A bag lady’s legacy

A little over a year ago I wrote a column about trying to make the transition from plastic bags to cloth bags only (see below). I’m glad to say that it’s been months and months since I’ve forgotten my cloth bags when grocery shopping. I consider this change a present to Mother Earth and encourage everyone to give her the same gift!

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Today I walked out of the supermarket carrying my groceries – some chicken, a frozen dinner, a bag of cat food, and a bottle of salsa. (Sure I can’t convince you to come to my house for dinner?)

Passersby looked at me like I was a thief. And no wonder. I was carrying the items in my hands – no bag.

You see, I’d gone into the store yet again having forgotten to carry one of the three cloth bags that I keep in my car. I’ve been using cloth bags for months – in grocery stores, bookstores, bakeries – ever since hearing Jane Goodall lecture last March. The bags are always there, riding shotgun, ready and waiting for use, but as sometimes happens, today I’d forgotten to grab one as I jumped out of the car.

In the past, I’ve always figured, “Oh, it’s okay to use plastic every once in a while — I always reuse them or put them in the bin for recycling.” Responsible girl and all that.

Then, yesterday, local earth-steward/Sarasota Herald-Tribune columnist Meg Lowman had to go spoil my illusions of little-miss-earth-friendly me.

If you read Lowman’s August 26th column, you learned that a single plastic grocery bag takes 1,000 years to decompose.

One bag? One thousand years?

I had run to the computer to verify Lowman’s statement. Not that I didn’t believe her, but because I couldn’t fathom that this bit of information is “out there” – common knowledge – and that by and large, none of us are even aware of or concerned with that fact. (Or is it just me?)

And, as Lowman pointed out, the question isn’t really “paper or plastic” – because paper isn’t a heck of a lot better when you factor in how the production and transportation of paper bags chews through trees and fossil fuels. And did you know that plastic bags contribute to sea turtle deaths because they mistake the bags for food? I love sea turtles and apparently, I’m killing them!

Today, not even twenty-four hours after reading Lowman’s column, I was standing in front of the cashier who was asking “Paper or plastic?” and I’d once again forgotten my cloth bags on the passenger seat of my car.

“Enough is enough,” I told myself. I don’t have a right to forget my responsibilities to this sweet planet that gives life to magical sea turtles, awesome oak trees, and gentle, lovely butterflies. (And yes, I know how hokey and un-hip that sounds, but it’s true.)

“Paper or plastic,” the cashier repeated. “Neither,” I replied, as I scooped up my groceries and juggled them out to the parking lot.

I got more than a few stares as I walked out holding groceries that looked as if I had lifted them without paying. I felt funny for sure, but at least I knew my forgetfulness wasn’t going to have a thousand-year reign in some future-world environmental meltdown.

Paper or plastic?

Like Lowman said, it’s just not an option anymore. At least not for this bag lady.
All rights reserved M.C.Coolidge 2011.

RSVP — French for “I’ve got class”

I just today received my first invitation of the 2008 holiday season. They’re late in coming this year, but they might just be fewer than years past. I think the economy has relegated most parties to the sidelines. The invitation, to which I unfortunately had to send regrets, inspired me to post the following rant against those callow enough to think RSVP means “come if you feel like and don’t have anything better to do.”:
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A French acronym for “Répondez S’il Vous Plaît,” RSVP, when translated, means “Let me know whether you’re coming or not so I can know whether to order an extra truckload of liquor and hide all the jewelry.” (Okay, not quite… but you get the idea.) (more…)

It’s about love

When you share what you have with someone else, no matter what word you throw at it – charity, compassion, philanthropy, kindness, generosity – really, it’s all about love. (more…)

The not-so-rhetorical question

This above all: To thine own self be true,
and it must follow as the night the day,
thou canst not then be false to any man. — Hamlet Act I, Scene iii

“Just who the hell do you think you are?” my high school choir director demanded. That was years ago, but it might not surprise you to hear my then seventeen-year-old response: “Is that a rhetorical question,” I queried, “or do you expect me to answer it?”

If my fate had been in question before, it was sealed then. (more…)

Must love cats

A few nights ago, I broke my pledge to not go on a date for the rest of 2008 (after a particularly dispiriting dating experience in January). Don’t know why, but I decided to accept an invitation for drinks and so on the night of the full Harvest moon, I took the dating plunge once again. Since I’m in the process of loading all my previously published columns online, it seemed as good a time as any to load this column about a date I had in September 2006.
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“You’re not one of those crazy cat ladies, are you?” Oh, great. A first date, and he’s already got me pegged as a cat-carrying member of the dreaded single-woman-with-cats cartel. He’s waiting for a reply; a smirk on his face and a forkful of pasta Bolognese paused on a one-way trip to his mouth. I take a sip of wine and think. (more…)

Redemption Song

After the week I’ve had, this column from July 2006 rings all too-familiar. If you have my book, Sideways in Sarasota, you’ve read it, but hopefully it will be fresh goods for the rest of you. Read it while you’ve got some Bob Marley in the background.

Nobody likes to go down for the count. None of us want to be so beaten we can’t get back up.

But one of the uncomfortable truths about life is that if you’re not seriously messing up at least every now and again, you’re probably not living your life as fully as you could.

If you’re not getting a little battered and bruised along the way, you’re probably not taking enough chances. (more…)

In bed with the Bard

I just returned from New England where I was fortunate enough to go back to my alma mater and speak to students, faculty, and folks from the community. It was the most intimidating public speaking experience I’ve ever had — because many of these folks were the very ones who taught me how to think and then helped me discover how to inform my thinking. It was one of the best nights of my life — kind of coming full circle from my college years, returning to campus as a paid speaker and being able to chastise students for not voting, encourage them to become writers (except do it better/earlier/more effectively than I did), and to lecture the very professors who once lectured me. (more…)

Awake at the wheel

For much of my life, if doctors had analyzed my brain waves, I’m pretty sure they would have determined I was asleep. My body may have been going through the motions of being awake, but for an embarrassingly long number of years, my brain was slumbering.

I snoozed my way through jobs, vacations, opportunities, even love affairs. Wandering around in a somnambulistic daze, just letting life happen and just reacting, rarely acting.

And while I don’t regret my life, I do regret the minimalist approach I had to living it. (more…)

Tolerating Discrimination

In last Thursday night’s Vice Presidential debate, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin clarified their joint opposition to gay marriage.

Biden said it’s “only fair”to support the civil rights of same-sex couples, and Palen said she’s “tolerant” of gay couples; but neither one of them wants to see same-sex couples getting married in any traditional sense.

It sounded to me as if our country was back in the 1960s – debating whether it should be legal or illegal to deny marriage simply on the basis of race. (more…)

A prayer for the living

As published in the Tampa Tribune May 26, 2008.

It’s Memorial Day, and I don’t have anyone to remember. No one close to me has died in the service of our country.

I don’t even personally know anyone who is currently being paid to protect, fight, and possibly die for his or her country.

But I’ve known plenty of courageous civilians. Men, mostly, whose everyday swagger hints at the bravery that must expand to heroic levels in a place like Iraq. (more…)