Tag Archives: Peterborough

The Three Rs: Reading, Writing, and Re-charging

This summer, I took the longest sustained pause since completing my PhD. I knew I needed a break, but my time kept getting eroded. I decided a year ago to safeguard this summer to recharge, and also to focus on my non-academic writing. With caring for aging parents, and then launching right into the PhD, life had been taking priority over the creative work for more than a decade. Six manuscripts had been parked that I wanted to get back to. I brought three with me on retreat, knowing that my writing focus tends to change with the weather.

It rained six days out of seven quite consistently, sometimes with violent wind, thunder and lightning; so while not a good summer for painting and outdoor cottage repairs, it proved very productive in terms of one of my writing projects. A poetry manuscript that I’ve been working on for a while, but hadn’t figured out how to bring together, is now nearing completion. And it feels so good! It’s like taking back a vital part of my self that’s been lying fallow for far too long. It’s not that I haven’t been writing, but I find that academic writing just doesn’t allow for the same level of free-thinking creativity; it just doesn’t offer the same buzz. And for me, creative work requires quality time that also supports the energy required.

Doe on the front lawn looks into the cottage to watch me knit

I took my writing retreat at the family cottage, a log cabin in the woods on a lake north of Peterborough. I was there for nearly six weeks, which proved to be an optimal amount of time. It was long enough to get good work done, but by the end, I was ready to come home. I also got some fun reading done; I caught up on almost a year’s worth of National Geographic, and read five novels, four of them YA fare. I knitted most of a sweater, noting my long association of writing with knitting. And in spite of the weather, I got out on the lake in my kayak several times.

Sitting on the front lawn, you can see and hear all kinds of birds: ospreys, blue jays, chickadees, scarlet tanagers, hummingbirds, herons, loons, ducks, geese, wild turkeys, crows (few things in nature sound as goofy as an adolescent crow), and woodpeckers. The woods are also full of animals: black and red squirrels, chipmunks, racoons, porcupines, groundhogs, fox, and deer. It’s amazing to see them in the wild, but they tend to disappear on weekends when more people are around and the lake gets noisy.

Pileated Woodpecker’s snack

It’s quiet there. So quiet, that I sleep heavily through the night. So quiet, that you can hear insects, and when a Phoebe snatches one from the air, you can hear her beak snapping shut. The air sometimes has sweet undertones. Sunsets provide amazing light shows, and then the night is truly dark and still.

I feel well rested, relaxed, and more like myself than I have for a really long time. As with all holidays, one tries to hang onto that feeling for as long as possible. I’m back in Toronto, with the teaching term starting, but I’ve scheduled regular writing time, hoping to move forward with some other projects that’ve been on hold. I’ll let you know when I get a publisher lined up!

 

©Catherine Jenkins 2017 all rights reserved

Old Friends and New Transit

This is my update for Marpril (March and April), even if that does sound like an Agatha Christie heroine. It was an overly busy winter and between an out-of-town reading, researching and writing two articles for peer review, teaching five classes—oh, and trying to write my PhD dissertation—I kind of ran out of time to post anything in March. So this post, on the last day of April, will have to do double duty.

On March 10, I was in Ottawa. I was invited to read at the Carleton University Art Gallery for an event celebrating the work of Dennis Tourbin. I was flown in, put up at a hotel overnight, flown home, and paid a reading fee. Poets don’t usually get treated like that. I felt like a rock star.

The flight left from the Toronto island airport. Calculating transit and the half-hour buffer requested by the airline, I figured that leaving 90 minutes to travel the maybe 40 minutes to the airport, was ample. The subway, which had been closed for signal upgrades the previous weekend (I was travelling on a Monday morning) moved painfully slowly down the University line. I waited 20 minutes for the airport shuttle that runs every 15 minutes. I waited 15 minutes for the airport ferry. I arrived at the island airport as my flight was gunning down the runway. For the first time in my life, I actually missed a flight. They readily re-booked me, and another passenger, on the next flight to Ottawa. But seriously, there’s no way it should take 90 minutes to get from the Annex to the island. That’s longer than it takes me to get to Pearson International airport. It just shows how truly broken Toronto transit is.

