Angels, Fairytales and The Great Recession

Nearly eight years ago, I was pregnant with my son and my grandmother was dying. I had just returned home from her hospital bedside in Seattle and my heart was heavy with her memory. Walking on the outskirts of downtown Bend, Oregon, I came to an intersection notorious for its anti-pedestrian traffic, and I watched as cars and trucks of every make and model roared blindly past the crosswalk. I was alone. Suddenly, a man appeared beside me, bedraggled and burdened by a tattered backpack and sleeping bag, his long white hair merging with a gnome-like beard any child would adore. “Waste not, want not,” he said. I held his mysterious words as the four-lane traffic suddenly disappeared and we crossed unchallenged by the gas-guzzling giants. “Amazing how the traffic parted for us,” he said as we stepped onto the opposite curb. My head filled with visions of the Red Sea and the stranger winked, his careworn face feathered with the lines of longing. “You have a nice day,” he said and walked into the evening sun. I have contemplated the brief moments I spent with that ragged gentleman and have always thought of him as an angel at a time when I needed some connection with something beyond myself.

Now years later, his words find me again. Today, I have two young children and I spend my days absorbed in homeschooling lessons, Little House on the Prairie reenactments, and fights against water fluoridation and neighborhood cell towers. I have lived a fairytale life complete with dragons, wicked queens and knights in shining armor, and I wouldn’t choose to change a thing about it. But it is changing.

Recently, my husband’s once-thriving graphic design business slowed with the economic downturn, and as he scrambles to reinvent himself, I intertwine my regular tasks with worry. I am afraid that the things I hold near and dear will be pulled to the ground with the falling economy: homeschooling, our house, our dreams of a future farm — our fairytale. And so I look for ways to stop the falling.
I submit magazine articles for the first time in my life, I apply for local green cleaning jobs that offer evening hours when my husband can care for the kids, and I scour the pages of the Magic Cabin catalog to find ideas for toys I can make myself. I look for ways to cut our current expenses: Yesterday, I called our Garbage/Recycling company to request the smallest trashcan in exchange for our current 64-gallon can (which we never fill anyway), and today I found a more affordable health insurance plan. I have already cut our grocery budget as much as possible without sacrificing food quality, although right now, my budget won’t allow me to purchase groceries for 10 more days. I’m learning to turn one meal into many, and grapes, beets and carrots into a week’s worth of fresh produce. Tonight, I cooked a chicken for dinner and put the leftover bones in the crock-pot for lunch tomorrow. I’m soaking oats and beans, making my own bread, and finding that vegetables past their prime make a lovely addition to quiche. Next week’s homeschooling lesson will involve sprouting seeds to supplement our diet with fresh food between weekly grocery trips. I am searching for ways to “waste not” so that wanting not will come a little easier for all of us.

I wish I’d listened to the angel long ago. I wish I’d taken his enigmatic words of preservation to heart and learned to remake my children’s clothes or can food when it wasn’t a necessity. And while I don’t believe we’re currently in a Depression, I think we can learn from our Depression-era ancestors. Make it over, wear it out, make it do, or do without. I’ve been repeating the Great Depression saying to myself all day, as I imagine turning my dresses into clothes for my children, and using odds and ends to create works of art resembling something my children might call toys. The recycling lessons we’ve all learned in the last decade go far deeper than plastic, paper, glass, and aluminum. It can be interwoven with all that we have and do. Still, I can’t help thinking of what a vicious cycle this threatens to become. As families like mine begin to turn inward out of necessity, ceasing to frequent restaurants and other local businesses, the economy can only continue on its downward spiral. My family has seen this first hand. Our small home business went from chaotically busy to eerily slow, raising questions for all of us about the volatility of a consumer-based system. So how do we survive? Here are 10 relatively simple steps to easing the burden of bad times:

10 Ways to Survive The Great Recession

1.    Stick to the basics. Shop for produce, meat and dry goods, and avoid the man-made stuff. Processed food costs more and nourishes less.

2.    Grow a garden. You need very little space to grow a productive family garden. My grandmother used to grow bushels of tomatoes on her apartment porch in Seattle. Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Gardening offers invaluable information for growing a plethora of food without much space.

3.    Keep chickens. Chickens used to be a staple of every backyard, and many cities still make allowances for a few backyard birds. Just three chickens can provide about a dozen eggs per week, the upkeep is relatively easy, and they’re funny creatures to have about.

4.    Support local. When times get tight, people are often afraid to spend money. But don’t forget that contributing to your local economy by supporting small businesses can help keep others afloat.

5.    Stick to the budget. Writing a budget can help you pinpoint areas in which you could be saving (for example, you could explore cheaper phone plans, smaller garbage bins, more affordable health insurance, and alternative commuting options).

6.    Keep in touch with friends and neighbors. The people around you probably boast a wide range of skills. Let people know what you need, and offer your services to others (bartering is alive and well). Remember Aesop’s Fables and the timeless motto: “United we stand, divided we fall.”

7.    Stock up. Buy an extra bag of dry goods from the bulk section on your next grocery trip. Beans, lentils, oats, rice, and flour are good things to have on hand in a pinch (and don’t forget the raw apple cider vinegar for soaking).

8.    Be thrifty. Garage sales and thrift stores are great for finding things you need at prices you can afford. And spend more time at home. Less running around means less opportunity to spend frivolously.

9.    Find your animal nature. Watch the ants and squirrels for lessons in harvesting. Gather fresh food in the summer and fall, and then preserve it for the winter months. Our grandmothers canned and so can we.

10.    Keep your chin up. During difficult times, it’s easy to become hopeless. But worrying about what tomorrow might bring will only make your situation worse. As parents, it’s important to stay positive and productive for the sake of our children and ourselves.

What’s beautiful is that there’s still so much to be thankful for in the midst of this economic turmoil. I’m grateful for the 10 egg-laying chickens we have in our acre yard, for our greenhouse that will allow us to have a garden even in the high desert of Central Oregon, and for Farmer Karl — who trades us meat for farm help. This time, while difficult and scary in many ways, can be a gift to an earth that needs rest and to a people who need to remember that there’s more to life than what we own. I have always disagreed with our materialistic culture, in theory. But I simultaneously coveted Waldorf dolls and sweet organic clothing for my children. Being naturally frugal I shopped at thrift stores, but I made far too many purchases of things I didn’t truly need. I wanted my children to be happy living with less, but I wasn’t really sold on the reality for myself. This small dose of necessarily thrifty living has been an awakening — one I’m thankful for so far.

I’m hopeful that things will get better. For now, I’m trying to enjoy my beautiful children, do my part in preservation and contribution, and smile through adversity. My children, Benjamin and Annie, play poor people living happily with little more than smiles and tiny handfuls of marbles. They ask about why we don’t eat out anymore or buy occasional toys, and I’m optimistically honest with them. Ray Henderson’s 1931 song entitled “Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries” left us with words to live by: "So keep repeating it's the berries, the strongest oak must fall. The sweet things in life, to you were just loaned. So how can you lose what you've never owned? Life is just a bowl of cherries, so live and laugh at it all."

Fairytales aren’t always pretty — witches, dragons and giants are staples. But I take solace in knowing that the witch is usually cooked in the end. If my fairytale turns out right, the economy will turn around, my husband’s business will boom, and my children will be satisfied with what they have without being burdened by an echoing message to consume. Homeschooling will continue as planned, our chickens will lay extra eggs for the neighbors, and we’ll all live happily ever after.