planning to just try and get everyone I know to spread the word. Until I went searching I had no idea!
This is only useful if you go above and beyond your own footprint, though. So, either donate until your eyes bleed, or reduce your impact and only donate 'til your eyes itch. Either way, if you have money to spare, you should be considering throwing some of it this way. And by "considering" I mean "wtf are you waiting for, go do it NOW."
Sequestration Okee dokee. For me, sequestration is the riveting part of this process, because sequestration is some crazy mad scientist stuff. We have taken an absurd amount of carbon and released it into the environment. Now we gotta pull it out, and that's not a small task. So, how do we do it? There's no "one perfect way", and for many folks that's a stumbling block. People are waiting for the perfect, and while we wait precious time fritters away. Now, make no mistake, some objections to suggested forms of sequestration have merit. When a scientist tells you that a solution may damage the ecosystem more than it helps, it's important to listen. But any sequestration method where the main objection is "sure, that's great, but it won't be enough" is a method that, combined with many, many others, can be a part of the overall solution. Natural Sequestration
Natural sequestration is just how I'm referring to anything that captures carbon in the normal ecological process. I'm going to be going into this, but it's important to understand that natural sequestration is inherently a slower process. On the other hand, it's cheap, and long term, and if we're hoping to get to a point where our ecosystem returns to a sustainable balance then natural sequestration will necessarily be a part of that. So, here we go...
Reforestation and Afforestation
Trees. You knew we were going to talk about trees, right? Trees are widely regarded as the best carbon sinks on land, and not only that, they're pretty, to boot. Replanting forests that have been damaged or depleted (reforestation) and planting brand new forests in areas where there were none (afforestation) are popular projects. When investing in trees, though, there are some things to keep in mind.
While they need to be part of the long term projections, trees take a while to mature, which means their full carbon filtering potential isn't a short term help. That's critical while we're teetering on the edge. Furthermore, slapdash forestry is a bad idea. Forest floors can actually produce a great deal of carbon, if they're not planned and managed carefully. Doing research on reforestation is a deep dark well, but let me shine a pinpoint of light on it like this: Where you plant matters, what you plant matters, and making provisions to protect your new forests matters a LOT.
I'm not saying to not plant a tree in your yard. I'm saying, if you really want to look to trees as a solution, donate to a forestry project, preferably one working in the tropics.
Carbon Farming
This is a method of farming which is not planned for maximum produce yeilds, but rather to trap carbon in the soil. I don't know too much about it, mainly because details are hard to find for free on the internet (if anyone's got $50 and wants to buy me a copy of The Carbon Farming Solution I'm happy to read it) but I have to admit, the basics seem pretty straightforward. Plant a carbon greedy crop, once it's mature till it under, and then plant a long root crop on top to keep the carbon in the soil. Allow grazers to eat the grass or crops, wash, rinse, repeat.
Given how much time and focus was put into ethanol as a way to a) help make renewable fuel and b) keep corn farmers afloat, I can't help but think this might be a more useful way to handle that farm land. I'm happy to pay subsidies for farmers that choose to farm carbon instead of crops we don't need.
OTHER vegetation
This one is my favorite, and the one I'm most excited about. Turns out there are a lot of great carbon sinks that grow, and not all of them are trees.
I'm super enthusiastic about moss. If you live in a wet part of the world, moss is an amazing carbon sink, and it also filters particulates out of the air. If you want, you can even grow your own moss garden (again, please, only in a wet part of the world.) . Moss is certainly a more environmentally friendly option than a manicured lawn, and it's fun to walk on. Sproing, sproing, sproing...
Anyway, aside from happening to live in a damp environment, and growing your own mossy backyard, restoring wetlands is a great project to invest in. The catch? I can't find any national programs doing it. The EPA has a bunch of information on it, but it's not really happening on a global scale, not that I can find, anyway. And wetlands are HUGE carbon reservoirs. So I guess, instead of a carbon offset NGO, I need to look at wetland restoration instead. Grasslands are also excellent for carbon sequestration. I'm not talking about your lawn, here (particularly not if you mow it every week, which is not only insanity it's also bad for the planet). I'm talking about the hardy, amber waving fields of sturdy grass that grow wild in certain parts of the world. This includes things from buffalo grass to bamboo, and there are native grasslands in six of the world's seven continents.