My old friend Michael Dennis picked me up in Ottawa. When I hadn’t arrived as expected, he wondered if we’d missed each other, if we’d failed to recognize each other after so many years. But in fact, we recognized each other instantly. He drove me back to Kirsti and his house where we spent the afternoon talking. Their house is full of art. It made me realize that I need to get the art back up on my walls. I took it down to repaint a couple of years ago and still haven’t gotten around to putting most of it back up. I realize that this is part of why I feel somewhat dislocated these days. We picked up Kirsti from work and went for dinner, then on to the main event.

More than fifty people packed into a gallery full of Dennis’s work. I got to see folks I hadn’t seen in decades, folks from Ottawa and from Peterborough too. There was John and Terri and Billy the K, Grant and Rob, Gilles and Larry. I was only in Ottawa overnight, so wasn’t able to see Peter or Sandra or Stuart, but so happy to see the people I did see.

I hadn’t done a reading in a while, and it felt good. Mostly, I read Dennis’s work, adding a couple of my own poems about his death. Being there, reading that work, to a largely familiar audience, was incredibly moving. I was also humbled that Nadia, Dennis’s wife, enjoyed what I did and said that my reading of Dennis’s work gave her chills. That got me thinking about how we are, in sometimes unexpected ways, products of our mentors. I learned cadence and a lot more from Dennis, embodied it without realizing. I felt privileged to be part of this event. Thankful to Dennis for pulling us all together once again; he always did have that kind of magnetism, that light, that pulled people together, that ignited the room with joy. In addition to the artwork and the words, he also left behind a strong sense of community. Thank you.

Waiting to hear about the two articles I submitted. Just received proof pages for a peer-reviewed book chapter being published this fall. More on those happenings as news comes available. As of this morning, I’ve finished this term’s classes, grades are in, and I can relax about teaching for a while. I’m presenting at three conferences in May, two in Toronto and one a day-trip to St Catharines. Mostly, I’ll refocus on the dissertation over the next few months. Some events in the offing for late summer, but if I tell you now, it’ll spoil the fun.

© Catherine Jenkins 2014 all rights reserved

One Mind Band Reunion!

“We’re getting the band back together. Really.” That was the message I got from Ian in April. (Where would we be without The Blues Brothers and Face Book?) One Mind hadn’t played together in (gulp) 28 years! A gig was booked at the Hunter Street Caribbean Festival, a Jamaica Self-Help fundraiser in Peterborough, and most of the other band members had already been tracked down; some of the guys were travelling from Bermuda and Calgary, as well as Peterborough and Toronto. In spite of a certain trepidation (When was the last time I played on stage? When was the last time I even played?) I jumped at the chance. The idea was to keep it simple, make it fun. Dub-reggae with two basses was definitely going to be fun!

Ian and me together gives a whole new meaning to double bass. Rob on the kit in the background. Special thank to Loren.

Ian and me together gives a whole new meaning to double bass. Rob on the kit in the background. Special thank to Loren for most of these photos!

I’ve been a closeted musician for years now, essentially since I left Peterborough. With the impending gig, I pulled out my bass and my flute, and started trying to sing again. I discovered that I’d forgotten how to tune a guitar. My fingers were stiff and clumsy, with nothing of the speed I remembered having. To my surprise, I got sound out of my flute on the first try! I practiced a little each day and everything started to come back, kind of like opening the lid on a past life.

 

With eight of us scattered across Canada and beyond, the reunion proved to be a positive test of technology. Ian posted a bunch of old songs online, and after I figured out how to digitize my wonky old cassette tapes, I posted a few more. We’d never written anything down; it was all done by ear, so having and sharing the recordings was essential. We voted on our favourites and came up with a set list. Old-school reggae never gets old and Chet’s poetry is still surprisingly relevant. While it’s good that the words aren’t particularly dated, it shows how few social injustices and inequalities have been addressed in all this time.

Chet on lead vocals at the Toronto gig.

Chet on lead vocals at the Toronto gig. Parts of John and Rob in the background.

The week before the gig, those of us in Toronto got together for a half-band practice. Ian and I doubled up on bass, with me also doing a bit of flute and vocals, and Ian sometimes playing with percussion toys. Rico pulled out his percussion instruments, and John, who’d just flown in from Bermuda with some rum, supplied guitar chops. And yeah, we did practice, but some of us hadn’t seen each other in decades, so it was also a chance to catch up on life. Then we trekked up to Peterborough to join the rest of the band for two more rehearsals. Rob, the only one of us still gigging regularly, has been playing guitar with Dub Trinity, a fabulous Peterborough-based ska band. Chet, our intrepid lead vocalist, has recorded four CDs in the last few years, continuing to write politically charged lyrics addressing existing and new political situations. Tim, joining Rico on percussion, flew in from Calgary, and so did David, complete with his keyboard in a substantial travel case. (There was some conjecture that perhaps some of the smaller band members, i.e., me, might be transported safely to out-of-country gigs in a such a travel case.) Rob negotiated rehearsal space for us at Artspace and the set came together surprisingly smoothly.

