Singular Duality

fifty two years these two as one

            “I wash and cut, she cooks the potatoes”

love and passion, respect and compassion

Recycling... Dig-It

Archeologically speaking my recycling bin is a backward look to my recent past.  Layer upon layer of stuff no longer needed, a reflection of consuming, of habits, of health, of information.

I tend to hold onto this past until it is flowing out of my bin.  Then I precariously balance the bin down nine floors out the back door to consolidate my meager history with the meager histories of my flat mates, all which tells a story of our community.

My story is simple.  Three weeks of history.  Here lays three wine bottles, 2 red and one white.  The white was opened a while ago.  It is not my preferred drink and it was consumed slowly, occasionally relegated to add flavour and substance to dishes.  All the wine is memory of friends, time valued and shared, providing comfort and companionship, respect and love.  I touch these bottles fondly as they slip through the holes in the bin of histories consolidated.

A vitamin bottle, 400 tablets of Multi+ daily joy, plus a BONUS 100 tablets.  500 tablets of daily joy, how could a boy go wrong.  This bottle hearkens way back though.  To a period just prior the big relationship change when the stresses of life and concerns about my health led me to search for the “fix this” solution at the local health food store.  Misguided as it was I dutifully consumed a tablet a day… more or less, until this week this link to my past ended.

Grocery packaging: a KD box, jars from jams and sauces, soup tins, cardboard wrappers from a pie, preformed flash frozen ¼ lb Angus Beef burgers, an ice cream carton, a pie plate, a pop bottle, a pizza box, all evidence of poor diet and when presented en masse a stead fast reminder I must make change.  No change could result in the inevitable well earned, long overdue heart attack, an experience I do not wish to enjoy.  On the other hand this paunch has sure come in handy for propping up the recycling bin while fumbling with locks and reaching for elevator buttons.

And paper.  A layer of paper across the base of the box provides a softish landing spot for the evidence of consumables above.  Bills, shredded in an attempt to protect identity and information.  Flyers imploring me to exercise my duty to consume by offering me deals on bad groceries, deals I obviously fell for, to collect mileage points, to go to the temple of evil empire gods from Bentonville, to support the oldest retailer in North America long since wiped from Canadian culture to be owned and marketed by someone also south of us, buy electronics and computers.  All of it lacking, non of it with imagination, lifeless flotsam, a waste of trees.

Embedded in the paper layer a reminder: vote Conservative, vote Liberal, vote NDP.  How the nation has changed since those imploring documents came through my mail slot.  My vote it counted but wiped clean by another respected view.  Such is the wonder of politics in this country.  One tiny tick in a circle and I had a voice. 

And this voice is changing.  It has allowed me consume but sends me a message.  It allows me to grow old on my own terms.  It allows me to tell my country what matters to me.  My voice is added to all the many other voices recycled in the big bin.  Much of it to be changed back into consumables, to start a path again, to fit into lives.  A reflection of ourselves, an ever changing people, ever changing persons.