i don't drive a car, i walk everywhere (i refuse rides almost daily, no joke) i rent instead of own, i wear my baby, shop second hand, buy whole foods instead of boxed and canned, dress like a hippy and always keep an eye out for a bargain. not because i'm poor (how anyone can be truly poor in the first world is hard to fathom) but because i am concerned about the destruction of the planet and the limited natural resources we squander on more and more plastic garbage every minute of every day. and i really dislike cars.

i think that people get the impression that i am impoverished, pathetically so. this year a lady from down the street came over with a basket of toys and presents for us. i met her once when we were trick or treating at halloween and i see her picking up a little girl she babysits at the school when i get little, aside from that, don't know her at all. she said she and her husband 'sponsor' a single mom every year at xmas. i thought that was so nice, i really did. touched my heart that they would care to step in and give some of their love in place of a missing other parent, that's kind. some of the things in the basket were second hand too which i really appreciated (but i could see someone else having a different reaction to that). i really liked it, not because i need that stuff, just because i LOVE reusing. i didn't like the plastic army guys and guns though, those were new and i wish i could recycle or throw them away but to the second hand store they go. sigh.

before that happened the local community centre of which i am a part asked me if i wanted a little basket with a couple of things for the kids. i said sure, that sounded nice. i like little to experience the gift of giving both ways. he wraps up and gives some of his favourite toys he's outgrown to younger friends and gives away a bunch of stuff to the second hand store at xmas and around his bday too. that way he has different things to play with instead of more things (gets overwhelming to store and clean up!). i like the idea of him getting a small thing from someone in the community, that's a wonderful feeling for a child. especially one who isn't overwhelmed with tons of stuff all the time and can truly appreciate it.
so the neighbour with the basket came by, lovely. i appreciated that.
then the community centre called me and also came by. with EIGHT boxes of stuff, i kid you not. too much. way, Way, WAY too much! even if he wasn't already getting some things from me (handmade stuff, books etc) and some things from my mom, aunts and uncles, sisters, other grandparents. even if he was getting NOTHING from his family at all, this was just such gross overkill as to be laughable. i swear i told them one small thing and the baby didn't need anything. they did send some really cute clothes for her but lots of polyester which i just won't put on my little baby girl. really, i would have preferred nothing like i said, i meant that. oh, and two huge grocery bags of body care products that i simply asked the woman to give away to someone who needed it because i am "allergic" to fragrance. actually, she totally understood that and had a family in mind who would have loved to get that stuff. that worked out well. i should have sent all the children's tylenol and cold medicine with her too. and the pedialyte.

ok, he didn't see the stuff, i sorted it out and TONS of it is just going to charity. the gun type lego set that is in, not exaggerating, a box the size of our dinner table top. etc etc etc. the basement is getting full. really, i told the lady a small thing of lego would be nice, i would love some extra slippers, i need a baby food mill for the wee girl. we got those things too, i'm so happy about that actually. but my heart is heavy and sad for all the money undoubtably given to malwart, all the goods manufactured and shipped around, all the gasoline burned, natural resources devoured. gah.

ok, tonight. my mom's church group do a thing where santa actually comes to your house with a little present for you. of course i said yes to that when they asked me! he knows the truth about santa but we have always loved the story and the make-believe, we think it's great fun. so they come, bells a jingling, singing with mrs claus and THREE elves, oh! that was a blast! they brought him the CUTEST story book!

and so many parcels. and a huge box of "food" full of hydrogenated oils and other poisons. WTF?! i am just shocked out of my mind! ok, they brought me a potty chair for the baby that i adore, i am SO happy about that. but of the 10, yes i said TEN gifts they dropped off, that is the only one i would even let my children SEE! i did not know they were going to bring so much stuff, i would have said "no really, i mean it. just a small lego kit, like a $5 one, he'll be so happy with that." not a fighter jet plane, a huge plastic racecar track, giant plastic dinosaur set, a video game for The BABY (???), etc. it's all going to charity.
the food went straight over to my neighbour, she eats that stuff and was totally happy to have it. she almost didn't take it at first though because she couldn't wrap her head around the fact that we don't eat meat, let alone sugar, white flour, margerine, etc etc. now that she knows she thinks i am insane.

