Twenty years ago, long before zero waste was a thing, I moved from the eco-village where I'd been living into Eugene, Oregon. All I could afford was a tiny shared house where my roommate and I left our door unlocked all the time because we had nothing worth stealing. I was getting divorced, had only my bike for transportation, and got my first social work job in the U.S., at a shelter for homeless youth for $6.75/hour. I had no saving capacity and survived by being frugal in the extreme. I bought distressed produce at half-price in our organic food co-op, got medical and dental care at the low-income clinics, and never ate out.
My friend Jen, however, had family money and when she moved to town she bought a house with a big yard and immediately set out to do permaculture. She tore out the lawn, mulched her front and backyard, dug a swale and set up rainwater catchment tanks. She built a sand filter outside her kitchen window in a salvaged old bathtub, and she directed her kitchen drain out to the filter, so that water from her kitchen would irrigate the garden. Jen planted fruit trees, vegetables and medicinal herbs intensively. She built a chicken coop and brought in more than the 3 hens per household that the city allowed.
Back at the eco-village Jen had taught us, her girlfriends, how to sew our own cloth menstrual pads with flannel from old sheets. We learned how to feed our plants with our own monthly blood, and of course she was the queen of using little washcloths for wiping herself for number 1 needs, and 100 % recycled t.p. for number 2.
I wanted to live like Jen, and certainly my frugality was “green”, yet it would be years before I had enough financial privilege to have access to land. But why did many people who could afford that lifestyle not pursue it? The truth is that living an ecologically sane life in this culture is unpopular, inaccessible, expensive and sometimes illegal (yes, greywater systems, composting toilets, and keeping livestock are illegal in most cities).
Fast forward twenty years, and the Coronavirus pandemic has thrown us into an unrecognizable reality overnight. This morning I got an unsolicited AAA magazine in the mail advertising travel to Northern Italy where the pandemic is raging and hospitals are no longer able to help the sick; closed amusement parks; cancelled concerts; deals in cruises and flights that may not exist after this pandemic is over. And no one knows when it will be.
I find myself thinking of Jen. You don't need to worry about toilet paper or menstrual supplies when you use washable cloth products. You can live on beans, rice and garden produce for a long time, if you have a food garden. You can always boil rainwater if the water supply is interrupted. Resilience applies in all circumstances.
We in the environmental movement have been reducing consumption and bracing ourselves for disaster for a while, but we didn't expect this. And yet, pandemic quarantines have curbed consumption to such a degree, that we're seeing nature come back to life. In Venice, which suffered tremendous floods due to sea level rise last year, the canals are running so clear, that you can see the fish at the bottom. In Wuhan people can see the stars again and hear birdsong. The reduction in air pollution is so massive, it can be seen from space.
Why is it that as humans we only change when we are forced to do it? When we hit bottom? When there is a crisis? When we are afraid? Why are we willing to flee from something bad but not run to embrace something good?
Nobody knows what the final tally of this crisis will be. I hear the heartbreaking stories of towns in Italy where pages and pages of the newspaper are filled with obituaries. This week Italy had a record number of dead from the pandemic: 475 in a single day. They are having to drive bodies to the crematorium in military convoys.
Quarantine measures threaten to bankrupt people, businesses and entire industries. Lots of people have lost their jobs, and families without savings or health insurance are falling through the gaping holes in the social safety net. Even the most callous politicians are forced to see the need for medical services for all and protecting people from losing their homes. Will they act on our behalf in a timely way?
Whatever deaths and losses result from this pandemic, I hope we learn two things: that we can change, and quickly. And that there's a lot we can live without. We don´t need a growth economy in a finite planet. The secret of life was never about having more. Now we get to find out how little can be enough.
I have lost track of my friend Jen, but she never ceases to inspire me. My pantry is always stocked with dried grains and legumes in bulk. I recently placed an order with CSA that delivers produce directly to people's homes. If we run out of toilet paper, we will use cloth… and maybe the pages of the magazine for number 2 needs.