Where is my work most effective?

So I'm spending some time in Upstate New York with family and friends...short of a culture-shocky experience after being in Portland for over a year...for many reasons.

One reason is that things that people in Portland consider moderately green: like composting, growing some of your own food, making food from scratch, rather then eating lots of boxed "foods" and so forth, haven't even hit the radar out here...so as you can imagine, my family and friends consider me "off the charts radical," whereas in Portland I was more or less "normal." I'm suprised that one of my sisters tells me she is saving the earth because she has started recycling, and the other, who lives on 14 acres way out in the country doesn't even compost, nor does she have a garden!!!!! She lives on Hot Pockets, gatorade and candy, and has a cop husband who uses the trees in their yard for target practice! I nearly cried when I examined a maple with six or seven bullets logged deeply in the bark...to be fair, my sister yelled at her husband about this behavior, but this gives you a good idea of the way folks think out here in hillbilly Upstate New York. Also, people drive A LOT! Fossil fuels are still being burned as though there was no tommorrow (which there won't be, if things don't change soon,) and I feel guilty just being out here, because I'm spending tons of time in cars, going from one small town to another, visiting people and running errands...just to get groceries out here, you spend an average of an hour in the car. I feel wierd, I'm sitting in my sister's massive SUV, driving around buying terrible boxed dinners, renting movies (I've watched a ton of movies since I've been back, since there isn't much else to do out here, at least, once the sun has gone down,) driving to the landry mat and Salvation Army, talking about Derrick Jensen and the terrible shape of the environment. My sister just keeps saying "do you really think you can stop these things from happening?" Out here, I feel like the answer to that question is "no" whereas back in Portland, the answer would have been "maybe."

People in Portland would cry to see the enormous lawns people mow out here that don't get used for anything...acres and acres of grass, devoid of trees, devoid of gardens, devoid even of compost binds. People don't even try to live sustainably out here...they don't even know, for the most part, what I mean when I say "sustainability.."

I get riddiculed for talking about the end of the car culture....I get mocked for using a menstrial cup and talking about composting and wanting some goats to make cheese and wanting to hunt my own meat and live off the land...it seems so ironic to me that people who live in an area where it is so freaking possible to be 100% self-sufficient aren't even interested in what I have to say...they laugh at me when I ask questions about the dams on the Hudson River, they shrug their shoulders when I ask them if they know wiether their well-water has pesticides in it....in one of the most beautiful places in the world, people give less then a shit about the environment. It breaks my heart.

And yet, I see little signs of hope...my little sister was out in her yard at dusk last night, photographing the fog rolling in for the night...it was breathtaking, the hills, the trees, the fog and the setting sun. She reads environmental books to the kid she nannies, and is planning on having her fourth-grade class that she is teaching this fall read books like Julie of the Wolves and My Side of the Mountain. We are going to a nursery today to buy some trees to plant in her yard; she wants to plant natives that will grow strong here...oaks, maples, willows, maybe some fruit trees, like cherries...

My other sister complains that her boyfriend doesn't want to enjoy nature with her...that is why she likes taking me on whitewater rafting trips and out on Keuka Lake on the pontoon boat her boyfriend bought...she likes that I apprieciate nature in a way that has nothing to do with how much profit can be made from resources...

Both of my sisters are good people...one is a Physican's Assistant, and the other teachers fourth grade and nannies in the summers....the teacher rescues shelter cats, the Physican's Assistant is generious with her money and even purchased a car for me once and takes me on trips and so forth..I see hope in them, but I also worry about the landbase they live on; this is the land I grew up on, after all, and it feels more like home to me then land around Portland, yet I feel sad and discouraged here, and I wonder if I do eventually move back to Upstate New York...will I be strong enough to make a difference?

I think there is unending potential here...my parents want to give me some land that I could definately be self-sufficent on...and midwifery is a blossoming new field here, unlike out in Portland, which is saturated with midwives...plus, more and more Amish and Mennonites are moving to this area, and since they have homebirths for the most part, I can see myself working closely with that community. But would I get worn down by the lack of caring I see out here? Would I become an apathetic environmentalist?

Things to ponder...

Love ya,
Carrot