Earth Day

As many know, yesterday was "Earth Day".  Instead of taking the route of bashing that "everyday should be earth day" and that designating only one day to the Earth (or likewise one day to your Mother, or one day to be happy of your birth, or one month to remember a part of history) is ridiculous and insignificant I would rather be positive about it.  Skepticism can become an excuse to not do anything; to throw important reminders aside because the cause is so much more worthy than what time it is allotted on your calender.  Let's be honest, most people need reminders.  Even as someone who loves the Earth as much as I do, I am not exempt from this reminder.  I would much rather enjoy the designated Earth Day and focus my attention on just that.  I gotta admit, I hate having to write discretion's and explanations as to where my motives lie.  Writing a blog and sharing things that I do can take away from remaining humble in the eyes of the reader however I do not seek attention from anything I share, merely I enjoy actively sharing experiences and bridging the gap between human connections.

Currently, my boyfriend lives in Brampton in a basement apartment.  The apartment itself is a nice size, bigger than many condos up for sale in the G.T.A. at a price point of $300,000.  However, the people upstairs make me sad.  The past 8 months has been my first experience with basement apartments.  It is very close to living with strangers that do not share a single thing in common with you.  As many people may have experienced if they ever had roommates or lived with a partner or family, even when you love the people in your home, it is hard to see eye to eye on everything.  These people upstairs are not even that bad.  I could picture a million more things that could be wrong with the situation, but the mere few problems hurt my soul.  I have learned a lesson from this though:  I must work on my own inability to cope with negative energies around me; to find peace in chaos, after all, that is the true essence of peace.

I will mention, but not get too deeply into the way the mother upstairs berates her 5 year old child daily.  Perhaps someone could enlighten me on why there would ever be a reason to scream at the top of your lungs to a small child that she is stupid?  I think about it everyday.  I have even made up excuses for the woman involved.  I have heard her and her husband fight and call each other horrible names, I know the mother is taking her own inner pain out on her child.  But it does not make it right.

My story today is about the garbage build up.  It started with fast food things falling out (or being tossed out) of their vehicles onto the driveway.  Then newspapers being left outside to the wind.  Random beer caps and cigarette butts.  Empties being piled up outside the back door.  Mail not being removed from the mail box.  Eventually they started tossing full garbage bags out the back door onto the lawn.  The garbage is piling up at this moment.  The garbage is being blown by the wind so now every time I go to see my boyfriend I have to walk through a barricade of their trash to get to the door.  I wanted to knock on their door on Earth Day wearing gloves and garbage bags in hand saying, "Hey guys!  Happy Earth Day!  I will help you clean up your crap, let's go!"

Frankly put, I wimped out.  These people spend half their time yelling at each other or their 5 year old daughter, why should I be exempt?  So instead I decided that in honour of Earth Day I will be the change that I want to see in them.  I put on a bright yellow glove and picked up every piece of trash along the driveway.  I scoured the front yard and found random things like full ketchup packages to throw in the bag.  The back yard, the worst of the situation, became too much for one person with a yellow glove.  The garbage bags have been torn open and I was finding bones strewn all over the yard. I picked up as much as I could fit in the bag, tied a knot and placed it in my boyfriends trash bin.  The "man" who lives in the house was home the entire time.  I am not sure if he saw me but I was sincerely afraid of him yelling at me for picking up his trash.  The saddest part about the situation is that I cringe when I head over to Brampton to spend time with me boyfriend because it hurts my heart to see people who show no respect to Mother Earth, let alone respect to each other.

Do I dare say what is really bothering me about local environmental issues?

I do.  I will.

It is hard to admit without ridicule but I am going to throw it out there regardless.

As a child, growing up in a multicultural city was educational and interesting.  My most bestest (I know this is not a word I chose to use it anyway) friends in the world were not born in the same country as I, that which we all now reside.  I loved going over to others' homes and trying new foods and seeing cultural differences.  I am grateful for being exposed to so many cultures at a young age and to this day.  I love that both sides of my family have different traditions and I got to experience two totally different worlds when visiting my Grandparents.  Unfortunately a pattern that I dislike has been occurring for years now.  I have seen time and time again that many immigrants do not seem to give a flying fiddler's fart about the environment.

When I was a child I used to spend quite a bit of time with my Grandma and Grandpa.  They were both born in the Norfolk County Area and still live there to this day.  I still remember vividly my Grandpa picking up any trash he would see on the ground.  He never told me I had to pick it up but I always remembered how he never once complained that it was not his trash and therefore not his responsibility to get rid of it.  Keeping our environment clean came so natural to my Grandparents.  There was no need to teach cleaning up in school.  Even dog's don't shit where they sleep.  Taking care of your surroundings is the true sense of human pride.  We are born of this Earth, we will die and go back into it.  The Earth is a part of us.  When people say we are children of god, I understand it to be We are children of the Earth.

Since the snow has melted the accumulation of trash around the creek in the neighborhood is not only disrespectful but shameful.  There are garbage, and newly added recycle, bins scattered all along the path running parallel with the creek.  I cannot fathom why anyone would decide to throw their trash on the ground instead of in a bin.  I decided that I would bring a couple of bags with me on this Earth Day and pick up the trash.  I will be honest, if it wasn't Earth Day, I would not have thought about this simple action of cleaning up the creek.  I put my ego aside, the part of me that knows that it was not me who contributed to this mess, and just do it for the sake of Mother Earth to show respect to what is most important to me.

Overall, picking up trash was a positive experience.  It virtually took no effort.  It was a beautiful sunny day, I picked up some trash with yellow gloves and I saw a big difference.  It was pretty much the least I could do.  How hard is it to pick up some things off the ground?  However, prevention takes even less effort.  Smarten up people, I for one am not becoming more tolerable to these discrepancies around me.  I am becoming less fearful of the reaction of others.  I might one day kick you in the nuts for throwing your trash in the creek or screaming at your innocent child.  I care about the quality of life for all, even those who are destroying it for all, there are no exceptions.  The worst trash that I picked up was from someone or some people who had been picking up their dog's shit in a plastic bag, tying a knot in the bag and then tossing it off to the side.  I found numerous of these shit filled bags adjacent to garbage bins.  What The Fuck?  It would be better to just leave the crap on the ground because at least it will decompose back into the earth.  But to put it in a plastic bag and tie it so that the poop can macerate in a plastic bag for years and become more and more gross is just mind blowing!

I had a favourite moment on Monday afternoon.  I did receive many smiles and nods from people passing by which I hope might make people maybe take part next year.  The moment however was from the school children across the creek.  When I first started on our walk I could see the trash build up on the other side of the creek where the school yard is.  I remembered as a child being taken out on Earth Day to clean up our yard.  I wondered if the kids were still doing that?  On the way back a whole class of kids were cleaning up the other side and I can tell you it made a huge difference and it took place within minutes.  A little girl saw me on the other side and smiled and waved; I smiled and waved back.  It was a moment of human connection that is not as rare as we so often think.

Namaste