August 1, I came in from the cottage early to check out my old stomping ground of Peterborough. They’d closed the street between George and Water for the Festival, making way for vendor and food tents, as well as the stage, and people were beginning to drift in. The guys started to arrive, several with partners and kids. There was entertainment throughout the late afternoon and evening, with One Mind taking the stage at 7:45.

Me belting out lead vocals on one number. David on keys.

Me belting out lead vocals on one number. David on keys.

Was it perfect? Well, no. Was it fun? Hell yeah!! We had a great time and had overwhelmingly positive feedback. We saw people we hadn’t seen in decades. Part of the magic of reggae is that even when the message is critical, the music makes you move. A cluster of little kids danced in front of the stage and Ian’s Mum, in her 80s, was there, dancing and smoking in front of her chair, a little smile on her face. When I tried to introduce myself to her later, she said, “I know exactly who you are!” She actually remembered me, which was a surprise. Dub Trinity came on right after us, so Rob immediately switched from the drum kit to his guitar, something he said was a bit of a relief. We get used to doing what we’re doing now and it’s challenging to try something one hasn’t done in a long time. Eventually, we all ended up at Rob and Sarah’s seated around the table in their backyard, talking well into the night.

The next day, we all made our way to Toronto, for the second, more intimate gig, in Patti’s garage. Rico and his partner William hosted another barbeque (the first was at Rob and Sarah’s on one of the rehearsal nights) and so, yeah, we were definitely running on Caribbean time for set up! It was a smaller audience, again with some family, some folks who drove down from Peterborough and some Toronto friends.

Left to right, me, Ian, Rico and Tim at the Toronto gig.

From left to right, me, Ian, Rico and Tim at the Toronto gig.

 

Rico’s Mum commented afterwards: “What a wonderful group of people you all are and you all looked happy playing music. You are all good people and good friends.” No one wanted it to end, the goodbyes hanging on. People said their goodnights, but only made it as far as the walkway. I kept thinking of the little character at the end of Just for Laughs who cries, “Mommy, it’s over!”

I woke up at five the next morning, around the time a couple of the guys would’ve been leaving for the airport to head to their respective homes. One Mind indeed. And now I’ve had a couple weeks to reflect on something so special that it’s difficult to articulate. As Rob noted, there wasn’t any of the “back in the good old days” which sometimes pervades reunions; maybe because we’re all feeling pretty happy in our lives, “these are the good old days” (to quote Carly Simon). When Tim told me “You look exactly the same!” I said thanks, then suggested that he’d better not look too closely, but essentially, we do all look pretty much the same—except for Rico, who looks even better! David noted that none of us have gained weight; in fact, in spite of a few accidents, a couple considerably more catastrophic than mine last fall, we’re all in pretty good shape.

From left to right, John, Chet, David, Rico and Rob enjoying the barbeque before the Toronto gig.

From left to right, John, Chet, David, Rico and Rob enjoying the barbeque before the Toronto gig.

I love these guys. I feel really fortunate to have been part of this band, then and now. This feels like a reconnection, a lost link regained. Amazing how quickly the connections come back together, how fast we were back in synch; only a couple of full band rehearsals and we were reading each other like old paperbacks. This is the way people play together, through the transmission of body cues, even if most of us haven’t played with anyone in years. And getting back together again supercharged a creative energy in me that had been running kind of low. After trying for several years, I’m finally back into the music. It revealed some things to me about my youth, about how, in spite of some external criticisms, I was on a positive path. We’ve all made it to middle age with most of our youthful ideals, ethics and humour intact. I mean sure, we’ve grown up, most are happily partnered, some with kids, most have bought houses and cars, and some have lost parents, but all of us seem to have settled into lives we enjoy, doing things we value and feel positively about. There’s no sense of resignation common to middle age, no jaded cynicism. And when we play, it’s like we’re twenty-something again, with that same spirit and energy. If we’ve made it through to the middle years with our youthful hearts intact, I think we’ve got a good shot at making it into old age the same way; I think we’ll help keep each other young in all the right ways.

