Picking Up the Trash

I love sunny days. Here in New England it feels like we get precious few of them, so I try to cherish those that I can by spending time outside, preferable on the local conservation land.

I was happy to be able to ride my 5-speed bicycle. My husband has been slowly renovating it, and it's not quite ready for large, steep hills yet, but the conservation area isn't far. It's so much more fun to ride than my regular hybrid frame! I'm amused that my "new" bike is actually older than I am (it's a Raleigh Superbe from the 70's), but it's really perfect for me.

Once I had locked my bike up and started walking down the path I saw garbage absolutely everywhere, and berated myself for not thinking to bring a bag to pick trash up. I used to be in the habit of always doing that -- heck, in collage that was one of my favorite things to do! Some friends and I would go into the woods on our campus and pick up as much of the trash left by generations of frat boys as we could. We considered it something of a spiritual act - giving back to the land and all that. After 9/11, we worked for some sort of peace by cleaning up the woods with intention. It's a time honored task -- not only does it provide a public service (cleaner wooded areas), but it also forces me to pay more attention to the land, rather than letting myself get lost in my own thoughts.

Lucky for me, it didn't take long before I found a discarded plastic grocery bag, and I began collecting trash. Most of it was the standard assortment of plastic wrappers from junk food, cans and bottles, but I was surprised to find an old rusted screwdriver.

I spent some time sitting by the waterfall, which is a favorite spot of mine. There's a rocky ledge halfway down that can be gotten to pretty easily if you don't mind straying from the path, and from there the roar of the water drowns out the nearby cars (it's not a large conservation area). I love watching the water rushing down and into the meandering stream below. I spent quite some time communing with the land there.

I disposed of most of the collected trash before leaving, but as there was not a separate recycling container I decided to ride home with a doubled up plastic bag full of broken glass bottles and cans dangling from my handlebars. Probably not my best idea, but it seemed wrong to go through all that trouble to clean the woods up and then not recycled what could be recycled.