how did this get so out of control? i signed up for a small gift for the little man and possibly a pair of slippers for myself, a visit from santa claus and i accepted a love donation from a neighbour who wanted to welcome us to town. that would have been so much right there, i would have been THRILLED with that, totally touched and honoured. how did it turn into a veritable orgy of consumeristic debauchery? OMG, of all the people for this to come to! i am convinced that the people who appproached me about this did so because they think we are underprivileged sad sacks who need a mountain of stuff to ease our sorry existances. i will never, ever say yes to anything of this sort again, i will adamantly refuse. i had no idea this would go on, NONE!

end giant rant.

so, my point being, this has been a most illuminating experience for me. i suppose that i must appear, for all intensive purposes, a destitute vagabond of a mommy. until i start shovelling plastic junk and fast food down my children's throats, i will always be the odd (wo)man out. i never knew. i had no idea the rest of society saw me and my natural lifestyle choices as so pathetic.

is this why more people don't choose natural? is there still a stigma of poverty surrounding non-consumerism and living simply? this lesson was a REAL eye opener for me.

believe me, i'm struggling to maintain a sense of gratitude about the tangible outpouring of love i have been experiencing these past few days. i know that it all comes from a good place with the best of intentions and i get the added bonus of being able to pass all of this stuff along to a charity shop so they get the money from selling it and some other person gets a great bargain. but it's a big challenge to get beyond the consumerism, which is so against my principles, and see the feeling behind it but i'm trying. needs some work.

thoughts?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/24/2007 03:06AM by coco.

Good for your for handling all of this so gracefully, and for being able to appreciate the thought behind it.

And good for you for living simply!

Pretty amazing story.

It's amazing isn't it the abundance that is all around us, and when we simply ask for something how much more comes to us. It's good to be able to let go, and not take more than requested or needed and to give back to others what you can't or don't use.

I have simple gifts for my grandkids this Christmas, and it's a gift they and I can play, and it's a learning game and fun, and they both get their own deck of Uno cards. I am giving to my son a set of his grandfathers cuff links, tie clips, and to my daughter in law a couple pieces of my mothers jewelry. Not even wrapped, just simply in cute used packaging. I don't have the resources I had last year, but yet the expensive toys I did give are thrown out anyway, the best thing of last year was the deep sea fishing trip and the pictures that we all made into our own albums for our memories. But last year it was fun playing Santa Clause but I think this year will be just as wonderful if not even better.

There needs to be a turn in our thinking of 'giving' to the 'needy' and who they are and what they truly need..each being different, and not always is it material goods and toys.

Merry Christmas to you Coco and family!

Love,
Prism

Coco, you are truly one of the richest women on the planet.

Much love!

inspirit - aka coolkarma

i agree with inspirit

you filthy rich woman you!

I think it takes strength to shine your individual colours when the people around you range in responce from misunderstanding to contempt. Your path although healthy is fairly rebelious due to our current consumer mentality Coco. It's natural to feel emotional when we are treated as "not normal" but ultimately its still up to us. I feel that we are going to see large shifts in peoples values in the near future and that health and green concepts are going to become normal. Your just ahead of your time

thanks guys. i feel better today.

ahead of my time eh? boy, do i Ever know that feeling! heh.

happy holly daze to you all!

we go back in time
to retrieve the mysteries of the ancients
and in doing so
we become whole

are we ahead of our times
or are we going back to the beginning
and completing the circle

coco
people are afraid of those who think circularly

the infrastructure of cities was built on lines

those presents they gave you were also very linear

do them a favor
and donate an orange a lime and a lemon to them
so they can think circularly

they sound like they could use a few bits of fruit
to knock some common sense into them
and stop giving you GI Joe plastic soldiers as "gifts'

uhh.. if they don't want the organic fruits u will donate to them
gimme ALL of them

i'll put a sign in front of my door saying "I need FRUIT! Leave those luscious cornucopias at MY DOOR!"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/25/2007 01:05AM by la_veronique.

People probably think I'm poor because I'm a sloppy dresser. I don't care how I look anymore, especially in the winter -- I just want to be warm.

I really enjoyed your post, Coco. You sound so carefree. Did you ever go on Craigslist.com. There's so much cheap stuff there.

coco, just out of curiousity, how do you make your living? Can you dress the way you want to dress at work?

ha! i'm on mat leave right now. we get a year here in canada. before that i was at the bank where i certainly couldn't dress however i wanted. i DID have my own special flair though, i don't even know how to not do that. all that stuff is in the back of the closet. dressy but slightly funky, like biting into something and saying "ooh, what IS that interesting flavour?" that's me.