It was fun before, but it feels like so much more fun now. A reunion of something so positive and affirming, that no one wanted it to end. And it won’t. We’ve been sharing photos, videos and sound recordings of the gigs online (links coming!). There’s already talk about another reunion again soon, maybe in Calgary or Bermuda, where some of the other band members live. There’s talk of not waiting another 30 years until next time, or there won’t be room onstage for all eight of us with our walkers.

Thank you all. Blessed be. Safe journeys (“life is a journey”). One Love.

Me and the boys after the Toronto gig.

Me and the boys after the Toronto gig.

© Catherine Jenkins, 2013

Ode to a Mentor

I met Dennis Tourbin when I was nine years old. He and his then-wife, artist Denise Ireland, bought S.S. No. 8, the schoolhouse my Mum had attended, and when the For Sale sign came down, my mother had to see who’d moved into “her” schoolhouse. My parents liked this young artist couple, and regularly stopped en route to the cottage to visit. My parents had met each other at an Arts and Letters Club art class and my recently retired Dad was interested in the Bohemian lifestyle he’d never actually tried. He even grew a goatee. Those early days weren’t easy for Dennis and Denise; to make ends meet, she worked at a dress shop in Brookdale Plaza and Dennis pumped gas.

I remember Dennis coming to the cottage. My nine-year-old self trying to impress the adults with my best Jacques Cousteau imitation; snorkelling for hours, looking for crayfish under rocks in the shallow water, while the grownups talked on shore, maybe over a beer. Years later, Dennis told that he thought I was a really weird kid; I’m not sure that opinion ever changed. I knew by age ten that I was a writer. Although the solemn announcement to my family at age twelve drew snorts of derision, Dennis, this skinny guy who wore granny glasses and loud ties, took me seriously. He published my earliest work, and displayed numerous poems of mine in the Poetry Box outside Sandy’s Bookstore on Charlotte Street. In 1974, Dennis co-founded Artspace, along with David Bierk, John Moffat and others, still a going concern in downtown Peterborough.

As a teenager, I typed Dennis’s manuscripts from handwritten notes, learning more than I realized at the time. Once I could drive, I’d stop by the schoolhouse to talk and see new paintings and listen to stories. In 1982, he was artist-in-residence at the Canada Council’s Paris studio, and returned with watercolour collages, inspiration for the painted play Paris la Nuit, and some wild tales. I was dealing with my own crises involving parental health and, of course, boys. I remember attending a live reading of the complete Port Dalhousie Stories (Coach House Press, 1987) when it was recorded at Artspace. And I knew that it was a special night, one of those performances that stays in your flesh ever after. He was still living at the schoolhouse with Slim, a stray black cat, and Gladys, the Springer spaniel. With my Mum’s permission, he trapped minnows from the Bear Creek where it ran through her property, to bait bigger fish. He had a whole freezer full of fish—food that didn’t cost money. Dennis made it seem possible to live the artist’s life.

After marrying Nadia Laham late in 1983, Dennis moved from outside Peterborough to Ottawa, and I lost touch with him for a time. I lived in Ottawa briefly too, then an adult, but still caught up in my own drama and trying with difficulty to unpack difficult things that often defied words, or were, at least, beyond my writing skills at the time. I remember sitting in a pub on Bank St with Dennis and John Moffat and a few other artists (all guys, of course; it always seemed to work out that way) talking about art and people and drinking too much. At some point in the evening, Dennis would start the joke, “A horse walks into a bar. The bartender says, why the long face?” And he’d crack up, assuring everyone at the table that it would get funnier as the night wore on and we drank more. I miss those nights, but know they’re gone.

In 1991, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa purchased and exhibited a major work by Dennis, La crise d’octobre: chronology. According to Nadia, Dennis said it was “like winning the Stanley Cup” and when the exhibition was displayed, he’d hang out at the gallery, listening to viewers’ reactions, their responses to part of Canada’s collective memory. I was still in Ottawa when Dennis’s long-awaited National Gallery show was cancelled for fears that its political content around the October Crisis would prove too provocative in the environment of the 1995 Quebec referendum. It was a devastating moment to watch, when an artist comes so close to such an important show, at such a pivotal historical moment, and then it’s snatched away. It was a lesson in the volatility of art and politics; be careful what you say and when. Later, in 1997, La crise d’octobre: chronology was part of a National Gallery show that toured across Canada.

