Money

In keeping with recent self-indulgent posts, it is time for my semi-annual 'I need an attitude adjustment regarding making money' post. 
Fact: When I had my first job (working in the Kernersville Library) I loved making money. It provided a degree of independence from my parents that I really enjoyed. At some point, my attitude shifted. Maybe it was around the time my dad told me that I couldn't do art for a living. I'd have to find a career with which I could support myself and do my art as a hobby. A hobby. The thing I cared most about in the world was to be little more than a way to pass my Sunday afternoons. I don't know if that's when my attitude about money changed. Or if it was when I was forced to go to college when I really wanted to move to NYC and become a writer. For the New Yorker. Yes, I've always been a dreamer.
I dropped out of school at the urging of my boyfriend. I moved in with my boyfriend. Making money made sense then because it was a way to keep the two of us together. I married my boyfriend and had children with him. I stayed at home with the children. And eventually, I went back to work. Over the course of the years with the husband, money grew tight. We had arguments. He grew violent. I left. I went back to school. And I never ever picked a career. Why? Because my heart says to make stuff. And I feel like if I can't make stuff for a living (as per my dad) I will invest as little time and energy into making money as possible so that I can make stuff. But I find myself constantly chasing the dollar bill and not making stuff. I have lived below the poverty level most of my adult life. This has been a choice, to some degree as I have never chosen a "career."
People often compliment me. I understand these compliments to mean I have something of value to offer the world. But I cannot for the life of me figure out how to translate my value into money.
I don't need a lot of money. I've made do with less than $20,000 for the past ten years. But things are shifting in me. I find myself wanting to travel. Wanting to buy a pair of blue jeans. Wanting to go to the dentist.
I went to the bank yesterday. My checking account balance was a little over $100. I am comfortable with a little over $100. But once it gets below that, I feel uneasy. Because my account has gone down to one or two dollars way too often, causing me to worry about how I was going to eat. This just sucks. And I don't want to be like this anymore.
I hate having to rely on money. But I need to accept it as a fact of life. At age 56 I am saying this! I would like to have that feeling of self-sufficiency that I had when I worked for the Kernersville Library. Do I need to get an actual job? Stop doing the My Girl Everyday thing? I've been getting regular gigs and am extremely grateful that I've had this period of personal freedom from the job world. I am extremely grateful to all the people who have hired me. But I am still basically living hand to mouth. And this needs to change.
A friend of mine recently gave me a book titled "Money: A Love Story." This book is supposed to help me heal my relationship with money. I keep trying to read it, but whenever the author talks about her immense credit card debt as being the toughest financial crisis she's endured, I feel disgust. I had to keep my children warm when the gas was cut off. I had to cook rice and beans and onions and garlic enough different ways to keep them interesting. I've had to ransack the house looking for pennies to buy a gallon of gas so that I could get to work. I had to push my car down a hill every day to jump start it because I couldn't afford to have it fixed. It's hard to take this author seriously.
Still, throughout my entire journey, I've never been truly hungry. I've never been without shelter or clothing. I've never been without love. I am grateful to have made it this far having all that I have. A pickup truck. An ally. A roof over my head. Food. Health. Two little dogs. A wealth of love from family and friends.
I once said to a friend, "I don't want making money to control my life." He responded, "Lack of money controls you just as much as making money controls you." As much as I hate this, it is true.

This We Do In Remembrance of You, Dan River

On Ash Wednesday, 2014 I began a weekly practice which I called "Coal Ash Wednesdays." I initiated this practice in response to the coal ash spill at the Dan River on February 2 as a means of dealing with my personal sorrow and shame: sorrow from the pollution of this beautiful land that has sustained us, sorrow for the deaths of river wildlife, sorrow for the known health risks coal ash brings to the people living along the river and shame for being a contributing factor to the source of the pollution.

I am a Duke Energy customer.  I rely on this corporation for electricity.  I rely on electricity to maintain a lifestyle of comfort and ease. But Duke Energy creates the bulk of its electricity through the burning of coal which results in the waste product of coal ash. My mindless consumption of electricity is no longer acceptable.

What must I do?  How must I live?  Duke Energy is my only option as a power company.  I am not in a financial or physical place to install solar panels. I either must do without electricity or suck it up and continue to use Duke Energy as my source of it.  Neither of these options appeals to me.  

I decided the best way to express my grief and honor the earth would be to drastically reduce my consumption of electricity.  And at a given time each week, I would cut off the main breaker at my home, completely severing my connection with Duke Energy, for a minimum of one half an hour. I established a page on a social media site to invite others to do the same.  This was the start of Coal Ash Wednesdays.

I launched this initiative on Ash Wednesday for a couple of reasons.  In the Christian tradition, Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of a period of repentance known as Lent.  For 40 days, believers fast as a means of repenting for their sins and preparing for the return of Christ on Easter Sunday. It is a time of contemplation, mourning and repentance for all the frailties of being human.  Fasting is historically a standard practice during this time.  Over time, fasting has been replaced with the intentional "giving up" of sweets, meat, coffee, wheat and so on.  At a special service on Ash Wednesday, ash is smeared on the foreheads of participants indicating their process of grieving and penance.

The ash that spewed out of the holding ponds at the Duke Energy plant in Eden was toxic.  It destroyed lives in the river and along its banks.  We who consume Duke Energy's product are complicit in this disaster.  We are responsible. So we, the participants of Coal Ash Wednesdays, as a form of grief and penance, gave up a bit of our massive consumption of energy during Lent and beyond. And every Wednesday from 7:30 p.m. til 8:00 p.m. we shut off our main breakers in unison.

On the first Coal Ash Wednesday, people shared photographs of candlelit dinners with family, board games played by the light of a fireplace, sharing a glass of wine with a beloved. By simply cutting off the main breaker to their homes, they stepped out of the frenetic pace of life with its constant bombardment of electronic stimuli, and they interacted with each other.  Face to face. Despite the fact that we were all scattered across different towns, we engaged in an act of communion by uniting in this process of stepping back, taking a breath, listening to silence, enjoying each other's company and intentionally removing our connection to Duke Energy.

In cutting off our main breakers, we completely stop the flow of electrical current into our homes. We temporarily sever our connection with Duke Energy: the corporation that continues to mishandle its coal ash waste, the corporation responsible for the spill in the Dan River, the one never held fully accountable. This severance feels good.  It feels powerful.  It unleashes the imagination to the limitless possibilities we have as good stewards of the planet.

When the main breaker is off, the house feels unnaturally quiet and still. It is as if I can feel the rhythm of the planet rather than the ticking of the electric meter. I feel connected to the land both in my state of quietude and in my intentional act of severance from Duke Energy.

For me, Coal Ash Wednesday is less of a protest and more of a spiritual practice; a "giving up" of electricity in mourning and in penance. But I do like to think that if enough people participate in this act, maybe we can make a statement to Duke Energy will be heard in their profit margins. It's a dream I like to have: that "people have the power to redeem the work of fools."   

On February 2 I've proposed we cut off our main breakers from 7 a,m until noon.  These are peak hours of electric consumption for Duke Energy during the winter months and a time when the rates are a bit higher: $1.20 more per kilowatt-hour. This can result in a big savings on your electric bill if you make shutting off your main breaker a daily or even weekly practice - even if only for one half an hour a week. And any money I don't have to pay to Duke Energy I can use for investing in renewable energy companies or environmental organizations. It is my one small way of working for better energy options.  It is my one small way of giving back to Mother Nature.  It is my way of saying I'm sorry and I'm trying to do better.