My life as a broke yuppie
| July 21, 2009 | 6:45 PM
More journal entries from Kim Humphreys »
I’m on my way out the door to pick up my “communist basket” from the CSA drop-off site, but I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself.
I’m the idealistic one who thought we could (and still might be able to) save the Rocky. I’m the one with no Plan B if somehow my media-reform efforts (and by media-reform, I mean media ownership reform) fail to pay my bills. I’m the one who acts on principle and passion and hardly ever, as David Milstead puts it, fails to make the “noneconomic” decision. I buy nothing made by Nestle or fertilized by Monsanto. Ever. Meat I eat is raised without antibiotics or cages or high-pressure water to the snout.
So, I’m the RM-Eye on being a yuppie. But, as I pointed out to Steve Foster when he twisted my arm about writing a journal, I’m broke. I’m a broke yuppie. A bruppie. And that’s what this journal is about: broke yuppiness. (More charitably put, it’s about a few of the things in life more valuable than money.) I lie awake at night worrying about having put my organic milk on a credit card. And for some reason, my friends and colleagues think I might have something interesting say about it.
I promise not to tell you about the downward spiral of my bank balance. But instead let’s talk about ethics and sustainability in our vast consumerism. Let’s talk about natural immunities and my well-researched dread of everything pharmaceutical. We can even talk about “unschooling” children and attachment-parenting puppies. (If you recognize any of those words, please friend me on Facebook. We need to band together!)
And we can talk about eating locally, in season and as nature intended. Which reminds me: My weekly delivery of produce from the organic farm is waiting. Every Tuesday evening, we go to the home of another member of our CSA (community supported agriculture) farm. There, we pick up a big, purple sack with one-500th or so of whatever the farm produced that week. We share the risks with the farmer; whether it’s a big yield or a small one, we pay the same.
Not only do we get food that grows naturally in the climate where our bodies also grow — food that’s less than 24 hours removed from the nutrients of sun and soil — but we get to keep a family farm in business. We get to help a Colorado family stand strong against the forces of agribusiness, which, led by such companies as Monsanto, is literally changing what it means at a molecular level to be human.
A jar of soil from “our farm” sits on my stovetop. “Our farmers,” Jackie and Jerry, join us in spirit for each meal. My daughter knows that food is not simply a grocery-store commodity. And for all that, I sleep well in spite of my bank balance.
csa, farm, monsanto, nestle, organic, yuppie
