Displacement.

I am not a science person.

I am not a science person.

I am not a science person.

Just wanted to get that out of the way in case you ARE a science person, because I’m about to get seriously carried away with pseudo-scientific jargon and analogies. Let it be known: I majored in English and minored in sweater collections.

Anyway, I’ve been ruminating on the notion of displacement. What is displacement, you ask? I have no idea. Well, I kind of do. But probably* not enough to qualify me to be writing on the topic. If you don’t know what it is, why in the heck are you writing about it? Who knows? Ask me another.**

Oh, I could post one of the informative YouTube videos I screened but frankly, I got bored looking at them (ENGLISH MAJOR), plus I feel that everyone here can agree on what’s going to happen if I chuck a hardboiled egg into a mason jar full of water.

This isn’t rocket science (let’s face it– this probably isn’t even really science at all. This is just me saying random things) but I do believe the denser material is going to displace the less dense material. As much as it may like to, that egg isn’t going to float unless it’s rotten. And if that egg is rotten, it’s got more pressing problems than whether or not it can pass its swimming lessons.

Displacement theory seems to run in reverse when applied to our lives. It’s not the dense, valuable items displacing the lightweight ones; it’s typically the fluff replacing that which is solid and meaningful.

This week, for example, I allowed the following ‘displacements’ to take place in my life:

 

Chips and twizzlers displaced my healthy eating goals.

The Good Wife*** displaced prayer and meditation.

Facebook displaced playing with my daughter.

A few thoughtless Starbucks runs displaced about $20 in savings.

 

And where was I at the end of all this? Spiritually, physically, emotionally and materially poorer. Nice trade-off.

Why do we allow all manner of soul-sucking crap to force out that which we truly value? I don’t know anyone who would truly rather double-check their Twitter feed for the eighteenth time than go for a nice walk with a friend and yet here we are, ON THE INTERNET, probably not solving world hunger while we’re at it.

I had a good habit going once that I’d like to start rebuilding. Instead of mindlessly logging on to all my social media accounts first thing in the morning and leeching off them all day long, reduced by eventide to an extremely grumpy shadow of my former self, I would take up a sheet of paper and pen and map out a plan for my internet usage that day. A typical list would look something like this:

 

• Find falafel recipe
• Update baby book entries
• Email realtor
• Download diaper pattern, pick out fun fabric
• Pre-order Vestiges & Claws (yaaaaay!)

 

I’ll tell you what didn’t make the cut:

 

• Check Facebook, feel like lesser person after reading about how everyone else successfully cleaned their house, wrote the great Canadian novel and climbed a mountain (and baked a pie)
• Go on Buzzfeed for 2.5 hours, instantly forget everything I read
• Follow ad to clothing website, browse collection aimlessly and feel anxious about all the clothes I don’t own, don’t need and probably don’t even want
• Click on today’s Google Doodle, find out one more thing I never needed to know

 

It wasn’t that I intentionally omitted these latter items, either; it’s just that once I began using the internet regularly as a tool for meaningful activity, my incessant habit of non-essential internet consumption began to calm down. After a day, I was less cranky in the evenings. After a week, I hardly remembered that I had a Facebook account at all.

Now I’m wondering how I allowed this wonderful habit that I enjoyed so much to fall by the wayside. Wait, I know! Displacement!**** I’m a rotten egg!

Seriously, though, maybe that’s the key. Maybe it’s not only the stuff I consume that needs to be more meaningful; maybe it’s my heart that needs to become softer, my desires that need to become deeper in order for me to reach the bottom of that jar. I need to be a more meaningful person. I long to possess what Richard J. Foster calls the inward reality of simplicity.

Okay, enough talking– time for a little doing.

Here’s my list for today:

 

I made a sticky-tab version to keep me honest:

 

If you want to know why I didn’t just make one sticky-tab list to begin with, please see paragraph #2.

 

* Definitely.

** It’s probably in your best interest to stop asking anything at all.

*** That would be the TV show, not me. In case you were wondering.

**** I’m beginning to suspect that the concept I might actually be attempting to explain is buoyancy but do you really want me to start talking about science all over again? I didn’t think so.

The Consumption Myth.

An old boyfriend once told me, point-blank:

“You think too much.”