Finally we have costal vegetation, and while I don't have the same fondness for it that I do for moss, I cannot deny that coastal vegetation kind of sounds like the promised land in the effort to reduce atmospheric carbon. Costal ecosystems are incredibly carbon rich, and, unlike terrestrial ecosystems, when the plants die they get carried to the deep recesses of the ocean, instead of decomposing in the atmosphere where their stored carbon is released. Mangroves, salt marshes, and sea grass are not only effective ways to sequester carbon, they also help with the growing effects of climate change, since they help fight erosion and maintain the local fisheries.
Chemical and Mechanical Sequestration
Chemical and mechanical sequestration are likely to end up being the magic bullet in terms of short term solutions. Ideally we won't spend the rest of the earth's life having to manage our carbon to such extremes, but for right now, when huge amounts of carbon must be pulled from the air at rates far exceeding what the natural world can accomplish, these intensive and expensive methods are the way to go.
The good news is people are working on them. Bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is a method that uses biomass (like, say, ethanol) to create energy and then, instead of just releasing the carbon into the air, traps it inside concrete, plastic, or underground. Biochar is a term used to refer to partially burnt bio materials, which leaves a concentrated carbon source, which can then be buried. And Direct Air Capture pulls carbon from the air anywhere on the planet, which can then be stored in the same methods used in BECCS.
The bad news is that these methods aren't accessible to the public. Research regarding their net carbon benefit is still ongoing, and since they're all powered processes they do take energy to complete. If we had massive solar energy banks we could offset that, but...
The summary is that research is ongoing to try to make the processes more efficient, and pilot programs are up and running, but, much like our laws, there's an unavoidable time lag here.
Speaking of Our Laws...
Is there a time lag? Yeah. Does that mean we can just sit and wait for it to happen?
Not in the slightest.
The gears are already grinding for 2020. If your favorite candidate doesn't support the Green New Deal (or an even more aggressive climate policy) then ask them why not. If they don't change their stance, change your support.
I'm not kidding. In general I'm opposed to one issue candidates but we have to have a president that will sign whatever bill makes it though congress. And we have to have a congress that will pass the GND, or something more aggressive. So, talk to your reps, your senators, and your nominees for president. Find out what they think. Better yet, make it clear to them what you, as their constituent, expect them to think.
Right... So... So, that's pretty much it. Reduce your carbon footprint, pay to reduce the social footprint, get involved in forest, grassland, wetland, and coastal ecosystem restoration, and refuse to elect anyone who doesn't understand what an urgent issue this is. And, if you happen to find a TARDIS, make it all happen starting 20 years ago.
That's not a metaphor, y'all, it's a scientific fact. I'm not trying to be a downer, or to scare anyone, I'm just saying;
Someday our star will expand and engulf this tiny planet we call home.
And maybe humanity will survive it and maybe we won't, and maybe we'll have long since killed ourselves off because we scorched the planet with CO2. Who knows? The point is, the Earth will not last forever.
Conventional wisdom says the universe won't last forever, either. The science is still out on that one, so I can't say for sure, and maybe, even if the science were in, it might be wrong. We just don't know enough about the universe itself to say for certain. But for a long time it was assumed (and some still believe) that the universe will someday run out of energy, and it will stop.
And maybe collapse back in on itself and explode into a new universe?
But maybe not.
In fact, there's an author who wrote an entire YA fantasy series around this premise. Diane Duane writes about young wizards, and in the opening pages of her first book, So You Want to Be a Wizard, she lays it out for them.
As one renowned Senior Wizard has remarked, "Entropy has us outnumbered."
No matter how much preserving we do, the Universe will eventually die. But it will last longer because of our efforts--and since no one knows for sure whether another Universe will be born from the ashes of this one, the effort seems worthwhile.
Pretty heavy for a kid's book, right? I read this for the first time when I was 13 or so, and the impact of what was said was not lost on me. Duane wasn't done, though. She had another quote that hit me like a falling rock.
"There are no prizes for the service of life--except life itself."
And that, my friends, was my introduction to the idea of the long defeat.
I didn't know it at the time. All I knew when I was thirteen was that my parents had spent ten years in service to the poor, the beaten, and the hungry, only to be reviled and cast out by the church that claimed that very service was the highest calling for a Christian. They hadn't just "not gotten" a prize, they had actively been given the opposite of a prize. And I was mad about it. I was so mad about it, I'm still mad, 27 years later. I'll probably be mad until the day I die.
But something clicked in me when I read that book. And years later, when I read this quote by Dr. Paul Farmer, I knew what that something was.
