Every time we move, we purge things from our stash. Yet every time we move, we fill up the basement with tubs and boxes of items that can’t bare to be thrown away: camping gear we may yet use, trinkets from the past that trigger memories we don’t want to lose, specialty tape, hardware and odd bits that we may just need at some point after all. Sometimes we throw away things and regret it, sooner but usually later. How many times have we decided we don’t need the deep frier, only to buy another on a whim a year later when a fish fry is the only thing that will do? And how may times have we bought something, when its twin lays unremembered in a box stacked somewhere out of the way (I’m looking at you, pancake griddle.) Pete has been bringing up a load from Iowa every weekend for the past two months, and I have been horrified as all the extra available space in this little house has slowly been filling up with the things we apparently cannot part with. There have been several trips to goodwill, and there will be more. I wrote about my own uneasy relationship with moving and purging here, on the other side of our big move from Alaska to the lower 48 in 2012.
This summer, I am struggling to wrap my mind around a new kind of waste. This one is born of cooking for two people for the last ten years, and suddenly finding myself shopping and cooking for one for most of the week. Already prone to cook too much for the two of us, I am now finding myself (no thanks to the CSA, among other things) with far too much food on hand. And especially in the heat of the summer, that food tends to go bad and quickly. I am slightly mollified knowing that the waste is at least going into the city composing program and isn’t contributing to the landfills, and yet the fact that I am contributing so much at all does not sit well with my soul. How can I buy less, so that less will go bad? How can I cook for one responsibly? Especially as I try to balance a new nutrition program that I only stick to half the time (buy chicken and broccoli, get sick of chicken and broccoli, throw bad chicken and broccoli out, feel guilty, resolve to do better, rinse, repeat) this new normal is not working for me.
Although I talk a good game about trying to be intentional in my life, I am beginning to think that I need to start acting with much more intention when it comes to the food that I bring into my home and the food waste that goes out of it. Being food-rich is something that I am loathe to take for granted, but I find myself taking it for granted anyway. I need to begin to treasure each meal, each component of each meal, and do so with more discipline and attention to detail than I have to this point. I need to be grateful, each day, that I have enough food on my table, and endeavor to be sure that it is just enough, and no more.
Moderation in all things. Amen.
entelechyproject 