3 Moments When The World Made Sense

Well I better write at least one post a year to keep this blog alive.  

I’ve recently been reflecting on how things often don’t make sense to me. How I’m still figuring them out, and probably will be for a long time. However, during at least three points in my life things made sense – if only for a few seconds.  I’d like to share those moments here.

The world was at my feet on the Appalachian Trail.

1. It was the fall of 2001 and I was hiking up a hill on the Appalachian Trail. It was more of a mound – imaging a large grassy knoll called Max Patch. I was planning to sleep there that night with my then-hiking buddy, Crispy; he had gone ahead as I could not match his crisp 4mph+ pace. The sun was on the descent over the western hills and the grass was perfect. With 1900 miles under my belt and a glimpse of the future ( I had just received word I had been accepted as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Ivory Coast) I felt strong and confident. It was something about the angle of the slope and the descent of the sun that made the hill feel like a gigantic treadmill, a rolling canvas of green possibility. Extrapolated out I felt like the entire planet was literally at my feet – a playground to explore and discover step by step. That was one moment when I felt like I understood the world.

I was able to connect the dots of our galaxy in West Africa.

2. It was the fall of 2002 and I had been living in my village – Toumbo Yaga, about 3 hours west of Bondoukou in Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa. A few months into adjusting to a new culture, overcoming language hurdles, and getting comfortable with this pocket of the world with mango trees, scarce water, thatch roofs, and 400 villagers trying to feed their families and stay healthy. I had just finished dinner with the chief of the village his wife, and their 10 children – a simple affair near the fire with some mashed up cassava.  As I padded my way back to my house in flip flops, I stopped a moment oto look up at the sky sparkling with stars.  Now when I was a little girl my dad would stand out on the deck and learn the stars.  I thought he was silly, but over time I bought my own H.A. Rey book of the stars and started piecing together the sky during fall nights at Wellesley, at sea during my time at Williams-Mystic, and southern hemisphere stars during my 6 months in Christchurch, New Zealand. 

So it was on a dark, clear night in Africa that I started my usual journey across the sky – arc to Arcturus, pointers to Casseopeia, onwards to the square of Pegasus, and on.  I reached the horizons and continued in my imagination, connecting the dots. And bam! For a brief moment, kind of like in the Celestine Prophecy, I understood our galaxy.  Well “understood” might be an exaggeration but at least I felt at a base, primal level that everything was connected.

This photograph marks the formal start of my career.

3. It was the middle of 2004, and I was walking down a road in Madagascar and saw a woman sweeping her stoop. I stopped, snapped her photo, and asked a few questions such as, “How often do you sweep?” and “Where do you put your sweepings?” and “Do you use compost on your garden?”  She was somewhat baffled and amused by this blond lady speaking her language.  I smiled and continued on, pleased with that exchange.  At that moment I thought, “Meredith, that’s just weird. No one else asks people about their garbage and recycling.”  [insert pause]  Then I thought, “Hmmm. I guess that’s what I should do in life.”  And that moment sparked my interest in pursuing a career in solid waste management.

For these three moments in this lifetime where things made sense, connected, and seemed possible, I am grateful.  These days I'm spending my time cultivating the conversation around organic recycling, anaerobic digestion and composting through my work with Harvest. Good times.

Compost Education Via Garlic

Through my work at Harvest I write about the virtues of compost almost every day. But even I was floored by my wee public compost education experiment I did on the sideyard.

In the fall of 2010, I applied 3 cubic feet of compost to half the garlic bed, and zero compost to the other half.

The difference

is striking: the garlic with compost is a lush, rich green, nearly twice as high as the half without any soil amendment. The garlic without compost literally pales in comparison.

I'm infecting the neighborhood with excitement for adding nutrients to our soil. I hear people walking by exclaim, "Wow. Look at the difference compost makes!" and "Honey, we need to get some compost for our garden."

It feels great to raise the profile of compost in our local neighborhood.

Hike Madagascar Videos

Enjoy these 3 videos from my 8-month hike the length of Madagascar.

Garlic

Ahhh... garlic. Keeps away vampires. Maintains health. It's great.

I planted my first batch of garlic ever with Nancy Pierce last year in her garden (see our harvest in the photo to the right). Last year we did hard neck garlic. This year she sent over some soft neck garlic, recommended highly by a local green thumb. My boss advises me, "Garlic needs FULL sun." So I've prepared a bed to the south of my fence that gets lots of sun.

Bulbs going in this weekend. Grow well little ones. See you in the spring.

One Can a Month Challenge

For the last couple months I've been volunteering for the Richmond Can-A-Month Challenge. Ten families with kids and pets signed up to take the challenge to reduce their garbage collection from once per week to once per month.

Allen Field was the brainchild and force behind the challenge. He called me up a few months ago. I haven't done much volunteering since my Peace Corps days, and I'm a sucker for anything involving community and garbage, so I signed up to help get the situation sorted.