We want to be on the winning team, but at the risk of turning our backs on the losers?
No, it's not worth it. So you fight the long defeat.
The long defeat is a moral philosophy, and it's pervasive through both theological writings and common cultural narratives. It's the idea that you don't pick your side based on who will win. You pick your side based on what is right, and then you accept--deep in your bones--that your side is going to lose.
You're going to lose because you've sided with the poor, and the oppressed, and that means you have no power.
You're going to lose because you've sided with the sick and the dying, and that means your time is limited.
You're going to lose because you've sided with those that are reaching for a goal so distant it seems unattainable. And it will be.
You're going to lose because we don't live in a fantasy world. "Yippee kai yay, motherfucker," will not actually help you win against insurmountable odds.
But you fight anyway. You know you aren't going to get a prize. You know you're going to lose. And it won't just be you. It will be everyone at your side, who also chose to fight that fight, and in some ways watching them lose will be even harder than losing yourself.
But you do it anyway.
Janusz Korczak did it when he refused to leave his orphans, even as they were marched to their deaths. Instead he held the hand of one of the littlest, and tried to make sure the children weren't frightened.
Janusz Korczak and the orphans
Alexander Akimov did it when he stayed at Chernobyl during the meltdown, to help mitigate the damage. He knew the plant was lost, knew that tens of thousands were going to die, but he also knew fewer would die if he slowed the reaction.
The ruins
The four chaplains did it on the SS Dorchester when they calmly helped evacuate as many sailors as they could, including giving up their own life jackets to four lucky men, before going down with the 600 remaining souls on board the ship.
The four chaplains
You fight the long defeat because every moment you fight is a moment that brings some glimmer of hope. Because every pebble that doesn't rain down in the rock slide might mean that someone doesn't die, even if hundreds of others do. You fight because you're not trying to win, you're trying to help prevent the moment when someone else loses.
Everything about this philosophy is contained in the beautiful and heart wrenching principle song of Man of La Mancha.
You fight the long defeat because the world is better for it. Even when you lose. The world is still better.
And you fight because you don't know what will grow from your struggles.
Henrietta Lacks died from cancer in 1951, at age 31. She lost her fight.
But while she was fighting, researchers took a biopsy of her cells, and developed the world's first immortalized cell line.
Henrietta Lacks
Henrietta Lacks lost.
But without her, we would not have eradicated polio.
Quote by Lin Manuel Miranda
For all that we call it the long defeat, we do not know what will grow from our legacy. Because perhaps the universe will not die. Perhaps the moral arc does bend towards justice. Martin Luther King, Jr died before he saw his dream become a reality, but my white son has a best friend who is a black girl, and that means something.
It may not mean victory. But it means that the world is better because we strive, with our last ounce of courage.
It all began this morning, with an innocent enough notification from OKC.
Someone liked me!
Now, I'm pretty much past being excited by this particular notification. In fact, upon seeing it I generally sigh, and slowly thumb open the app, with the hope that this time--THIS TIME--it will be a man who has a decent grasp of the basic methods of communication and nothing on his profile ranting about how "women just won't ever give a nice guy a chance!"
The hope is small, but it's there, and that's why I keep opening the notifications.
Someday I'll learn.
ANYWAY...
This time there was a dude who had actually messaged me! Always a good sign. He had silver hair and a nice face and skimming his profile I saw that he had some general indicators of brains and all that was going well until I saw THIS:
Okay, setting aside the fact that he feels the need to brag about brushing his teeth... He lied about his age on the form, to bypass people's filters? And then he had the OVER INFLATED BALLSACK to say that he was genuine?
I did a quick check on the profile (as I had not actually paid attention to the age) to discover:
Our boy here listed himself as 35.
THIRTY-FIVE.
(Oh, and lest you think worse of him than I intend, that wasn't his first picture. His first picture was actually his face, but as I am trying to be respectful of his anonymity I figured that was wrong to use since it would just be a big red circle so instead I used his SECOND picture which was this. I mean, I'm gonna be ragging on him a lot, here, and I don't feel like I need to go out of my way to misrepresent the man by implying that he was shirtless in his FIRST profile pic.)
Anyway, back to the story.
I figure you all know me well enough to know that, given the option between asking someone why they're being an asshole, or letting it slide, I'm always gonna ask why they're being an asshole. So I went ahead and messaged him back, with the following:
Yeah, I know, there's a typo. Sue me.
