Dear Grandma,
Today is day one of a year-long journey I have decided to embark on, and I need your help. I want to learn to live a life that is more sustainable and simple. Although I have made some pretty significant changes toward simplifying my life, I know I have a lot more to learn about living a sustainable or “green” lifestyle. I often think of you when I contemplate these two topics. I wonder, “How did Grandma store her leftovers without all of this disposable plastic stuff?” “Did Grandma toss all of her food scraps in the trash or did she compost?” “How did Grandma and Grandpa manage with one car?” “How did Grandma live without sippy cups for her kids?!” You probably did not have to struggle to answer these questions, because there was likely only one way of doing things. My hunch is that this “one way of doing things” was far more sustainable and simple than the way I do things now - albeit with a little more elbow grease involved! A few weeks ago the kids and I were driving to the YMCA and my mind wandered back to the issues of sustainability and simplicity. Feeling somewhat exasperated, I found myself wondering, “Did Grandma ever shove her kids in the car to drive to a big building to plug into a machine to watch TV and go for a run?!” And I had an epiphany as I drove in circles looking for a parking place - the answer was no because “MY GRANDMA WAS GREEN!”
Of course you did not drive to the local gym to workout, because you walked everywhere and worked in the garden and on the farm! And you did not throw much of anything away after only one use, because you determined quality by how many times something could be used over and over again! And you did not drive all over the place for a million separate activities and errands, because you only had one car (I also think this is part of the reason you did not need any sippy cups but I will save that musing for another day)! So, no, you weren’t actually green - but then again it all depends on how you define the word green. When I give it a second thought, I think you probably were green after all! I got extremely excited when I made this link because it means I have a “green” history. Although I like to be creative and original, I see no reason to reinvent the wheel if someone already knows how to do something well. And despite all of the great information available on living more sustainably and simply, I think your generation probably has a lot to teach my generation about these subjects. Who needs another book when you’ve got Grandma?! You may have used different words such as frugal or conservative, but it was all the same - you lived a simple, green life!
And this brings me back to why I wrote this letter in the first place. I want you to teach me about sustainability and simplicity. And I want to try to live what you teach me, recording my experiences along the way on my new website called www.mygrandmawasgreen.com. I thought it would be fun to spend time interviewing you in order to unearth the actions and attitudes from your generation that fit the criteria of sustainable and simple living. And so today is the first official day of my “Grandma Project” as I like to call it. However, before I take time to interview you, I am going to spend the next couple of weeks observing my own life in order to figure out what it is I think I will need to change to live more like you once did. I suspect I will have a million and one questions to ask you at the end of those 2 weeks! So let’s set a date for when I can interview you so you can begin to pass on all of your simple, “green” knowledge. I know you will have a lot to say, and I am ready to learn - so long as I do not have to give up homemade guacamole from imported avocados!
Love,
April
P.S. To all who have taken a moment to read my first post, I composed this letter with my dad’s mother in mind. I always referred to her as my “Grandma Pickies” because my Grandpa’s face was full of “pickies” that you could not miss when you gave him a kiss. My family and I lived with my Grandma and Grandpa Pickies for three and a half years when I was a young girl. At the time, they had a working farm with chickens and cows and a wonderful pond we used for swimming and ice skating, along with an amazing sledding hill. When we moved out of my grandparents’ house, we moved into a new home that was essentially right “next door”. Consequently, my Grandma and Grandpa Pickies loom large in my childhood memories. Unfortunately, my Grandma passed away on December 16, 2006. This letter was written in her memory. I miss you Grandma!
At my high school graduation in 1992 with my Grandma Pickies and her mom, my Great Grandma Saleski.
“This is what my Grandma Swinford did to wash clothes. First you buy a huge black pot, the kind you see in movies that witches use to make their brew, and you set it in the back yard. You put wood for a fire around it and boil a huge pot of water in which to wash clothes. You use a “scrub board” for the more tough clothes. There was something about lye soap, too. And then hang the clothes on the line like in the picture.” A comment from John to What Would Grandma Do?
