Recently my husband and I helped our son to pack up his NYC apartment. He is moving across the country. Saturday morning we found a good parking spot across the street from the apartment building (victory!) and we arrived with packing boxes and tape. Immediately I slipped into the bathroom. A quick glance, and no toilet paper. I came out and announced “There is no toilet paper.” “Oh ya, right, I am out of it.” He heads into the kitchen, opens a drawer that is filled with plastic packages of cutlery and napkins. Signs of take out! He starts to crack open one of the packages to retrieve the napkin for me.
What do I do – I have committed to eliminate single use disposables, whenever possible. After a quick scan through my handbag I accept that this is one of those moments. We laugh and I take the napkin.
He is now going to be on a call for work for over an hour, so we leave the boxes and head out to a coffee shop. We return an hour later, in time to refill the ever present parking meter, and slip into a local bodega to purchase a single roll of toilet paper. “No plastic bag” we say, “we like to reduce waste.” Whatever is the body language of the guy behind the counter.
Up we go to the apartment. Let’s start in the kitchen, I suggest. The second cupboard that I open displays a generous supply of plastic bags, many of them rolled up tightly, bags from bodegas and take out. Under the plastic bags is an enormous pile of paper napkins, the ones that do not come with cutlery, just loose in the take out bag. We laugh, what a haul, but we have already cracked into the roll of toilet paper. We will recycle the napkins and plastic bags. Nice.
In the cupboard over the refrigerator I find cotton napkins, cotton kitchen towels, and mothering Mother bags! Produce bags mostly, the ones with drawstrings, washed and awaiting use. What is that expression from hockey in Canada, aim for the top shelf, where mum keeps the peanut butter! Well, on this top shelf it is cotton.
We move into the living room which is one step away from the kitchen. Oh, there is another mothering Mother produce bag, holding a large collection of coins. Laugh.
At dinner that night with family and a high school friend of his, we laugh about the early kale days in our home, long before it became trendy, when the friend ate kale at dinner with us to be polite. Following that dinner years ago he asked around and reported with certainty to our son that kale was only to be used as a garnish for displaying platters of food, but not to actually be eaten. He laughs about it now. He does not order kale.
The day and dinner are a wonderful reminder of the 18 years that I had to plant seeds of healthy eating and care of the Earth. That role is finished. He is now creating his life, with his choices, with his flare, and I participate from the sideline. I watch, I accept, I learn.
No dilemma. Just a full heart.
Loved this. I remember the first time, in 1990 something, I saw someone put salad into a blender. I thought she was out of her mind! All you trend setters are very brave.