The statement effectively hammered the Relationship Death Gong because, in addition to highlighting our gross incompatibility and the fact that for me there is no bigger turnoff than a person who doesn’t want to ponder the thematic implications of Dead Poets Society with me EVERY SINGLE TIME I WATCH IT EVERY SINGLE CHRISTMAS, it afforded me a vital moment of existential clarity. I realized that a) yes, I do indeed think too much and b) I’m never, ever going to stop so yeah, later, buddy. Don’t let your motorbike fall over on your way off the driveway. Thinking is awesome. Let’s do it some more now.

Consider, for a moment, the word consumption. What does it conjure? An elderly man reaching for a box of bran cereal in the grocery store? A mother of three standing in the aisle at Payless, pondering a pair of winter boots for her youngest? A couple of guys freezing in an outdoor Boxing Day queue?

We typically imagine consumption to mean the act of purchasing a product. But consumption as we’ve come to understand it isn’t necessarily true consumption. I know this because I am a vocabulary-obsessed egghead and I looked it up. Beyond its typical usage as a term for buying something, consumption has some evocative synonyms– to deplete, to wear and tear, to use up.

Our baby had croup and we had to go to Wal-Mart on New Year’s Day to buy a humidifier. After we left and I recovered from my fury-induced lockjaw, my husband and I were able to converse freely again. He observed that one of the products first visible upon entering the store were Rubbermaid bins. Lots of them.

“Interesting symbolism, huh?” he remarked this morning over breakfast.

Incidentally, this is one of the reasons I am happily boiling water for his peppermint tea right now and not riding on the back of a crotch rocket.

This is not to shame Rubbermaid bin users– our crawlspace looks like the blue plastic fallout from an unsuccessful Tetris session. Sure, we purchased this useless cache of ephemera. But to claim that we have consumed the items housed under the stairs would be a falsehood. We didn’t consume them. We bought them, we used them (maybe) and then we stored them. January strikes and we try whittling this collection down to seasonal ‘essentials’– camping gear, Christmas ornaments and the like– but as we all know, the pruning back of unconsumable consumables is not for the faint of heart. I haven’t seen the back of the furnace room since we moved in.*

My only resolution this year will be to stop buying unconsumable product. If it’s going to bring me daily utility and value, fine. If it’s just going to sit and smirk at me from the back of my pantry, I don’t want it.

I have devised a consumption taxonomy to ensure my future purchases don’t contribute to the Rubbermaid wasteland. The pixelation is a testament to my fine Paintbrush skills.

I suppose one could argue that ethical sourcing should be the basis of any purchase, and not utility, but I ask you– if you aren’t going to use it, why purchase it at all? Fair trade coffee is a staple in my cupboard, but I’d rather donate to an NGO that reflects my values than slap a fair trade doily on my toilet.**

I encountered a few products over Christmas that fulfill my little triangle.

~ONE~

1.  2.  3.

1, 2 This is my old burgundy leather wallet, which was looking pretty sad after only five-ish years of use. 3 My replacement is a serious quality upgrade from Saddleback Leather, complete with a 100-year warranty. Yes, One hundred. This wallet will be smirking over my grave.

~TWO~

My sister-in-law made some awesome homemade body butter.

It’s light, it’s rich, and best of all, it comes in a reusable glass jar. When I’m finished moisturizing myself, I can prevent my bobby pins from getting lost (maybe).

~THREE~

Following our family’s Flu Faceoff of 2014, I passed on making supper and picked up a rotisserie chicken. Once they’ve furnished forth your meal, these bad boys produce exceptional homemade chicken stock:

Even after I made a huge pot of chicken noodle soup laden with meat, there was still enough chicken left over to make sandwiches for our road trip the next day.

~FOUR~

If you find yourself needing to flee from a Micabella sales representative during your next mall visit, there are a few all-Canadian, aromatherapeutic havens to be found: Rocky Mountain Soap Co., Saje Natural Wellness and my personal favourite, LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics. 

This story begins six and a half blissful years ago, when the lady performing my pedicure during my honeymoon in BC remarked,

      “Are you from Alberta? You have Alberta heels.”

NO TIP. Just kidding. But I do find my heels cracking most winters and, up until this year, had been using Merle Norman Super Lube, an effective but chemical-laden product packaged in non-recyclable plastic.

