I reduced showers to every other day. I only run the dishwasher when full. I’m nagging my husband for a clothesline but he is resistant. In summer I hang things on hangers to air dry, partly to make the point that I am going to do what I want, and partly because I really do think it is crazy to pay for a dryer to run when it is 100° outside. But mostly, I’m trying to dig in, right where I stand, and hold the line against climate change in small and mighty ways. I wish more people would join the effort. How can they not? We need climate action or we will have even more of an immigration crisis. I look at the trees I planted and think how grateful I am that they are busily cleaning the air for us. Some people can’t even plant trees because they are that close to the edge. They are tying knots to hang on. Those of us not tying knots, should not rest on our laurels, as people suffer. It might lead to more trouble than we are prepared for. Troubles that were initially not our fault, but by our inaction, have become so. 
          I better go check my garden. We will have rain today and there is so much to be done. I need to turn my composter. You should see my soil! It is black as night, and you can smell the healing in it. I sometimes put my face right up to it, to smell the Earth we created. It smells like good health. I wish everyone could breathe the smell in and experience what it is like to hold fresh Earth in hand, healthy and strong. It will change your life! I thought compost would stink but turns out, it just smells fresh. It really is magical stuff. Maybe I should carry some around with me and let people see, it is just healthy soil. God I am weird. People don’t understand it or more people would be weird like me. It smells heavenly because it holds so much new life inside it. Like a newborn baby, smelling fresh from heaven, this is the “Earth version” of that. Everyone should know the scent of fresh Earth. It would change things. 
          The point? Be weird. Weird is good.

I can’t dwell on that scary thing, I have better things to do. We are really not ready for what’s coming…
          Am I ruminating on this? Maybe… My therapist says I am not supposed to do that. But how can I not? I feel for those people whose homes were destroyed by climate related disasters and there is already not enough housing. More and more, this will happen. According to UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency, an annual average of 21.5 million people have been forcibly displaced by weather-related events – such as floods, storms, wildfires and extreme temperatures – since 2008. AN ANNUAL AVERAGE. 21.5 million people A YEAR. This will continue to increase. So, doing nothing is creating disaster for millions of people every year. The end times might just be climate change. If we are not good stewards of what God has given us, how will we stand up to judgment? We must do the difficult thing. We simply must save the world. It is our only hope for salvation. 
          Some things that happen to us are not our fault. I can say “it wasn’t my fault” because I was only 13. I’ve spent decades thinking how I could’ve changed it and no matter how I look at it, it wasn’t my fault. So why do I feel so guilty and sad when I think about it. It wasn’t my fault. But climate change is partly my fault. We have four children, and thus need a large SUV for travel. We cannot all fit into a Prius. I must find a way to offset for this. I have to plant a lot of trees. A lot. You don’t even want to know how many.

Next, we began planting trees at the ranch. It was great fun seeing those go in. Every few months, I would have trees to put in here or bushes to go in there. I began collecting local plants, and then I began collecting seeds from local plants. I spoke to experts at the local extension office. I watched YouTube videos. Saving the world is an amazing way to avoid thinking about the thing you don’t want to think about. You really and truly cannot ever run out of material to learn. Every plant has its own special needs and qualities. You’ll never learn it all! They’re like people: complex and needy…we both thrive strong, when understood, or droop pathetically when not. Anyway, I would much rather pretend I can Save the World, than face my past. I’ve done that plenty already. I am tired of feeling like I’m not enough. I am enough. I know because my husband, who knows me completely, says so. He knows what happened to me, but I never talk about the details of it. Partly because it is so hard and partly because I know it would break his heart into a million pieces. Frankly, I don’t want him to shave those years off of his life. I want him to live as long as possible because truly, I could not live without him. I mean, I will if I am forced to, but I don’t want to ever have to do it. It is better if I keep that nightmare to myself.

Another thing I busy myself with is “how to save the world.” See? “Crazy in all the best ways.” I watched a documentary by David Attenborough and one of the things he recommended was planting a tree. So I spent days thinking about this. Choosing the tree I wanted, where I would like to place it, how I could ensure its success, etc. I planned all of those things with my busy little brain, but in the end, I was surprised by the results. You see, I cannot plant a tree by myself. I cannot dig in the rocky ground or exert that kind of effort. I’m not well enough. Luckily, my husband likes that I’m crazy and he dutifully plants said tree, in said location, with said assurances of bone meal, compost, mulch, etc so the tree would succeed. I looked at our tree and realized we had officially begun our efforts to Save the World. He was totally unaware, as he looked at the tree and felt proud of its planting. How could he know that while he had finished the job, I was only getting started? I read about climate zones, I learned about gardening, put in a garden and tended it. All of this was done with my husband’s physical labor, which was crucial to the effort. I could not have done it without him. I can think and think and think, but without action, it is useless and pointless. I drive him crazy…crazy in all the best ways. He knows I am complicated and he finds that interesting. Which really just means he’s crazy in all the best ways, too. I am in love with him, partly because he saved my world.

I don’t just count cars, I notice the details of all kinds of things. I can tell you what every member of my family likes and also my sisters’ families my mom, step Dad and in-laws. I know which niece likes vanilla and which nephew likes chocolate. These are details I store diligently in my mind, along with addresses for relatives and aisle numbers for grocery items. Brain must be busy, busy, busy. This is why I like bees so much. They also believe in industry. I am a bee, in my heart. Unfortunately my body is more sloth like. I sometimes wonder if I could’ve kept being busy forever, had I not become disabled. That abrupt end to my life is industry brought a total change in my identity. I was suddenly worthless, helpless and miserable. Life can change so abruptly, that you cannot even imagine the jolt of it, until it happens to you. Like when your sibling hides around a corner and ambushes you in the dark. Sudden, dramatic, unexpected terror that reminds you, “You are only temporarily on this big rock, improvisinga performance for the someone or no one.” I choose to believe I am performing for God but only He and I know He’s there. Yeah, some people might say I am a little bit crazy. “Crazy in all the best ways,” as my husband says.

Well, it’s January 19th and here I am, at 2:46 am. I should be sleeping, but it’s one of those nights when I’m lying in fear of my own dreams. Sometimes I’ll see something on television or in real life, that will trigger something or that MIGHT trigger something. Dreams usually. I get two kinds of dreams, the forward looking ones and the backward looking ones. It’s funny to me that my brain makes me look backwards in dreams when I have the bad dreams and forward when I have the good ones. Like a secret signal to me when I’m panicking in a dream, to stop and see how I’m viewing the situation. I have spent enough time in therapy to learn this about myself. It’s a pattern I’ve noticed. (Patterns are kind of my thing.) When my husband and I were dating, I asked him to change lanes at an intersection. I said, “you need to be in the other lane or we won’t make it through, that lane only lets four cars through and this one gets five.” He counted the cars ahead of us and thought be could beat the system as the 5th car on the inside lane, if he stayed on it. There is a tight internal corner that scares the drivers of the inside lane and someone always jams their brake in surprise. Sure enough, we did not make it through but the car who took the spot I recommend, did. He says that’s the day he realized I was a little different from the other women he’d dated. 
          I never thought counting cars was an odd thing to do. I use that intersection routinely so I started counting and paying attention. Paying attention is a forward thinking activity. Keeps me from thinking about other things. If I keep my brain busy, it is better for me. Fewer nightmares and fewer panic attacks.