As I was leaving Ottawa, Black Squirrel Press offered to publish a chapbook of my work, the first time a collection of my poems would be wrapped in covers. submerge was published in 1997 and I asked Dennis to write the introduction. He wrote that it was the work of “a desperate voice searching for meaning” and also that it was a “book about the future.” But I’ll never forget what he asked me: “Why isn’t this a full book?” It was the moment that I knew I’d arrived. Dennis, my creative mentor, who’d watched me grow from this weird little kid snorkelling in the shallows, into someone who’d captured and developed her own voice, had identified me as a book-worthy writer. And although I’d known quietly for years that I was writer, and even though I’d had work published in literary journals by then, the fact that Dennis thought I was a writer, that he knew I had whole books in me, was incredibly powerful. The writing became more real; it felt like a responsibility. Dennis had identified my true calling, had named it, and expected me to do something about it.

In 1996, I moved to Toronto. I meant to stay in touch, to phone, to write, but I didn’t: I was waiting to show Dennis the first full book. In early May 1998, I got a phone call from another old friend, poet Michael Dennis, who told me that Dennis had suffered a major stroke and was in the hospital. Michael phoned with updates for the few days until Dennis died. I felt utterly lost.

I attended the funeral at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Ottawa, and the memorial across the street at the National Gallery. Both were packed. I returned to Toronto and tried to behave as if everything was normal. It wasn’t. Some sense of foundation had been eroded. I stopped writing. Within a few weeks, I became very ill with a viral infection; I was sicker than I’ve ever been and it took a couple of years to fully recover.

This winter, I turned the same age Dennis was when he died. I feel like I’m just getting started. Since he died, I’ve had two books published by Insomniac Press: blood love & boomerangs and Swimming in the Ocean. I’ve just finished a new novel—Pairs & Artichoke Hearts will appear between covers in the foreseeable future—and have a few other manuscripts brewing. After several stressful years, I’m back on track and can actually sit and focus and complete book-length work.

Last fall, shows of Dennis’s work appeared in both Ottawa and St Catharines, thanks in large part, I’m sure, to Nadia’s persistent efforts. The Firestone Gallery in Ottawa displayed a series of Dennis’s collage-style watercolours in dialogue with cubist artists. I was glad I went, but it only opened wounds and left me wanting more. Similarly, the work at the Niagara Artists Centre (a gallery he co-founded in 1969), the complete painted set for Paris la Nuit, brought back memories, but wasn’t enough. It was the Language of Visual Poetry exhibit at Rodman Hall in St Catharines that brought some relief and joy; I stayed immersed for hours. I saw paintings I hadn’t seen since I was a kid. And I realize that it’s only now that I can begin to understand what Dennis was doing as a multidisciplinary artist; it’s as if I’m seeing these canvases and painted objects and performance videos for the first time, through adult eyes and with some temporal distance. In the photos and videos displayed with these exhibits, he looks so young.

Dennis’s creative life mediated visual art and literature; looked at television through the lens of theatre; painted canvases not just with collages of images, but with words—words referencing yesterday’s newspaper headlines torn off, abridged, and out of context; words that painted stories over a series of vibrant canvases that filled whole gallery walls. Images of brightly painted poems inspired by Picasso and Tom Thompson and McLuhan and Pop Art and the FLQ and the October Crisis and Paris and Buckhorn and Jackson’s cows and television and mass media and fishing streams and conversations and the landscape and the city and memory and meaning and wonder and truth and life.

Thanks to Nadia Laham for correcting some factual errors.

© Catherine Jenkins, 2013

Fall 2008

When I was a kid, my Mum returned to her agricultural roots and got into natural foods. She went back to making jam and jelly, pickles and home canning. What that meant was that when the strawberries were ripe in the fields, some of us would go and pick them at a pick-your-own berry farm. Then some of us would help her make jam and freeze individual bags of berries for the winter. She’d make strawberry parfait for desert at Christmas dinner; nothing tastes quite as magical as a fresh strawberry when the snow is on the ground. Throughout the summer and fall, we’d take trips to the Peterborough Farmers’ Market to buy various kinds of produce that she’d store in the cold cellar in the basement, freeze, can or pickle.

