Stories...

Stories influence the world as we see it -- knowing the story of my family helps me to understand why I do certain things the way that I do. Knowing my father's story of growing up in relative financial instability, I watched him as - even as our financial situation became increasingly secure - he paid attention to money. Early in their marriage, my parents lived in a cabin with no running water and no electricity. To this day they proclaim that it was one of the happiest times of their lives. Their tremendous respect for the earth is part of their story, and it has had an impact on our physical world as a family. When my husband and I first moved in together, he watched in amazement (and occasional exasperation) as I fished "perfectly good" aluminum foil out of the trash, avoided food waste by eating leftovers for breakfast, cleaned things using only baking soda and vinegar, and refused to buy individually packaged anything because I can still hear my mother's voice at the grocery store when we would beg for juice boxes: "That's too much trash." Like most kids, I thought my parents were normal at first and then when I discovered that other people's clean clothes smelled like Morning Dew and that they ate Fun Fruits for snacks I was furious with them for depriving me of the marvels of modernity. "Too many chemicals" was not super persuasive to my 8-year-old self.

So much of this comes from how my parents have told us the story of the world around us. My father took us on a family field trip to see one of the last living Elms on the North Shore, my mother squeals with excitement when she sees bats flying around the dusk sky -- they have crafted a narrative that puts the natural world in a place of preeminence in our navigation of our lives.