Quieting the Tiger

Already on day one of No Impact Week, when the mantra of the day was “buy no new goods,” all I could think about were shopping malls, online promotions and retail therapy. But when I finally quieted that tiger shopper in me, I learned a couple of things I think are worth sharing.

First lesson learned: When trying to consume less, my first reaction is to think of all the things I can’t live without. My second reaction is to get creative.

The mental list I made when the day started included a number of items I thought I needed: blank CDs, new notebooks, and house slippers with motion stabilizers in the heels, to name a few. The house slippers with motion stabilizers made the list after a health-focused website suggested that I have “activity-appropriate” shoes for all occasions.

According to Annie Leonard, who wrote The Story of Stuff (movie and book to follow), “we see more advertisements in one day than…people 50 years ago saw during a lifetime.” http://www.storyofstuff.com/pdfs/annie_leonard_facts.pdf. The trick is to get past their bait and hook unscathed, and this requires imagination. For example, why buy new notebooks when I can use scrap paper from the recycling box I keep near my desk? And why buy new house slippers when I can double up on socks to create the same warm and cozy effect? After careful contemplation, I crossed these two things off my list.

Second lesson learned: Time spent away from consumption allows more time to enjoy what is.

Before I could do any shopping damage, my housemates saved me by suggesting we go for a hike outside of town. Our destination was a woodsy stream known as Eagle Creek. Every year about this time, thousands of Coho salmon, red as raspberries, journey back to their origins to lay eggs and die. In the Pacific Northwest, these fish’s journey is a right of passage and a hallmark of autumn’s end.

Here are some photographs from our day, which I found I could enjoy more, having succeeded in my first day of No Impact.

Four Coho salmon make their way upstream. We could sometimes see them thrash about, knocking into one another like erratic underwater bumper cars. Apparently, they fought to protect their eggs, already buried in the river’s pebbly bottom. Learn more about Coho salmon from NOAA Fisheries Office of Protected Resources, http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/fish/cohosalmon.htm.



An ancient Douglas fir reaches up into the fog. I wonder if it absorbs sips of water directly from the clouds.



There's a certain soothing mystique to a foggy hillside.



Mirna (my dog) and I take a trailside break.