I too have developed the habit of preserving the summer and fall bounty, putting food away when it’s in season so I don’t have to buy expensive imports in the winter. I’ve made jams and pickles. I’ve canned (which is to say bottled) peaches, plums and apricots. I’ve frozen blueberries, strawberries and cherries. And I’ve done other experiments, some of which weren’t successful. I feel like I’ve got it down to a science now. I know how to process things for the best results for my taste.

One of the things my mother taught me was to buy locally. That was part of the reason for going to the Farmer’s Market. These were Peterborough area farmers. By buying directly from them, we were supporting local farmers and the local economy. It also meant we were cutting out the middleman retailer and that meant saving money. You could buy produce that was fresher and for a lower price than you could in the supermarket. And although we weren’t thinking about it then, it also meant that the produce was only driven a few miles, minimizing pollution and the cost of transportation.

But things are different now and in the big city. If you time it right, at the peak of the growing season, usually you can find baskets of locally grown produce at the grocery store at a reasonable price. I don’t know what happened this year. When I went to buy strawberries, the first local crop I look for, I discovered that I could buy Californian, even Californian organic strawberries, at the grocery store for considerably less than I could buy locally grown. Keep in mind that gas prices are through the roof and there’s been a lot of talk about how the price of imported produce was going to skyrocket as a consequence of increasing transportation costs.

A new Farmers’ Market was established in my neighbourhood this summer. I thought, great! I’ll be able to get locally grown produce at a reasonable price. Wrong! Their prices, not just for strawberries, but for all produce, was double to triple that of the grocery stores! What gives? I sent e-mails to the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Greenbelt Ontario and Farmers’ Markets Ontario to see if they had an explanation. All were very supportive of my efforts to buy locally, both for economic and environmental reasons. The rise in price, they pointed out, was due to the rise in fuel costs. This still doesn’t make sense to me. Surely the rise in fuel costs would effect US growers too; surely it costs more to ship produce 3500 kilometres than 50? Taxes and wages are higher here than in the US; but hasn’t that always been the case? Why would that cause a sudden sharp increase this year?

All espoused the virtues of buying local produce because it’s fresher and mentioned that consumers are willing to spend more for freshness. One actually noted that consumer demand at Farmers’ Markets is in some cases outstripping supply. Now we’re getting somewhere. The most telling response was from the representative of Farmers’ Markets Ontario, the people who sponsor this new local market. He stated that they “rely on freshness and the ‘market experience.'” Ah, now we have it. We’re not in small-town, rural Peterborough anymore; we’re in the big city where people have more money. We can charge a little extra because city folks are happy to pay for the experience, although a few booths in a downtown parking lot isn’t the market experience I remember. He stated that their farmers work really hard; I’m certainly not disputing that, but so do farmers everywhere. Farming, even with expensive gas-run machinery, means long hours and enormous physical demand. He also cited that some of their farmers drive 200 kilometres or more and this means their profits are very low. Wait a minute, 200 kilometres? I though I was buying local produce. While that’s closer than California, it’s also further than the 100-mile diet suggests (it’s about 125 miles).

I kept looking for a place where I could buy locally grown produce at reasonable prices. And I finally found it. I discovered a small family run green grocer several blocks away. Here, I can buy local produce at the kind of prices I think it should be and considerably less than either the grocery store chains or the new neighbourhood Farmers’ Market. How is this possible? I figure this small store is selling everything at its regular mark-up and they must be making a profit. They’ve been there for years, first as an Italian family run business, now as a Korean family run business. So what’s the difference? They’re not responding to the hype. It’s become fashionable and politically correct to buy local, to support local farmers, to buy products that haven’t done so much environmental damage through transportation. I figure big chain grocery stores and now the Farmers’ Markets are cashing in on this trend by increasing their profits. It’s the only reason I can see for the disparity in price.

Some of us have been buying locally and consciously for years. Now that it’s become fashionable, it’s harder to continue this practice. The only way a green revolution will work is if it’s affordable for everyone, not just the elite with deep enough pockets. So yes, buy local, buy green, but don’t do so blindly. Look for reasonable prices too. Support the small mom-and-pop green grocers. That’s the only way the chain stores and Farmers’ Markets will get the message that although we want to buy green and support local, it also has to be affordable.

© Catherine Jenkins 2008