lois, i haven't gone on craig's list because i don't have a car so no way to pick anything up. honestly though, i have everything i need and two awesome second hand stores in town too. the only thing i buy aside from food is crafting supplies and even those i find second hand or salvage from wrecked old clothes.
i went out the other day in such an outfit, whoo! a ridiculous getup all in the interest of being warm. that's more important to me than anything else when it's frosty out, i like toasty, it feels better than fancy anyday!

we had an awesome xmas, little was super appreciative of all he got (just enough, not too much) and my family loved the hand made goodies. there is a TON of stuff in the basement to go to charity but that's ok. i get a lot from the thrift store, i can give a lot too! it's more like a trade that way. i'll take your old junk you don't want anymore and you take mine!

ver, you're so right. not ahead of my time but behind. way, Way behind! right on. granny knew what she was up to after all.

blessings to you all.

When I read your post Coco it made me think of how out of balance our world is. In countries like the states, and where you live, we have such an excess and in other places children are dying from a lack of food and medicine and every basic need. I always hear people say there are people starving in the states but I have yet to see one. I think if they are starving it is from lack of nutrition and not lack of food. Maybe people sense the off balance and they are ignorantly trying to balance things out by overgiving to a few. I have often wondered why we can't send boxes of our excess to South Africa or somewhere like that. People feel the need to give, don't they? It is good to feel the love behind their giving.

I always brag about my second hand shopping. I am so proud to re-use and save $$ and resources. People know we are thrifty so we can save more animals and spend more $$ on things like homeschool. It is my wish to inspire people to realize materialism isn't the path to happiness by being an example. I know I come off to most people as extreme but the irony is I never feel like I am doing enough. I like this message board because when I read posts like this I feel supported and inspired and not so alone.

Yes.. its interesting how people that are into raw foods are more inclined toward all the associated life supportive practices such as environmental consciousness. It seems a common trend to recycle, compost, buy second hand and generaly be green hippies... go us !!

I swear its what will save this world.

you do have a fantastic take on everything....its inspiring

For My Health The Fruit Company Fruit Baskets

i know what you mean pakd4fun, sometimes i feel like people see me as so extreme but there are SO many areas that i'm working on improving and doing better. i'm always thinking about what i can do to use less resources and create more awareness. i don't think i'm anywhere near where i want to be. when i can stop buying ANYthing new, then i'll have it down. heh. a good place to aspire to at least.

lightform, i think the reverse is true as well. being into natural living is what attracted me to raw in the beginning. it just seems like a natural evolution no matter which end you start on. you see how terrific it feels to live more in harmony with nature and you try to do that more and more. it's amazing, the first step leads the way to the path.

ericajones, do you really use those green bags? i took a look at them, how is it that they work like that i wonder? there is a "chemical" in the bags that absorbs ethyline gas from foods they say. sounds pretty far out and interesting!

hehe that's a pretty crazy story coco. I tend to get a much milder similar reaction, but nothing to the extent that you described! I think that feeling you express is generalizable any act of being outside of the mainstream, no matter the philosophy. People like to fit into the group, being somehow concerned of what others may think. I guess everyone feels that way to some extent, perhaps we don't to such a large degree though. I think by being such a great example of being in touch with nature you will certainly open peoples' eyes to that regard, or at least plant a seed in their mind that might one day prosper.

Best wishes to all for the new year,
Jx

It's great to hear that your doing things the way you are
I must say though (and this isn't directed at anyone here or anything they have said), that I notice alot of people who live a natural lifestyle tend to have a certain odor about them. As much as we probably shouldn't care about these things, personal hygiene realy does matter. I don't think there's any excuse. I have met alot of people who don't smell they haven't bathed in weeks and who's hair looks clean. but it seems like the general view of us is that we are all dirty. Anyone else noticed this?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/01/2008 02:56AM by Seren.

Lightform Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yes.. its interesting how people that are into raw
> foods are more inclined toward all the associated
> life supportive practices such as environmental
> consciousness. It seems a common trend to recycle,
> compost, buy second hand and generaly be green
> hippies... go us !!
>
> I swear its what will save this world.

Nature is the original recycler. We are just getting in tune with her.

OMG Coco I love you. You make me feel not alone!!

I just got a brilliant lecture from my step-father in-law about how he thought we didn't get our son circumcized because we didn't have the money, and that it's "not too late" if we needed them to pay for it. Then he proceeded to tell me in explicit detail how he had to get cir'q at 24 b/c he got aroused eveywhere he went, and he didn't want our son to go through that sort of pain at 24, and blah dee blah about it getting more infected. (I mean, should we cir'q all women because sometimes we get yeast and bladder infections? I hate the infection argument.... and how people think people don't get their boy's cir'qed be/c they are just being cheap.)

