Summer wrap up

So .. I'm sitting in London and wondering whether the impetus will be the same to write about everything in past tense. However, for the sake of chronicling the last few weeks of my trip, I'll type away ..

After I left the island, I spent a rainy two days in Vancouver and a sunnier weekend in Toronto catching up with friends I'd not seen in many years. Verdict: it felt like a few weeks since the last get-together, not 8-10 years and everyone was doing great.

Then, I had around 12 hours of overground travel to New Jersey and found myself in the coccooned walls of suburbia. It was a somewhat hard transition to make as my freewheeling, independent, crunchy-granola self had little room to stretch and breathe. Suddenly, I was living in a place where without a car there was not much to do apart from stroll around the hotel parking lot - and the waste I saw in the hotel was quite a shock: cleaning staff who'd run a dishwasher with one item in it, clean towels every day, disposable everything. It was also the first time all summer I was away from folks who grew the food I was eating or had a strong relationship to local/ organic food. So, there was a yearning to return to the wholesome life.

Anyway, my reason for being in NJ was a very nice one - my brother's wedding. I was totally excited in the morning - the waitress in the hotel caught me doing a barefooted twirl in the corridor! The party and ceremony were lovely and I look forward to reliving it all on dvd - the food was yummy-licious and the speeches were warm, funny, poignant and from the heart. What more can one ask for!

So, now I'm back and around 80 per cent unpacked. The final act of unpacking means it's over, finito. What can I put my teeth into now? Where do I want to focus my energies? Can I live life at the level I want to from this little spot of ground I'm at now? What shifted for me over the summer???

I've decided that I will carry on blogging when I have things of environmental interest to add. I want to be local (a big permaculture principle) and see what's on my turf while I'm geographically here. I want to get my hands in the earth again. I want my practical learning to continue. I want to take some time to be an activist about the things I care about, whether that's writing letters, signing petitions, sending charity money to the causes that whisper and shout to me. I want my own life to be sustainable. I want a relationship with the land, the weather, my community, my food. I want to grow herbs, to live consciously, to read the Omnivore's Dilemna, to go to the Hazon food conference in December, to learn.. learn .. learn ... to be a SLOW food groupie, to one day grow my own veggies. To have another amazing West Coast experience soon. I have faith it will all happen. Watch this space !