Green your routine

Green my routine.” I remember that’s what he said from his end of the television. What? Who are you? I wondered because I don’t watch TV and I didn’t know him. The commercial was easygoing. Just go green.

I debated with myself: what kind of a difference should I make if I’m going to leave the earth better than when I entered it? All right, I’ll go green and it can be pursued daily. Home would be a good place to start, but with commitment to save my grandchildren’s planet. First, I’ll throw my hair dye in a plastic trash bag, never in my bedroom waste basket, as it might burst open with a sound like a little explosion, like it did before.

I continued to examine my daily routine… stretch at the stroke of 5:30. That’s when I’m awake! I sit up immediately. That’s my first reaction to hurriedly wake my body up. I never tarry in bed. Up and rush to brush my teeth. Will the citizens of the world ever tire of brushing their teeth three times a day? If that happens, my grandson Robbie said, “We wouldn’t need nuclear weapons at all.”

Watching the Discovery and National Geographic channels keeps me updated and alerts me to activities I take for granted, like abusing nature, so I recycle paper. It’s a great idea for the pocketbook and office. I actually blow a fuse when clean white paper is used as scratch for my columns because they go through three or four editings. I stopped typing when my daughter segregated things worthy to sell as she was moving into her new house. My typewriter happened to be on that side of her trash with her useless elements to sell to an antique dealer. By mistake my typewriter was included in the sale. It was an old Underwood! And a sentimental item, having typed my thesis on it. It was the same brand as the ones we students pounded on in college typing classes! I’m embarrassed to write about it now because obviously I live in a Jurassic world — but not when I go abroad, where I’m “hip.”

When I plan for a trip, a roomy bag is my preference. It’s an all-time favorite signature bag big enough to hold the unexpected items I decide to buy at the airport! Aside from that, I bring my handy trickster bag, a plastic bag no bigger than my palm when folded but opens into one the size of a half a sack of rice. My daughter has dubbed it her “Save the Earth Bag,” which she makes in water-proof material in colors brown, orange and black. I put inside shawls, sandwiches, a magazine, flat shoes — they all fit with space to spare. What I do is to bring two of them and place one inside the other for style and security.

I got hooked on them upon learning 500,000 plastic bags a year clog up the seas. The supermarket is another place where my yaya and my other daughter take it. Until my children were in their teens, I did the groceries; now they do the groceries for me. Walking up and down aisles of goodies, I am tempted to buy what was never on the list but with the little “Save the Earth” bag, all the extra unintended purchases are crowded inside that little sack.

As I think endlessly about how to green our routine, cups of cold and hot coffee paper mugs that clog the sea come to mind. Will we ever bring our own coffee mugs to Starbucks to save the planet? Disposable cups make me laugh when I think of treasured blue and white Ming Dynasty jars and excavated celadon plates. If anthropologists excavated the remains of the Mt. Pinatubo disaster in Pampanga and Tarlac they’d find Styrofoam and plastic cups, cheap paper plates.

I don’t take coffee, so my coffee cups are in the bathroom full of toothbrushes and toothpastes. Robbie’s baby toothbrush is there, too. He’s now seven years old and I’m saving it as a souvenir so when he grows up he’ll have a smile on his face seeing it with Wawa in a frame.

Rafael and Pico should be indoctrinated to save Mother Nature. We took an oath, promising each other: “I will not leave the water running when I brush my teeth. Daddy and Mommy have to save for my education. I will use a glass of water to rinse out my mouth for sweet-smelling breath.” We end after hearing a loud order from auntie Liaa. She’s yelling at someone in the bathroom, “Don’t leave the water running while brushing your teeth.” I apparently have trained my children well!

When conservation wasn’t that “in” yet, my daughters Mai and Liaa were already activists, angry with us for eating shark’s fin soup and angry at those who threw trash just everywhere.

In Tawi-Tawi, the Mayor’s househelp would bring water from a tank on the roof of the house down to the one and only bathroom. Five pails of water were carried for one bath in the tiniest bathroom. All 15 of us got dirty looks when the help had to repeat that chore again and again every time we had used up their rain water. It had been saved for half a year, that’s why maggots dwelt in the upper surface of the water!

Those helpers never went to school nor to an office, but travel by boat from island to island. I’m sure you’ve ridden in numerous modes of transport than they have in Sitangkai, Tawi-Tawi. Lucky you. You won’t get sticky hair from the sea. We can walk to our destinations, carpool to save on gas or take the MRT, pedicab or kalesa. All of them are good options and we will help save the earth, the country and our people by boycotting vehicles that spew out carbon dioxide.

I know you want to live longer in good health. So do I.