GONE LOCAL Week Ten: Now's the Time

I’ve always thought that as our society has progressed (relative term), locally owned businesses have been slowly picked off one by one, leaving us with a homogenized majority of stores. The stores of my youth – the Creamy Freeze, Save-a-Cent, and Lakes Market are long gone. But as I’ve gone in search of the locally owned stores I’ve discovered there is truly an abundance of them. Something is happening now. There is an energy, a movement if you will, that is re-focusing consumers on buying local again. Much of the growth that is slowly lifting us out of this recession is coming from small businesses – locally owned.

My best guess for the reason behind the momentum is two trends I’ve observed. The first trend was made necessary by the recession. This is the trend towards simpler lives. When things get hairy in terms of financial and physical security, we hunker down and focus on what’s most important to us – our health and our happiness.

My Plan for Staying Sane(er) This Summer

School is out and summer stretches before us. I’m shooting for a calm summer this year. We don’t have any big plans for exciting vacations or expensive camps. We’re just gonna hang out this summer. So I’m trying to apply a little trick I learned from the cowboy who is helping me train my horse, True. When my True was a little excited (dragging me across the ring and dancing around on the end of the line), he talked about lowering my energy. It was a novel concept for me. I’m a high energy person. I watched him and although he didn’t do anything drastically different physically, I could truly tell when he “lowered his energy” or “got his energy up” and my horse reacted to the changes. True calmed when the energy was low and became alert and reactive when it was up.

I’ve worked on mastering this with my own training efforts to mixed success. I tend to forget to concentrate on it until I’m in some trouble, but it really works like magic. I think animals and children (and adults for that matter) have a lot in common, so I wondered how this would work on my children. Again, I tend to use the tactic in a reactive manner after my children are already threatening lives and holding prized possessions captive, but when I apply it conscientiously, it does work.

Just a few minutes ago, my daughter approached me as I finally sat down to write after a morning of taking care of life’s details and spending too much time in the car. I thought I would steal 30 minutes to myself before I put a dent in the housework that has piled up around me. So, when she bounced (literally) in to the room to explain in detail her grand plan to build a giant bubble machine using her fan and her brother’s K’Nex, I consciously thought about lowering my energy. I took slow, deep breaths and made myself be still.

When I’m working with my horse, I think about aligning my center and quieting the middle of me. I think about being still in my core. I know that sounds like psycho-gobbledy gook, but it’s the best I can do. Basically, you relax all of you and don’t make any sudden movements or unnecessary noises. I nodded and listened and forced myself to let go of my own frustration. It took her 5 or 6 minutes to lay out the plans. Then she looked at me expectantly. I said quietly, “That sounds amazing.” She agreed that it did and told me all she needed was bubble wands, so could we just pop over to the dollar store to get some, right now? I consciously thought about keeping my energy low and said, “If you can’t find any here, then later we can do that. But I need some time right now to do my writing.” She rolled her eyes and harumpphed, but left peaceably.

I think lowering your energy could be a very useful tactic in lots of situations not just with animals and children, but with life in general. I played my guitar in a recital this past weekend and I was ridiculously nervous about it. I kept wondering why I was doing this and hadn’t I left these kinds of anxious feelings behind back in middle school? So as I stood backstage, I thought about lowering my energy. It helped me stay calm even if it didn’t make me completely comfortable. I need more practice (guitar and lowering my energy).

When things don’t work out the way you plan or another person irritates you, lowering your energy is a great way to get your own emotions under control. It takes the other person off-guard. They sense something different about you, and just like my horse, they become quieter too. One of my children struggles with some anxiety and I’m hoping I can teach this child about how helpful lowering your energy can be when life swells up around you.

Lowering your energy can help you find perspective. Maybe if the people in charge of political parties, warring countries, or the local elementary school, tried lowering their energy before spouting off about issues or negotiating with the opposition, things would be different. I think many of us waste much too much precious energy on things that aren’t really all that important. We need to focus on the things that matter and let go of the stuff that doesn’t. I’m hoping this summer I can save my energy for things that matter and make summer what it’s meant to be – a time for relaxing and recharging.