First, we met and brainstormed the ways to set the families up for success. We figured they needed a few angles of attack to whittle their garbage ration down from once a week to once a month. First, they needed to do curbside recycling (here in Portland OR that includes paper, metal and plastic bottles with glass on the side). Second, they needed to go "beyond curbside" which meant bringing rigid plastics, film plastics, and miscellaneous materials to Far West Fibres. Third, they had to do backyard composting, or vermicomposting. Fourth, they needed to address diapers and pet waste (here's one dog waste solution). Finally, they would (ideally) start to wrap their head around "precycling," or buying things with less waste in the first place.

Allen led a two-hour intro session with the group mid-April 2010, with me acting as support crew. He kept the tone light and positive saying, "This shouldn't be a source of stress. If you get overloaded with garbage for whatever reason, just put out another bag one week. It's only $5.00." (We joked at one point about taking the "one flush a month challenge" next year.)

Then, for the first few weeks in May 2010 we followed up with 1.5-hour in-home consultations with each family to do sorts and set up worm bins. The folks at CES and other volunteers helped too. We would dump their trash and recycling out on a big blue tarp. Then we would go through the garbage piece by piece, either confirming its pile (yup, this crinkly wrapper goes in the trash) or giving it a new life (this bread crust can go in the compost).

It always amazes me how much you learn about a household through its garbage -- the hundreds of bits of scrap paper at one house told the story a recent school craft project.

We took pictures of each pile. Most families were shocked at how little "trash waste" they had -- with the air squeezed out, it was oftentimes the size of a softball or basketball.

I was really impressed with the delivery of this vision and project. Allen set up a blog on the Richmond neighborhood website. He got grants from local business and government agencies to help supply worm bins and other waste reduction supplies. He included a "pay-it-forward" element to the challenge to enable/coerce participants to extend their experience to their community. He pointed folks towards useful resources such as the EnviroMom website and a participant's blog. The project has already gotten great press.

The idea is already spreading -- I just called up my garbage hauler and switched from a weekly 20-gallon can to a 35-gallon roll cart. I'll save about $5 per month. More importantly, it feels good to take on the challenge. If families with kids and pets can do it, I can-a-month, too.

An Evening with Annie Leonard - The Story of Stuff

In April 2010 I spent a delightful evening with Annie Leonard and Friends. Annie came out with a hit movie a few years ago titled The Story of Stuff. This year, she came out with a book -- aptly titled "The Story of Stuff" that goes into more details about "how our obsession with stuff is trashing the planet, our health, and our communities."

She was just as effervescent in person as she is in her movies: Spunky. Quirky. Passionate. She knows her stuff.

I encouraged Annie to make a Story of Organics to add to her growing list that includes The Story of Bottled Water and The Story of Cap & Trade. She didn't bite, but I think her mother liked the idea...which is a good start.

Anyways, thanks for the wonderful evening, Annie and Friends. (Delicious food, by the way -- I was stuffed.)

Roz Savage Rocks!

I have been horribly neglecting this "Trash or Treasure" blog because of my work with Harvest Power. It is a neat company that blends my favorite flavor of trash (organics) with a hot topic (clean energy). I am excited about shaping this new equation for organic diversion. I am inspired by my colleagues. I am having fun. But all of this excitement leaves little time for blogging, so if you want to see my world these days, tune into the high solids anaerobic digestion channel at blog.harvestpower.com.

HOWEVER, I did manage to carve out a couple hours last week to meet up with my hero, Roz Savage. She rowed across the Atlantic Ocean, solo. She is about to embark on her third leg of rowing across the Pacific Ocean. I have always been interested in trans-Atlantic Ocean rowers because my Great Great Uncle (or one of those connections) was Frank Samuelsen, who rowed across the Atlantic Ocean in 1896 with his buddy, George Harbo. They were burly (or stupid, depending on how you slice it) setting out in their open rowboat to paddle, stroke by stroke, across the sea.

Anyways, my friend, Ken, tipped me off about Roz a couple months ago. I started following her tweets. Then, I suggested her book, Rowing the Atlantic: Lessons Learned on the Open Ocean, for my book club. (Everyone loved the book.) In this crazy world of social networking, a couple weeks ago, I noticed one of Roz's tweets mentioned Portland. I sent her a note. A few days later, we were drinking coffee on Hawthorne together. Amazing.

Roz, in person, is exactly the way she comes across in her book: an incredibly endearing blend of gutsy, determined, down to earth, kind, caring, and somehow glamorous as she described how she uses her iphone to coach her on doing pushups. (She is addicted to her iphone, but in a really great way -- I gave her my business card, and she said, "I don't have room in my life for little bits of paper." So she took a photo of the card, then gave it back to me. The waste reduction geek in me swooned.)

So we enjoyed a nice cup of coffee and talked about our life paths. We have some fun overlaps (rowing, adventures, environmentalism, public speaking) and I hope our trails cross again in the future. I looked back into my files and found this holiday card from my family in 1987 (or thereabouts). Here I am rowing in one of our little boats in the salt marsh estuary near our home in New Jersey, not 20 miles from where Frank and George set out from Battery Park on the outgoing tide in 1896.

Roz, wherever and whenever you read this, good tidings on the last leg of your Pacific Journey. Have fun giving your TED talk in the Galapagos (that is SO cool). Finally, do drop a line the next time you come through Portland. Till then,
Meredith