All things considered I thought that was a fairly gentle confrontation. I mean, I didn't call him names or anything. I just pointed out that he was misrepresenting himself in order to circumvent a woman's right to outline her preferences and that that was some SUPER SHADY shit not to mention SHALLOW AS HELL.
But without the caps.
I legit thought he'd block me and I'd never hear from him again, because normally this is the way of men online, but no... No my precious loves, this one was one of those guys who wants you to understand that the shady shit he has done is, in fact, not shady at all and he is actually a REALLY, REALLY GREAT GUY.
And so came the response:
Right, so... I guess he's trying to say that I was wrong? Because ACTUALLY he's just saying that a woman's age criteria is arbitrary. How silly of me. Clearly he wasn't saying he knew better than her what she wanted. He's just saying she's WRONG to want it.
HOW THE FUCK HAVE I BEEN SO MISLED?
And he didn't lie! He lied and then admitted it. Totally different thing.
I also love his "deep substance" comment. Honey child, I know plenty of PhD's AND pianists, and while some of them are deep their depth doesn't STEM from that.
So, I haven't messaged him back. I know a lost soul when I see one. But as this rumbled around in my brain I found I had so much more to say. Not TO him, you understand, but rather ABOUT him.
Him, and all his ilk.
First, let's address the violation of boundaries. And yeah, we're gonna call it that. Because I don't give a shit what you actually think about someone's criteria for dating. You don't like their criteria? You're welcome to not like them. You're welcome to find them shallow, or elitist, or racist, or agist--WHATEVER--if their criteria puts them in that category. But that doesn't mean you get to lie to them to get them to give you a chance.
LYING IN ORDER TO GET A CHANCE WITH SOMEONE WHO WOULDN'T HAVE OTHERWISE GIVEN YOU A CHANCE IS STILL FUCKED UP, NO MATTER HOW FUCKED UP THEIR OWN PREJUDICES ARE.
Like, is this really a conversation we still have to have? Further more, if they really ARE that shallow/elitist/racist/agist... WHY DO YOU WANT A CHANCE WITH THEM, ANYWAY?
I MEAN FOR GOD'S SAKE, I CAN'T HIT THE CAPS LOCK ANY HARDER SO PEOPLE NEED TO STOP BEING SO FUCKING DUMB.
*pant*pant*pant*
Okay. So, people have boundaries, mkay? And as long as their boundaries are really boundaries (as defined by choices they make for themselves and about themselves and their own person) and not an attempt to control others (as defined by trying to say your own choices should impact what someone else is allowed to do when it has nothing to do with you) then leave them the fuck alone! Let them die in their insular little bubble or whatever.
My favorite part of all this, of course, is that I can only imagine what Mr Deep Substance would say if a woman claimed to be "fit" and then he found out she was actually "overweight". And she said she hadn't lied, she just didn't want to be judged on something arbitrary...
Just... just...
Okay. I'm calm.
I'M CALM, OKAY?
Anyway, now let's talk about the reality of age brackets.
One of the humorous things about this guy is that he almost didn't make it inside MY age filter. Not because he's too old, but because he lists himself as too young. I don't search for guys more than five years younger than me. I probably wouldn't refuse to date one if I met him some other way, but I'll be real, 32 would be *pushing* it for me. It is hard enough to find a man of maturity and self-possession, I don't need to make it harder by searching among the infants.
Now, I'm not saying they don't exist, but I do not know any women who refuse to date men their own age. I know very few women who won't at least consider 5-10 years up. But I know a lot of women, like me, who do not want to date babies.
So, this guy (who, remember, I'm placing at 48) has probably lied his way out of dating a lot of women his own age. He's probably lied his way out of dating women five years his junior. He's probably even lied his way out of dating at least a handful of women a decade younger than him. All for the chance that some 20 something will look at his profile and decide to take a chance on a guy more than twice her age, AFTER HE HAS LIED TO HER.
But it's fine. I bet they'll have so much in common, won't they? I mean, he's got that amazing hygiene going for him...
Listen, friends, if someone pulls bullshit on you, remember that it's bullshit. And if you say "hey, this is bullshit" and they say "oh, you know, I never thought of it that way" then it's fine. They just made a mistake, and we all make mistakes.
But if they try to explain to you that, in fact, that stinking pile of excrement is not bullshit? Consider writing a blog post about what a shallow asshole they are. Then share it with me. And we can march forward together in single solidarity.