No longer. Behold:

Lemony Flutter is technically a cuticle cream, but it’s closer in texture and smell to a luscious citrus dessert than to a salve. Think meringue. Marmalade. Turkish delight. Words fail me utterly to describe the multisensory wonder of this delicious spread. Additionally, Lush has a super recycling program; all their packaging is made from post-consumer material and they offer a free face mask to anyone who returns 5 of their little reusable black pots.

To conclude:

Consumption. Good if you’re using things you need until they’re all used up. Bad if you’re playing Oregon Trail.

---

*Except once to make sure a bad guy wasn’t squatting there after I realized I’d left the deck door unlocked overnight.

** I’ve never actually seen a fair trade doily. Presumably the good people over at Ten Thousand Villages wish to spare us from ourselves.

Corporate Rhetoric, My Favourite.

I’m beginning to tire of the word ninja* being thrown around whenever anybody wants to communicate the idea that someone is good at something (“My accountant is a number ninja!” “My barista is a shot-pulling ninja!”), but my aunt is a fair trade ninja. Having spearheaded her town’s transformation into a fair trade community and currently sitting as a Canadian Fair Trade Network board member, she really kicks some corporate capitalist butt while remaining one of the gentlest souls I know. Anyway, she said something once that I’d like to recall on this dark day.**

We were discussing Wal-Mart over lunch and she mentioned how much she hates their latest slogan, “Save Money, Live Better”.

“It totally offends me,” she stated in an uncharacteristically aggressive tone, crushing the aluminum pop can in her clenched fist.***

And I get it. What exactly does a multi-billion dollar corporation whose revenue is derived exclusively from exploiting other people’s misery mean by the phrase, “Live Better”? A more apt slogan might be, “Save money! Surround yourself with more cheap product this month than the poor kid lacing up your sweatshop-produced baseball could go through in seventy-six lifetimes!” At the same time, of course, the images they’re running through the commercial make you feel like “Live Better” means “be the perfect mom with the cute hair who lives in That House with the Big Baseboards and Old-School Heating Grates that remind you just vaguely enough of your pleasant childhood to make you feel like you’ve just consumed a big heaping bowl of your mom’s homemade mac and cheese”.

It got me thinking about the incredible slew of corporate ads perpetuating the myth that if we buy more stuff, it will somehow fulfill us on a cosmic level.

The examples you’re about to read are taken directly from advertising I’ve seen at the mall, around town and online. They haven’t been exaggerated or re-worded or any way.

“Expect more, pay less.” More– yes, we can definitely expect more. We can expect more crap on our driveway at our next garage sale. But hey, who doesn’t enjoy bartering with the neighbourhood Weird Guy over a plastic wastebasket?

“Fill your drawers.” Amusing potty double-entendre aside, this slogan promotes the untruth that empty space in one’s closet is somehow an undesirable thing. Space in my closet is something I have worked hard to achieve and maintain over the past couple of years. To me, space represents overcoming compulsive shopping habits; it represents a streamlined and intentional collection of garments that reflect who I am as a person. When applied to life on a larger scale, space promotes wellbeing– healthy relationships, healthy bodies, healthy minds and healthy spirits all result from a healthy margin of space. So I’ll take a pass on ‘filling my drawers,’ thanks.

“You don’t not need it.” I don’t even know where to begin, other than to say that if a student used this sentence in one of my classes, there would be some red pen involved. Beyond its unbearable use of the double negative, I feel that the question really screaming to be answered here is why? Why, in the name of all that is holy, would I or should I ever spend money on something because I ‘don’t not need it’? What sort of consumerist Purgatory are we living in when clothing retailers feel entitled to carve out this amorphous, pseudo-syllogistic no-man’s-land in our minds just to sell us one more thing we never knew we didn’t not need? Anyway, even if I do decide to hang onto my credit card information long enough to play along and bother unpacking this stupid argument, it turns out they’re telling me I do need it, which I don’t, so once again, and finally, WHY.

To all the marketing executives who will never read this, here’s a thought: maybe you could just create a high-quality, long-lasting, ethically sourced, worthwhile product or service that I would like to spend money on in the first place.

