Simple Things

When I was a young girl, we had the greatest swim teacher ever. As swim teachers and swim lessons go – we had had bad luck – or maybe it was that we were particular. Although I doubt we were that picky – my siblings and I have several horror stories! From her position on the deck at the side of the pool, one teacher actually pushed my head back under with her foot as I was clutching the side and trying to climb out. Either way, after many tears and missed lessons, my mom found Susan. She was wonderful. We responded so well that she became a regular at our home – even after we became “pool safe”, Susan was hired every summer to teach us the technicalities of swim strokes.

Susan was the best and she became fast friends with my family. Firstly, unlike many of our past teachers, she was young. She had a great sense of humor and was very down to earth. She always wore her very serious, red lifeguard swimsuit. And she drove a VW bug – we could hear it coming for a mile and would run to the driveway and wait eagerly for her arrival. Susan lived quite far away from our house – almost a 2 hour drive. She lived in a rural area and would often describe her family’s farm and orchard to us. I wanted to visit, imagining a lush farm with a red barn and beautiful, flat orchards full of tall grasses and wildflowers with chickens and goats roaming behind white fences.

One day, we found out that we were actually going to spend time at Susan’s home. We children were invited for the weekend. My mother drove us to the house on Friday. I watched the landscape fly by the whole trip. I was a little dismayed that the land grew drier and more brown as we traveled to our destination. I couldn’t imagine a farm with all of the trees and vegetables that Susan spoke about actually growing on such dry soil. As it goes, my romantic vision of the farm and orchards was exactly that – romantic. The trip however, was a blast.

So many of the things that I did and learned that weekend, I still remember fondly today. When we arrived on Friday, we immediately went out to play. When Susan’s mother had made dinner, we were invited in to clean up and pick out our napkin for the day. That was such a new idea for us, my mother used paper napkins and that is what we reached for when we needed a quick clean up. Each day that we were at Susan’s house, every morning her mother held out a beautiful basket full of clean, folded napkins, all different patterns and colors. It was fun making a choice and then using the napkin at our place setting for the day.

It was a magical weekend. We saw all the animals, played with the dogs and cats, picked fresh tomatoes and made salsa with a handcranked mill, picked peaches from the orchard and baked a fresh peach cobbler.

Several months ago, I was trying to think of new ways to be green as well as “fun”. I figure the fun part will help the kids (and my husband) get excited about doing things differently. I realized that the paper napkins I purchase at our local warehouse store probably weren’t the greenest choice. Not only did each person in our family get one napkin for each meal – that’s 10 napkins per day – we were grabbing them for quick cleanups and to wipe small spills. I went to a local discount store and bought fun cloth napkins on clearance.

Every day, my children get to pick out a cloth napkin and it is theirs for the day. They love to choose from the fun patterns and colors and each has their favorites.

I managed to keep in contact with Susan until about 8 years ago. I’ve lost touch with her, but she and her family have touched my life. They lived a simple, but beautiful life. As I try to find new ways to live a greener lifestyle, I find that by looking toward the simpler things, I always find the answer I need.

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