I was at the grocery store the other day and thought it would be nice to get a couple of tomatoes. My options were tomatoes from France, Mexico and Canada. But not from Florida, even though they are in season. I contemplated the “vine-ripe” grocery store tomatoes, but they were too hard to end up in a salad that night. So, I made a detour to a family farm stand and got what I needed and wanted.
Tomorrow is trash day. Like the rest of my neighbors, I will put the household garbage out by the curb first thing in the morning. Sometime between late morning and early afternoon a truck will rumble by and whoosh – all my trash will go away. But in my heart of hearts, I know it will not go away. There is no “away”. That trash is going to travel about 10 miles east and get buried. I have had enough family die to know the meaning of ashes to ashes and dust to dust. I also know enough science and pathology t
Every product we use, be it a ball point pen, a Teddy Bear, or a sandwich, has 3 life stories. First is the story we do not think about. The second is the story we relegate and delegate, and the third life story is the one we do not care about. Three life stories that are so much out of sight and out of mind that we are neither conscious of nor curious about their existence much less our role in shaping the lifeways of the commodities we need or want or desire. And therein lies the rub.