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| Power Style Wellness Connections |
The Possum Principle
By Mary Cartledgehayes
It’s a variation on the fight or flight response, and one I’m familiar with, having played
possum myself from time to time. Not this time, though. Making the world a better place
is a resolution worthy of fulfillment. I've never been a New Year's Resolution kind of
person. The energy of the holiday lies, for me, in New Year’s Eve, with its magic count-
down moments when the gray-bearded Old Year is hobbling off and the winsome New
Year is being born. Transitions intrigue me more than accomplishments.
This year, though, I’ve decided not only to make a resolution but to go public with it.
Why? Because I’ve been doing something haphazardly for the last six months, and I want
to be systematic about it in 2008. So here it is: my resolution. This year, I resolve to
make the world a better place.
Pretty good, huh? I do have a couple of qualifications to add, for clarification. In my
younger days, by “world” I generally meant the whole entire world — animals,
vegetables, and minerals; people, places, and things; deserts, oceans, and ice caps;
rock, paper, and scissors. Not any more. Now by “world” I mean a sliver of the whole, one
small place with clear boundaries where I know I can make a concrete difference. And by
“better” I don’t mean perfect; improving my little sliver of the world is sufficient.
The sliver I’ve chosen is St. Matthews Beargrass Creek Preserve Park, the little acreage
directly across Bowling Boulevard from Mall St. Matthews (not the state’s Beargrass
Creek preserve across from the zoo). I started walking there in July. Soon I was taking
photos of the flowers — Queen Anne’s lace, morning glory, native hibiscus, goldenrod,
dandelions — and studying Kentucky plant and butterfly identification guides. Those
activities led to a nature photography class through the Jefferson County Public Schools,
and to learning about invasive plant species locally, which led to reading about
mosquitoes and West Nile virus, which led to global warming, and… Well, the impact of
that first walk in the park continues to ripple.
After a few weeks, my photos of nature’s splendors expanded to include photos of
humans’ embellishments. They say if you see something you like in an antique store,
you should buy it immediately or it will be gone. The same is not true beside Beargrass
Creek. Chances are an item will not only still be there but will also have spawned
offspring. Plastic bags, for instance. They’re light-weight, and Americans throw away 100
billion of them a year, so it’s not surprising that there are more every day. But shopping
carts? Back in July, one was caught in a curve of the creek. In August, I spotted a
second one up-creek.
My resolution to make the world a better place doesn’t include a death wish, so I’m not
going to step into the creek and risk destroying plant life and/or startling a snake within
an inch of my life. And I don’t really have to, thanks to the largess of people who visit the
park and leave personal property behind in easily accessible places, like the middle of
the path. The ubiquitous plastic bags, too, are easy to reach; I’ll worry about the ones 30
feet off the ground after I finish with the ones at eye level. I don’t expect to run out.
Trash, as you may have noticed, is a renewable resource.
One week last summer, I brought home and rinsed out all of the trash I could easily
reach. Looking now into the sack in which I stored it, I find a cigarette pack, a potato chip
sack, a water bottle, a Gatorade bottle, a natural calcium drink bottle, two ice cream
sticks, a torn red plastic Hefty cup, a hamburger wrapper, a blue plastic sack (unused)
for the disposal of dog waste, a plastic binding strap, a strip of yellow caution tape, a
hunk of twine, and a plastic grocery bag. I was planning to make a collage from all of this
stuff, but with my new resolution I may open a museum instead.
Given the scope and complexity of the environmental crises, one danger is that we’ll all
succumb to the Possum Principle. The Possum Principle, which I can verify is valid
because I made it up myself, says that when we’re threatened, it’s best to freeze up and
do nothing (get it?— like a possum) instead of taking action. It’s a variation on the fight
or flight response, and one I’m familiar with, having played possum myself from time to
time.
Not this time though. Making the world a better place is a resolution worthy of fulfillment.
That doesn’t mean the park will look much different a year from now than it does today.
Plastic bags are still going to float in the wind. Shopping carts will still be set adrift.
People will still decide their drink bottles look better in the grass than in the trash can.
That’s all right. During the drought last summer, I walked across the dry creek bed to
pick up a blue plastic, 64-ounce Cuddle Soft detergent bottle and carry it to the trash
receptacle. Even though the bottle was never mine, in picking it up, I acknowledged that I
have left behind, inadvertently or not, enough trash in my fifty-odd years that I can pick
up after other people for the next 30 or 40 years and still not balance my debt.
Mary Cartledgehayes is a regular writer for Today’s Woman.
