I have been thinking about doing an Earth Day post today for the past week or so. As an environmental, vegan, animal rights, localvore, back-to-nature person this day is a celebration of many things that I believe in. Normally for me Earth Day is spent either gardening, cleaning a local state park, or attending Penn State's Earth Day celebration. However.....
Today was the most un-Earth Day I have spent in a long long time.
My day was spent accompanying my friend while he fished (while I photographed the process), me and my daughter watched the unloading of the Ringling Brother's circus train, and I drove more than I normally do in an entire week. My dinner was packaged cereal with a banana and I bought meat to feed my dog and two cats. Although this was truly a non-Earth Day experience I did have very Earth Day thoughts. First while my friend was fishing (no fish were caught) I noticed a yellow flower that I have not seen before. While my daughter and I waited two hours for the circus train to unload, we sat outside on a beautiful sunny day discussing how uncomfortable the elephants must be in the train cars as the train cars were obviously too small for the elephants to stand. We imagined the elephants chained down in the cars and how uncomfortable and cruel that was. Although I drove more than normal, I took my daughter's VW bug which is considerable more fuel efficient than my older Volvo x-country. Yes I ate a packaged food but it was organic cereal with a organic banana and organic soy milk. Tomorrow I will be back to making much of my food from basic organic vegetables and grains, will walk in the woods with my dog, cultivate my organic garden and try not to use the car. But every day can't be perfect. This earth day I did not follow my prescribed lifestyle of living simple and with minimal impact. Some days this just can't be done. Instead today as I did things I normally don't I thought about the impact my decisions have on the planet as well as its inhabitants human and non human and how a single person can minimize a negative effect even when things do not going as planned.
