Since I began my Circling Home commitment on the winter solstice three months ago, this also marks the first quarter of my year of living without a car, inside a 100 km radius of home. Much has changed in my life in these three months. A trip of more than five miles is a journey that requires planning and some effort to pull off. So I'm more careful about where I go and when. The bike and bus have become my new "normal", instead than the old rare exception. Taking my car completely off the table has held my feet to the fire, bringing these changes into the marrow of my life in ways that wouldn't have happened if I'd kept my car in the formula as a fall-back option. Now it doesn't even cross my mind to use a car. Instead I think, "How can I consolidate my chores into fewer trips?", or, "Is this event important enough for me to make the effort to get there?", or "God, I love my new bike! Where can I ride today?" I drop in on friends and neighbors near at hand more, rather than spending all my time in virtual community through email networks. (I still do plenty of that though.)
I don't think, "Why am I doing this?" I know why I'm doing this, and I haven't found any reason to question the basis of that choice. If climate change really is "the defining challenge of our age.", as U.N. Sec. General Ban Ki-moon has called it, and if "What we do in the next two or three years will determine our future.", as Rajendra Pachaouri, who heads the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said, then my efforts to reel in my carbon footprint start to seem modest, and anything but extreme.
Yes, there are days when I feel constricted by my choice, when old patterns and habits rear their heads, or I am visited by the viral restlessness of our culture. There are days when I question my own sanity, knowing that none of my friends seem to consider what I'm doing a realistic option for anyone but me. It's not easy to stand by the tracks and watch the train keep roaring by, packed to the gills with people who act as if nothing were amiss. I'm just trying to keep my own eye on the ball, and remember why I'm doing this, and for whom. My life is measured in just a handful of years, and those years are flying by. My children's lives, and the lives of all their children, is measured in countless millennia yet to come.
As I reach the one quarter mark on this year-long experiment, I continue to learn a great deal from the experience. The richness of the world that lies right beneath my feet is slowly unveiling itself to me. In the same way that I have a TV sitting in my family room, and almost never think to turn it on (Where do people find time for that?), I also have a car sitting idle in my garage, and can begin to imagine a life beyond my own addiction to independent mobility. And while most people seem to think I'm a little bit crazy, I'm still waiting for anyone to give me a compelling reason, in this age of climate crisis, why I should be doing anything else.
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