By Mary Cartledgehayes
It’s a variation on the fight or flight response, and one I’m familiar with, having played
possum myself from time to time. Not this time, though. Making the world a better place
is a resolution worthy of fulfillment. I've never been a New Year's Resolution kind of
person. The energy of the holiday lies, for me, in New Year’s Eve, with its magic count-
down moments when the gray-bearded Old Year is hobbling off and the winsome New
Year is being born. Transitions intrigue me more than accomplishments.
This year, though, I’ve decided not only to make a resolution but to go public with it.
Why? Because I’ve been doing something haphazardly for the last six months, and I want
to be systematic about it in 2008. So here it is: my resolution. This year, I resolve to
make the world a better place.
Pretty good, huh? I do have a couple of qualifications to add, for clarification. In my
younger days, by “world” I generally meant the whole entire world — animals,
vegetables, and minerals; people, places, and things; deserts, oceans, and ice caps;
rock, paper, and scissors. Not any more. Now by “world” I mean a sliver of the whole, one
small place with clear boundaries where I know I can make a concrete difference. And by
“better” I don’t mean perfect; improving my little sliver of the world is sufficient.
The sliver I’ve chosen is St. Matthews Beargrass Creek Preserve Park, the little acreage
directly across Bowling Boulevard from Mall St. Matthews (not the state’s Beargrass
Creek preserve across from the zoo). I started walking there in July. Soon I was taking
photos of the flowers — Queen Anne’s lace, morning glory, native hibiscus, goldenrod,
dandelions — and studying Kentucky plant and butterfly identification guides. Those
activities led to a nature photography class through the Jefferson County Public Schools,
and to learning about invasive plant species locally, which led to reading about
mosquitoes and West Nile virus, which led to global warming, and… Well, the impact of
that first walk in the park continues to ripple.
After a few weeks, my photos of nature’s splendors expanded to include photos of
humans’ embellishments. They say if you see something you like in an antique store,
you should buy it immediately or it will be gone. The same is not true beside Beargrass
Creek. Chances are an item will not only still be there but will also have spawned
offspring. Plastic bags, for instance. They’re light-weight, and Americans throw away 100
billion of them a year, so it’s not surprising that there are more every day. But shopping
carts? Back in July, one was caught in a curve of the creek. In August, I spotted a
second one up-creek.
My resolution to make the world a better place doesn’t include a death wish, so I’m not
going to step into the creek and risk destroying plant life and/or startling a snake within
an inch of my life. And I don’t really have to, thanks to the largess of people who visit the
park and leave personal property behind in easily accessible places, like the middle of
the path. The ubiquitous plastic bags, too, are easy to reach; I’ll worry about the ones 30
feet off the ground after I finish with the ones at eye level. I don’t expect to run out.
Trash, as you may have noticed, is a renewable resource.
One week last summer, I brought home and rinsed out all of the trash I could easily
reach. Looking now into the sack in which I stored it, I find a cigarette pack, a potato chip
sack, a water bottle, a Gatorade bottle, a natural calcium drink bottle, two ice cream
sticks, a torn red plastic Hefty cup, a hamburger wrapper, a blue plastic sack (unused)
for the disposal of dog waste, a plastic binding strap, a strip of yellow caution tape, a
hunk of twine, and a plastic grocery bag. I was planning to make a collage from all of this
stuff, but with my new resolution I may open a museum instead.
Given the scope and complexity of the environmental crises, one danger is that we’ll all
succumb to the Possum Principle. The Possum Principle, which I can verify is valid
because I made it up myself, says that when we’re threatened, it’s best to freeze up and
do nothing (get it?— like a possum) instead of taking action. It’s a variation on the fight
or flight response, and one I’m familiar with, having played possum myself from time to
time.
Not this time though. Making the world a better place is a resolution worthy of fulfillment.
That doesn’t mean the park will look much different a year from now than it does today.
Plastic bags are still going to float in the wind. Shopping carts will still be set adrift.
People will still decide their drink bottles look better in the grass than in the trash can.
That’s all right. During the drought last summer, I walked across the dry creek bed to
pick up a blue plastic, 64-ounce Cuddle Soft detergent bottle and carry it to the trash
receptacle. Even though the bottle was never mine, in picking it up, I acknowledged that I
have left behind, inadvertently or not, enough trash in my fifty-odd years that I can pick
up after other people for the next 30 or 40 years and still not balance my debt.
Mary Cartledgehayes is a regular writer for Today’s Woman.