The Local UP-Side of the Global DOWN-Turn

I
grew up on thirteen acres of rural hillside five miles from the
one-store, one-school town of Lookingglass, Oregon, where my parents
raised me and my four siblings to always try to see the flecks of good
in the bad, the stars between clouds in the night sky.

My
father pointed out that even maggots writhing inside the carcass of a
stillborn lamb were doing important work in the cycle of life, and he
said the bats living in a crevice near our chimney were benevolent
creatures that erupted in a fluttering cloud at dusk to keep the
mosquito population in check.

My
mother would sometimes pause in the midst of her non-stop maternal
motion of rearing five children to point out the fact that there is
always some small helping of good to be found in the bad. She once
pulled the family station wagon over on the way to Good Friday
confession to marvel out the windshield at the silvery edges on dark
storm clouds that were backlit by the sun, and how the silver was like
Easter morning and the dark like that day - Good Friday. I still recall
that roadside moment when I hear the term "silver lining." Another
time, our mother ushered us all outside into the pasture on an icy
March morning so we could witness the power (and faith) that yellow and
purple crocuses had to push up out of frost-crusted mud toward the weak
light. And when the creek that drained our property overflowed its
banks one winter and carried away dead animals, plastic toys, and two
brothers who lived upstream and had fallen in one trying to save the
other, our mother made sure we all saw the fertile silt the floodwaters
left behind in the low spots along the banks.

All
these memories help ground me as I watch financial markets
disintegrate, global warming accelerate, and workers from cubicle farms
to sawmills receive pink slips then queue up at unemployment offices.
It is thanks to my mother that I can't help but try to see the upside
of this downturn, as she would no doubt be doing if she were still
alive.

I
believe there will be many small, good things that come out of the
financial realignment and the environmental crises that, in the end--if
we as a human race have the courage to make some fundamental changes in
time--might well add up enough to usher in a new era: one based more on
community, conversation, and compassion than on consumerism,
capitalism, and high-flying careers.

Although
the downturn will be downright difficult for many of us, perhaps we can
focus on the small goodnesses that will bloom out of these hard times,
some of which are already budding. Here are a few where I find hope:

• Borrowing Eggs:
  As oil prices begin climbing back up, we are turning to our neighbors
  instead of our automobiles when we're short an egg or cup of flour for
  a recipe. There's nothing that builds community quite like the
  old-fashioned knocking on a neighbor's door to borrow a cup of sugar or
  a stick of butter, or a simple egg. And when the bread or pie is baked,
  we might return the favor in the form of a warm slice, perhaps
  delivered by a child.

• Peddling Proudly:
  We are bicycling more, which pushes blood to our cheeks, slows the pace
  of our lives, and puts us more in touch with the elements of the
  natural world. Look no farther than China to see how the simple, but
  super-efficient bicycle moves masses for next-to-nil. And think of all
  the bicycle mechanics we'll employ!

• Growing Good Food:
  Front yards, porches, school grounds, and vacant lots are becoming
  vegetable gardens where we're growing food in pots or on plots the way
  our grandparents did. At community gardens, we're sharing the weeding
  as well as the bounty, relieved our children are learning how to grow food before the whole concept is forgotten by a generation reared on buying
  it sealed beneath plastic wrap at air-conditioned supermarkets. To wash
  soil from a freshly-pulled carrot and see that brilliant orange, and
  then taste the sweet crunch, ranks right up there with miracles in my
  mind. Every child must experience this.

• Clothesline Confidential:
  The simple clothesline is making a bold comeback, with backyards,
  balconies, and apartment-building rooftops erupting with the bright,
  billowing colors of clothes drying in the breeze--consuming only energy
  supplied by that fireball, the sun. Clothespin factories will soon
  employ laid-off millworkers.

• Walking Widely: We are utilizing the twin lower appendages of our homo erectus
  nature to ambulate more often to more places, seeing and hearing and
  smelling things impossible to sense from the windshield-walled
  interiors of contraptions powered by the infernal combustion engine.

