May 06, 2008

Each time I drive to the dump I marvel at the thorny trees bordering the road that are all covered in plastic bags. The bags strain and flutter in the hot wind, creating an alien landscape that speaks ill of our joint stewardship of the planet. They ruffle and fluff in the wind, creating a dusty soundtrack, so I, like many others, am now trying to wean myself from accepting plastic bags.

It’s just one little habit, but it’s a doozy. I began buying those recycle bags that all the stores are offering now. Each time I bought one I congratulated myself on my forward thinking and walked out feeling silently superior to all those decadent plastic bag people. At home I emptied my groceries out, neatly folded the bags and in no time at all they had formed a multicolored heap by the door.

But each time I entered a grocery store I remembered that I had forgotten to bring the darn bags. To punish myself I bought another. I sure hope they break down faster than plastic. Eventually I put the pile of reusable bags in the car (This is Step Two). They litter the back seat like happy tourists while I drive around. Now when I entered a store I would remember that I had left them in the car. Brains are not easily rewired. To punish myself, I bought still more bags. More logos, more colors.

Pretty soon I made myself walk back to the car to fetch the bags (Step Three!).

My mental pathways are set in cement. I have had to walk back to the car to get them so often that it is embarrassing, but I can’t take on any more bags.

I think the auto designers of the future need to have a shopping bag storage place. My naughty reusable bags skitter and romp beneath packing blankets and gear in the back of my cavernous economy car. They hide from me when I return to my car looking for them, disgusted with myself and eager to get on with my chores. What this is teaching me is just how pampered and resistant to change I am.

People in other countries think nothing of taking a shopping bag along, and once I change the way I think, I hope to be among them. Still, I am humbled by my brains’ inability to make this subtle shift.

I am old enough to remember stiff  paper bags. They snapped when the bagger opened them. Groceries seemed to stack up in them like a life well lived. They were ferried from the grocery store to the car by young men in snappy outfits. (This was a long time ago in Honolulu).

We felt no guilt at all about the dark brown paper bags. We reused the paper, using it to line the bird cage. As kids, we cut bags into masks, and dropped plumeria blossoms into them from the tops of the trees when making lei. When we sent packages to the mainland we would slice the heavy bags open along the back seam and wrap things in them. I still do. The crisp brown paper was as elemental as the wind.

Now the world has changed, our footprint upon it deep and dangerous, and we as a group must try to help to lessen it. I have heard it said that small steps are the only way to get anywhere.

I walk back to the car again and again.

I can change.

Ginger Johnson