Do You Need the Things You Want?

I had to go to Wal-Mart yesterday. I try really hard to avoid that place. I want to stand in solidarity with the workers who are exploited all over the world (including their own stores) in the name of lower prices. But I had no choice. It was that or drive 30 miles round trip and stop in four different stores. So I tried very hard to focus on my list and keep my blinders on as I pushed my cart through the newly renovated local store.

It is hard to move about with blinders on, so I couldn’t help by notice all the “crap” (for lack of a better word) for sale. The shelves were loaded with so much excessive junk that no one really “needs”. They allot an enormous amount of shelf space just for plastic containers. I guess if you buy all the crap they’re selling you need lots of containers to store it in.

Several shelves had big signs that said, “As seen on TV” which means all those high-pressure ads that tell you this super-duper-do-it-all bacon separator is only available by calling right now are truly selling you a line. Can I tell you now that you do not need a S’mores maker? Really, no one needs this appliance. If you haven’t got a campfire handy, an oven or a microwave will work just fine. Plop the marshmallow on the graham cracker, heat it until it’s hot and goey and then plop on your chocolate and your graham cracker top and squish. Promise it works – we do it all the time. So don’t spend $34.95 on a machine that will end up in your basement.

Same goes for an Ice Tea Maker. You need a huge plastic appliance to make ice tea? Really? Again, let me save you the $24.95 (this one’s cheaper) – boil some water, pour it over tea bags (I use six) and steep it in your tea pot (or any old pot for that matter, you don’t need a tea pot) for five minutes. If you have a pitcher that can handle the temperature change, (I use a clay pitcher I bought at a college art department sale) fill it with ice and pour the hot tea over it. If you haven’t got a pitcher that can handle the temperature change (glass is not safe and you shouldn’t pour hot water in to plastic), remove the tea bags and let your tea cool a bit before you pour it in your pitcher of ice. I make a pitcher of ice tea most mornings when I brew water for my hot tea. It’s not rocket science and it certainly doesn’t require a special appliance that will most decidedly end up at a yard sale some day. That said, if you think you can’t live without an Ice Tea Maker, look for one at Goodwill or a Yard Sale, there are plenty there looking for good homes.

Wal-Mart irritates me, so I try to see how little I can buy, but there are other stores where I am sorely tempted to buy plenty of things I don’t need. Dick’s Sporting Goods and Borders are two of them. Ever since reading the book, Not Buying It by Judith Levine, and seeing the movie No Impact Man, I’ve been contemplating a shopping fast. I would not starve my children, much less deprive them of their Cheezits, but I’d like to try going a month, or a week, or maybe even just a day without buying anything we don’t truly need. I’d allow myself to buy food and pay the bills, but other than that I’d lock-down the credit card and avoid the ATM machines. I think it would be easy until I think of how difficult it is for me to walk away from a rack of clearance priced Life Is Good t-shirts.

I’ve been mentally practicing for my upcoming fast by seriously considering everything I buy. I ask myself, “Do I need it?” and if my answer is yes, then I ask myself, “Do I really need it?” and that usually makes me say maybe. Then I stand there thinking of whether I have something else that already does the job of my potential purchase. And I think about where the potential purchase will live in my house and then I think about how I’m trying to live simpler and lighter on this earth. I can usually talk myself out of the purchase, but if I can’t then I must really need it. It’s heavy mental gymnastics just to buy a pair of nail clippers or a ream of good paper or even a used book.

Actually I’m lying about the used book. I can always justify a book purchase. I consider books to be in the same category as food. They are a necessity, not a luxury. I know the library is just down the road, but by the time I pay all my late fines (x4 because no one else in this house is any better than me at returning things when they are due), I might as well have bought the book. Besides, most books in this house get multiple uses since we are a family of bookaholics.

What do you really need? Could you spend a month or a week or a day “not buying it”? I’m thinking of picking a week after school lets out for us to “not buy it”. But before that time comes we have to seriously consider the difference between a “need” and a “want”. I’ll let you know how it works out.