Ownership is Burden

When I was younger, my grandparents would tell me sayings in German, in all their long full guttural twists and turns. I either promptly forgot the German words all together or made up some crazy personal version of the saying that usually translated to a phrase such as: "all small cows drink blue trees" or something of that nonsensical vein. For that reason, I decided not to even attempt the German version of the saying "ownership is burden." Of all the pearls of German wisdom dropped on my ears as a child, that was the one that stuck with me most strongly. Especially in our modern era of owner's manuals, one million features, planned obsolescence, and digital overload, it is just plain _hard_ to take care of all of the things that we buy. In my estimation, avoiding new ownership burdens was one of the best parts of not buying anything for a year. Unfortunately, we have not been able to escape even this pleasure thanks to the "free" bookstore of Baltimore. Take all the books you want and you don't have to leave a penny. In fact, the Bookthing would prefer that you leave nothing and take much. Be greedy! signs urge browsers among the stacks. Greedy I was, as I built my American feminism bookshelf, dabbled in French plays, amassed a collection of Dover Thrift editions, and bombarded the house with various other bits and pieces of literature and non-fiction. Faced with a move of 1000 miles, the prospect of moving 1000 books along with it is daunting. We could give all the books back to Bookthing, but they have been carefully gleaned, and it is hard to divest yourself of the sentiment that you may read each and every one of John Updike's novels someday. If I could accurately translate phrases from English into German, I would say to my grandparents: "Even things freely acquired bring burdens in the end!"

The best gift is a piece of oneself

What is it good for?

Recently, as in the last month, I have been lax on No-Buying rules. So much so that I decided to call June the month of Greatly Reduced Buy. I have my reasons and rationalizations (vacations, celebrating the end of teaching, no buy fatigue) but deep down I know that it is laziness and self-indulgence that have caught up with me lately. Therefore, beginning July 1st, I rededicate myself to this project, to thinking deeply about the connections between consumerism and personal/environmental/social well-being, and to pushing myself to plan ahead even when I am tired and just want to give in to the ease of buying. As a beginning to our redoubled efforts, Owen and I went on a cooking blitz yesterday, making 15 bean soup, brown rice for the week, and a loaf of prune/chocolate bread. Baking bread has been one of the great joys and new discoveries of the past six months. For that reason, I proudly present a picture of our very first successful loaf from this January. Behold the culinary masterpiece.

Transgressions

As an officially retired Baltimore City school teacher (crying tears of joy), I plan on blogging on a near daily basis about the no-buying adventure. But first, let's clear the air. There have been some transgressions on my part, and Owen's part that we feel the need to discuss. At the beginning of this project, the term necessity was nebulously defined at best, which has led to occasions when we play loose and fast with the rules. For example, does grocery store purchasing allow for impulse buys? Twice this year, I have decided to go to the Aldi (German discount grocery store) close to my school and buy flavored water, yogurt, and cheddar cheese rice cakes for lunch. Is that allowed under the purview of no-buy? It's unclear. On the one hand, those things are grocery items, some might call them staples, and they were purchased at a discount food retailer. On the other hand, they were not premeditated, and they were in small, single serving sizes (i.e. not bulk grocery store purchases). I'm not sure that this koan has an answer, nor that I am particularly looking for one, but this grocery store dilemma is just one of many situations that we have bumped into along the way. It doesn't exactly make me feel guilty to list the rest of our "questionable acts" and I don't need to be absolved, but I do it just to show everyone that we have struggled and given into temptations and twisting of logic. Here is a detailing of our lapses in no-buy purposely written without names to avoid blaming the innocent:
all vacations: Paris, Chicago, Eastern Shore, Portland
BWI: Mama Illardo's pizza
Houston-Hobby: Wendy's Frostee and beer
Aldi: rice cakes, Reese's Pieces, yogurt, flavored water
Urban Outfitter's in Chicago: $2 shirt (in lieu of coffee)
work:stealing from the office coffee fund to buy a Dr. Pepper
Eve: nine and five course meal with drinks
last week of school: drinks and bar food

There you have all of our transgressions. We sincerely hope that you still love us.

The non-issue issue

When we decided to do this year of no-buy Owen and I were both concerned that it would take a
lot of effort and will power to follow through. Surprisingly, this resolution has been a large non-issue for us. I'm not sure if it is because of the general hustle of this year or because if non-consumption just genuinely does not push us. Whatever the reasons, the first third of the year has passed in relative calm with few shopping and desire pangs.