The weather in Maine has been wet, gray and cool almost all summer. So, we’re taking advantage of some sunny days at the end of summer. Because my kids are home-schooled, they’re not forced to sit inside and look longingly out at the great weather. Instead, we’re heading to the mountains to stock up on some sun and fun before the leaf-peepers hog all the motel rooms.
We’ll be back in early September. Until then, be kind to the earth and to each other.
Shine On,
Lill
My maternal ancestors came from England and settled on Cape Cod in Massachusetts in the early 1700’s. It wasn’t long before they were moving north and west, first to the Deerfield, Massachusetts area, then to New Hampshire and Vermont. A generation later, they were spread out all over the country from New England to the California goldfields. The reason for this was two-fold: genetic wanderlust and a desire to live private lives apart from their fellow humans.
In an old letter, one of my ancestors writes to his sister back East that he’s moving, because - not only can he see the smoke from his neighbor’s chimney - but he can also smell it and hear his neighbor calling his pigs. “There is no peace for me here,” he writes, “Not a week goes by but what someone “drops in” and many days we see at least one traveler pass by on horseback or wagon. There have been weeks when we’re afflicted with visitors on two out of seven days and I have to retire to the woodlot to avoid them.”
While I’m not quite as antisocial as my (however many)-great uncle, I can sympathize. I’ve inherited the need for solitude. Although I’ve lived in cities, towns and suburbs, I’m not comfortable living where I’m overlooking my neighbor’s living rooms and they’re overlooking mine. When I look out my window, I want to see trees, plants and sky, not people.
This is something I think of when my friends and family are rhapsodizing over eco-communities designed around a common, with houses cheek by jowl to spare the environment and enhance community participation. It all sounds wonderful until I start to think about how I’d be surrounded by people from the time I woke up until the time I went to bed. I’m just not made that way.
As a homeschooling mother, I’ve learned to adapt to more social interaction that I was used to before the kids joined us. I love my kids and really enjoy being around them, playing and working with them or just hanging out with them on the deck, in the backyard or at the dining table. However, I also make sure that I have enough downtime without them for my sake and theirs. Luckily, I have kids who also need time alone, so it’s rarely an issue.
Where other people get energized from being in social situations, I get tired. Rather than charging my “batteries”, other people seem to drain them. Even when I have a good time and really enjoy gatherings of more than a few people, I need time to recover my equilibrium and process the experience before I’m fit company again. This is why it’s a good thing that our house is surrounded by woods and fields where we can walk without bumping into anything more sociable than a raven or squirrel.
So, when we’re all living in ecologically sustainable communities, where will people like me fit in? I suspect that it will be considered terribly politically incorrect to have a little cabin off by ourselves or a yurt up in the mountains. Maybe we’ll have to pay extra to make up for the damage our “singular” lifestyles do to the environment. Or, maybe, hermits will be outlawed and we’ll have to shut ourselves in the bathroom to get away like homeschooling moms have been doing for years.
I’ve admitted before that I drive an SUV. Odd choice for a person who advocates going green. However, where I live dictates that I have to drive a 4WD vehicle. What I paid for my 2001 Dodge Durango dictates that I have to pay it off before I can buy something more efficient and eco-friendly. Until then, I try to keep my trips to a minimum and do what I can in other areas to help the environment.
When I can afford it, I intend to buy a small, fuel-efficient car, maybe even an alternative energy powered vehicle. At any rate, my next vehicle will be much smaller than the one I have now, and if I can sell my house, I’ll be living somewhere close enough to town so that I don’t have to drive most of the time. Since my house and acreage isn’t exactly the residence of choice for Mr. and Mrs. Homebuyer right now, moving might be far in the future.
So, if I stay here, I’ll be driving my little car into the city on narrow roads which also host huge log trucks, SUVs and pickups the size of mobile homes, oil delivery trucks, UPS vans, dump trucks and snow plows. Maine roads are a scary place to drive a small car. As are highways almost anywhere in the US, because we share them with trailer trucks, buses and delivery trucks.
In other parts of the world, there are truck lanes which are separated from car lanes by a real barrier. I doubt very much that there’s a chance of the US adopting that approach, but I think it’s a great idea. So are bike lanes. Almost every time I drive down the main route that leads to the city, I have to almost stop because someone is riding a bike in the travel lane, because there’s no other place to ride it.
I’m totally in agreement that bikes are a great mode of transportation, but I wouldn’t ride one in this part of Maine if you paid me to. True, by law, they have just as much right to be on the road as cars do. Unfortunately, the reality is that this isn’t going to protect you as you ride in the inside lane that isn’t wide enough for your bike and a car. When both lanes have cars in them, there’s no way they can pass you without hitting your bike. This leads to many near-accidents and sometimes a bicyclist’s injury or even death.
My point in all this, is that we don’t just need more fuel-efficient cars and alternative modes of transportation. We need the infrastructure to support them and encourage more people to adopt them. If there were bike lanes, more people would choose to ride their bikes to work, school and for errands. If trucks and buses were separated from cars on the highway, small cars would be a safer option for new vehicle buyers. If every road had sidewalks - something that very few rural roads have around here - more people would walk, which is the best way to get from one place to the other.
