Slacker Environmentalists

Susan Straight, a novelist, describes my style exactly: It's so lazy being green - Los Angeles Times.

We practice a sort of a weird Southern California transcendentalism that doesn't fit in at all with American upward mobility, increasing our equity or impressing our friends.

OK so I don't move the couch out into the front yard for the summer, as Straight does, but in almost every other detail she describes our lifestyle. We haven't renovated or even done much maintenance because we don't feel like it; hence we have not sent our kitchen to the landfill in favor of granite counters, custom cabinets, new energy-hogging appliances and so forth. Our living room and dining room furniture is mostly hand-me-downs. I inherited my mother's silver service for parties (and the glass punchbowl from great-grandma but I gave that back - my kids might break it). The children's room is furnished with beds and rug passed on by the neighbors, who redecorate more often than we do. Our newest car is ten years old. And so forth.

I know my relatives, both Lebanese and Southern WASP, think we live like gypsies. They all live in big, new houses with nice furniture and well-maintained lawns. That's lovely for them; on the other hand I'll bet our carbon footprint is one-third the average for my extended family. We earn a reasonable salary, too - we're not poor.

This could all be an excuse for shiftlessness. On the other hand, the writer Walter Moseley suggests in his book on writing a novel that writers put off home repair until the house falls down around our ears. Unless you're a committed handyperson who putters to relax, you have to choose - doing your art or fixing up your house. I've made my choice (and so has hubby, who works on his own creative projects). How nice to think that this choice, while inelegant, helps us "be green the easy way."

My great-grandmother's punchbowl photographed by Randy Bayne.