• Keeping Coops:
  We're keeping chickens in backyards where these feathered friends lay
  eggs with yolks the color of the sun, fertilize their environs, keep
  pests in check, and eventually become soup for our souls. We are once
  more waking to the crowing of roosters and the cackling of hens, and
  our children are learning that meat doesn't grow on those Styrofoam
  trays, and eggs aren't laid inside cartons in two neat rows of twelve
  at a time.

• Taking Transit:
  We have more time for reading and conversation as we ride trains,
  busses, and boats to our more far-flung destinations. We're mingling at
  train stations and bus depots, those ageless gathering places that have
  been overlooked for far too long. Who knows if airports will even be in
  the picture.

• Community Canning:
  We're learning to put food by again, canning fruits and vegetables
  inside clear quart jars we line up in steamy kitchens where friends,
  family, and neighbors gather to participate in this ritual of community
  and survival. When we open those jelly jars of blackberry jam in the
  watery light of late-January, we'll ingest the warmth and sweetness and
  sunshine of summer, our lips a happy shade of purple. And what lovely
  gifts homemade preserves make for neighbors.

• Live-in In Laws:
  As housing markets continue to tighten, we're opening our homes to
  extended family members, the way everyone once lived. Grandma Grace or
  an Aunt Emma are providing childcare, Uncle Joe, an unemployed sous
  chef, is taking care of the cooking and cleaning, Grandpa George is
  teaching life lessons by telling stories or taking the kids fishing
  when mom and dad need some time alone to reconnect and tend their love.
  In our fast-paced society of soccer moms, drop-off daycare centers, and
  family dinners that have become rare, the live-in extended family is
  long overdue for a comeback. This arrangement will also reduce
  healthcare costs, because living in community is powerful medicine that
  prevents dis-ease.

• Making Music Live:
  We are gathering more often with our instruments and voices to make
  music together, in living rooms and parks, instead of only listening to
  electronic forms downloaded and pumped via earbuds directly into our
  brains. We're attending local concerts that cost just a few bucks,
  instead of traveling miles to mega-concerts that cost loads of cash
  (thanks in part to those pesky transaction fees). Until recently,
  homemade music had been a part of every civilization since forever--from
  caves, longhouses, and mud huts, to the pioneers moving westward. What
  have we lost along with our live, local music?

• Shopping Mom-and-Pop:
  Corner groceries are making a comeback, along with the local hardware
  store and the neighborhood pub, all of them located within walking
  distance, while those sprawling malls and big box stores in the suburbs
  silently fade out of fashion, morphing instead into gymnasiums for
  pick-up basketball games, community colleges, local concert venues or
  indoor skate parks.

• For-the-fun-of-it Labor:
  We're relearning the value of volunteering, because that's sometimes
  the only way to accomplish certain things as pink slips proliferate
  making regular paychecks rare. Working together - for no reward other
  than sweat, a sense of community, and the fruits of our communal labor
  - we will survive, and probably be happier.

• Barefoot Baseball:
  Instead of driving our children all over the region to compete in
  high-end sports leagues, we're returning to playing ball in our local
  neighborhood lots and playgrounds, where young and old gather to cheer
  the local team members, some of whom might play barefooted, but
  grinning. Fans are bringing beer brewed in basements, veggies grown in
  backyards, and home-baked goodies (containing borrowed eggs) and to
  share on blankets in the shade.

The list could go on and on. And in the end it all adds up to become a way of life that we've lost touch with.

You
might call me a dreamer, a sentimental soul who's longing for the old
days when my mother pointed out those persistent yellow crocuses nosing
out of mud and my father used a dead lamb to teach his children about
life.

But during tough times, like those we all
now face, I believe it is vital to dream, to see the bright flecks in
the darkness, to feel the potential contained in the tiniest of
seeds...and then to get to work. Hard work. Now.

Because
it is during our darkest hours that the best of the human spirit
surfaces. I hold onto a tentative hope that our human community will
have the courage, vision, and compassion to radically change our
ways--soon: reduce our footprint on this Planet, turn back to community,
and do simple, good things for one another.

So
let's get started: Put up a clothesline. Knock on a neighbor's door and
ask for an egg. Ride your bicycle. Bake bread. Stick together. Play
catch, in the rain.