*I re-read this line and added italics so nobody would think I was talking about a little word ninja being tossed back and forth. No word ninjas were harmed in the making of this post.

** The day when, as a certain comedian put it, we can all trample each other to death the day after being thankful for what we have (that is, if you live in America. Here in Canada, Thanksgiving is such a distant memory that the trampling’s totally cool).

***This anecdote may have been embellished for narrative effect. Maybe the can-squishing part.

The Finite Wardrobe, Part II.

I’m beginning to feel slightly guilty* for ripping on Anna Wintour knowing that my closet is still a hypocritical hodge-podge. Even though I’ve been working for a couple of years to pare my collection down, I’d estimate that about 25% of my wardrobe still belongs to at least one of these dubious categories:

trendy When I say ‘trendy’, I do not mean ‘stylish’. I mean, ‘I bought this because my naive little eyeballs once read that it was supposed to be in for the season’. After the first few wears, it became painfully clear that oversized polka-dot chiffon blouses do not become these wide shoulders and hips unless I am seven months pregnant, in which case I look adorable. Out of the closet, into the maternity rubbermaid.

 

closet decorator Like some kind of deranged oversized magpie, I decided to line my closet with this at some point because I thought it was pretty. I’m pretty sure my neurons didn’t even fire; it was a strict hand-to-hanger “ooh, shiny!” nervous impulse. Unfortunately, once I brought it home, I realized the lacy part exposed too much lady part. Not exactly ideal for the context in which I was planning to wear this blouse, i.e., in front of thirty teenagers at my Christian school. You are probably looking at these two photos so far and wondering how many times I have to buy something that looks bad before I will stop doing that. WELL…

ethical but ugly At one point, I felt so shopping deprived from constantly putting things back on the rack that the minute I’d see something made in the USA or Canada, I’d buy it even if it didn’t look that great. I hate hate HATE getting rid of items that I’ve barely worn but not as much as I hate being taunted by a surly gang of ill-chosen threads every time I open my closet door. I would take a picture but I don’t think you’re ready for it.**

nostalgic barnacle, irrelevant to current life stage This is a hoodie with history. It is one of two exact replica hoodies I purchased for myself while in University, when I felt a deep need to be validated by my sense of hipster irony. I spilled bleach on the original one, kept wearing it anyway for another 6 months and finally replaced it with Ironic Hoodie 2.0 when the cuffs started falling off. Horrifying, perhaps, but not for the girl who used to wear INSIDE OUT T-SHIRTS TO SCHOOL, NO I’M NOT KIDDING. But my thirtieth birthday draws nigh. These days, I like to wear my shirts right-side-out and no matter how hard I squint, Ironic Hoodie 2.0 doesn’t make me laugh anymore because I am (apparently) a decrepit prune.

Ironic Hoodie 1.0                                           Ironic Hoodie 2.0

I just took all the clothes belonging to these aforementioned groups and purged them (there were lots). My closet looks like this now:

blazerblazersweatersweaterblouseblouseblouseblousebuttondownbuttondownbuttondownhangerhangerhangeremptyspaceemptyspaceTshirtTshirtTshirtTshirtTshirtTshirtcardigancardigancardiganhangerhangertrouserstrousersdressdress

That’s right- I can quite literally visualize every item in my closet right now because each one adds real value to my wardrobe and is in there for a very specific reason.

Full of vigour (from doing this purge) and shame (from shopping poorly enough to make this purge necessary), I hereby declare that from now on, no garment shall cross the threshold of my closet door unless it fits all of the following criteria:

sourced ethically This means that it was assembled in a country with stringent labour standards, or under circumstances where special care was taken to ensure fair labour practices in a country with typically poor labour standards (e.g. fair trade).

purchased thoughtfully I will know what I’m buying before I enter the store, and I won’t leave with anything extra, no matter how cute the bulldog is.

deeply reflective of personal style NOT a passing trend, and therefore won’t leave my closet until it’s falling apart. On that note…

seriously well-made An ethically sourced garment can still shrink, fall to pieces and hit the landfill sooner than it ought to. This US made T-shirt started out awesome but came out of its first accidental encounter with the dryer too snug for Tyrion Lannister.

*not really. She was so mean to Anne Hathaway.

** I forgot to take the picture.