-Angie

I know what you mean, coco. I got stuff for Christmas that I would never use that would just be clutter so I even threw some of it away and gave away other things.
I always get those lotions and shower gels that I would never want Anyone to use they have so much poison in them so I throw them away.

I really don't need any more stuff. What I do need is a nice place to live so that is what I choose to spend most of my income on, rent. But if I say that to my family for Christmas to just give me money for rent they won't do it. They'd rather spend the money on buying me stuff from the mall that I don't even want more of cluttering my room!
So I guess I am "poor" by conventional standards, but I can't think of anything I feel like I'm depriving myself of that money could buy anyway.
I feel like no one understands that a lot of the time.

My main priority is finding a nice stable place to live for when I have my baby in about 6 months. I am considering Ojai. It's about 30 min from Santa Barbara, Cali.
Not as expensive as the San Diego area. It's amazing how much rent varies from one area to the next!

Gee, Jamie -- it's been a long time since you were here!

How is Narz?

Congratulations on your baby! I hope you find a nice place to live soon.

Lois

Hey Lois,
It's good to see you're still here, too! I usually just lurk and only post if something is particularly interesting to me.

Narz is in Ojai now looking for a place for us to live while I stay in a spare room in my friend's place in San Diego for a few weeks.

Where are you living now? You're originally from NJ, too, right?

Oh, I'm glad you're still with Narz. I didn't want to ask directly and be nosy.

Yes, after living in NJ for 20 years, we moved here two years ago - near Charlottesville, Virginia. It's beautiful and the weather is so much better - I really like it. We have fresh clean air and delicious mountain water.

Say Hi to Narz for me.

Do you know Renee and Ryan (the Produce Guy) who moved to Hawaii a few years ago. She was from NJ also, near where I lived.

Hope it all works out for you.

Lois

oh, a little baby jamie-narz! fantabulous, congratumalations! if you would like any birthing advice i'm your girl! little princess was born at the cottage this summer all on my own. perfect, she is absolutely perfect.

one small piece of advice for you about your family, tell them now what you would like to receive as baby gifts and be specific about how you WILL throw out any crap you receive. they are going to buy you garbage baby soap and lotion and powder and diaper cream and polyester clothes and blankets and plastic toys and teethers and pacifiers and bottles etc etc. people can't seem to resist loading a new mama up with a thousand toxic items, it's unbelievable! if they're going to blow money on crap you might as well give them a list of the good stuff and tell them any other things are going straight to the thrift store. be firm girl, it's overwhelming when the well intentioned gifts start flowing (i mean Flooding) in.

i wanted to throw out all the junky body care stuff i got but i know people who use that stuff anyhow so i passed it along. it keeps it out of the landfill and keeps them from buying more so... still, it ends up in our water which also sucks large. oh well, not from my drains at least.

angie, i swear, i want to shake that guy. tell him to shut the hell up! gah. there is another forum i visit where another mama has the SAME insane relative as you, what a flipping jerk! he needs a firm reminder that he is NOT that baby's father and gets ZERO say in the matter. have you set up a will with guardianship specifications? make sure to include that under no circumstances is the proceedure to be done unless it's a medical neccessity if you have signed up that man as guardian. scary to think about but best to do it anyhow. i have to have those papers drawn up for my small people too, thankfully my sister is of the same mind as me and a willing guardian, i thank the goddess for her each day for that alone!

seren, even if i were to go three weeks without a full bath or shower i wouldn't smell bad (believe me, summers at the cottage have tested this theory), i just don't get stinky very often, only when obviously detoxing something. i have curly hair that doesn't ever look greasy and my skin is good. no one has ever though of me as "dirty", i am fastidious about keeping my clothing laundered though, i like my skin to be able to breathe well. i don't use any scented anything usually, though i like essential oils i have this small baby right now and she should be smelling only mama with no interferrance, not even that.
dirty clothes and dreadlocks are stinky, unfortunately, and somehow often go hand in hand with a back-to-nature lifestyle. that is often less about diet and more about style though and people's biased mental associations play into that. whatever, i am clean inside and out.

i give away trees to my family and friends at xmas time .. little baby trees that need to be planted in the spring .. (they get 2 if they bought a cut down xmas tree to make up for the tree killing karma lol) eeven my neices and nephews get trees and they love them lol .. they get to plant something !

coco your story is great i say just keep on passing stuff around ..

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist