"Well scrubbed up"
I’ve been knitting these cotton cloths for a while now. Mainly just because I enjoy it and they are super easy to make. Knitting is an excellent remedy for your everyday stresses and strains. Although it can make my knuckles hurt, it really helps unwind an overactive mind. If you suffer from anxiety, give it a try instead of reaching for that giant glass of Chardonnay at the end of a long day. I get settled on my couch, listen to music or a good podcast whilst sipping on a nice cup of Tulsi (Holy Basil) Tea, my absolutely favourite beverage before bed these days. Just FYI: Holy basil (Ocimum tenuiflorum) has antidepressant and anti-anxiety properties comparable to antidepressant drugs*. It also boasts a long list of other health benefits such as stabilizing blood sugar, lowering cholesterol and has anti-fungal, anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties. This is my favorite brand of Tulsi Tea (with Ashwagandha) if you fancy it.
Anyhow, enough of tea and such. Back to my dish/wash cloths: I have been thinking a lot about the way we’re used to buy/consume and trying to find new ways in which I can contribute to meaningful change in the way I approach material goods and my relationship with waste. There are many small things we can do in our lives that will help minimize the waste we produce. The market is exploding with new ‘eco-friendly’ products, which is a great step forward, but in my opinion we also have to change our attitudes towards consumption and lifestyle. Replacing single use fast-food packaging with compostable forks and knives keeps us stuck in the loop of being disrespectful towards our planet, treating everything as replaceable and irrelevant. There’s also the fact that mass production of any product entails a relevant carbon footprint.
Our everyday lives have become so fast paced that we hardly have time to even know where we’ve left our heads. We are all aware of the climate crisis and feel a (often time suppressed) level of guilt about our unconscious lifestyle choices of the past. Today’s youth holds us accountable and demands we take responsibility for our actions. So between school pickup and dinner time we dash to the grocery store and alleviate our conscience by reaching for ‘eco’ or ‘organic’ instead of ‘conventional’. We are relieved to ‘have done our bit’, the justification we needed in order to carry on with the status quo. In many ways this ‘modus operandi’ prevents us from really having to confront reality square on.
This brings me to the subject of ‘new-domesticity’ by the example of knitting dish or washcloths. By investing time to create something from scratch and having to put a considerable amount of effort into it, the value we attribute to an object changes. We consider the fact that we don’t need a new dish cloth every other week. We value the fact that it has cost ourselves or someone else time and effort to make it. We are more inclined to re-use, recycle and repair. In my own experience I have found that replacing quantity for quality has given me a sense of relief from something I didn’t even realize was weighing on me: The burden of too much ‘stuff’ around my house.
Do you buy ball-pens in packs of 20, but find they remain elusive when you need one? On one of those days where I was scrambling for one of those plastic sticks, it suddenly felt utterly ridiculous to me that I ever felt the need to buy them en masse, in fact I realized that I never felt the ‘need’ but purchased them on autopilot, without thinking if I really needed several instead of just one. If I can live with one hand bag that holds all the necessary items I need throughout the day, with one purse and one set of keys, why couldn’t I do with ONE pen? If I did, I surely would ensure not to displace it. I would buy myself a good quality pen and therefore care for it, since it hasn’t been made to be lost before it’s even been utilized or thrown away. I find it fascinating to discover how many automated, thoughtless things I do each day. I buy, because it’s on the shelves. I buy because those around me do.
I know I’m not talking big stuff here, but I believe in making small, well considered, conscious steps. I feel for lasting change we need to challenge our perception of things, the way we look at them before taking action. Once we become aware of the way we look at a wash cloth or disposable ball pen on an intrinsic level, we can change the way we see and interact with our environment in a fundamental way.
*Ref. The Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine
