Wow, 2014. What a year. So full of love and change and plans. And marriage. Been waiting for that one for a while. Wow.
I am thankful for my husband and my son and their abiding support. I have an incredible and fun family full of laughter and hope.
I will be working hard to make them proud and show them how beautiful the world can be.
We are surrounded by so much love that we are often overwhelmed by it. We just couldn't ask for better people to care for us. Our friends and family are boss.
More writing to come soon. And more changes. This is for you. And me.
The past couple of weeks or so haven't been unbearable. They have been expensive and inconvenient and enraging, but completely bearable, especially since we have help. Not everyone affected by the ongoing water crisis in West Virginia is so fortunate to drive for over thirty minutes once or twice a week to enjoy family time refuge with a hot shower and clean laundry. I weep for them--those people who have no choice but to use their tap water for everything, especially right now, at a time when we're certain of the poison because we can smell it, when the rest of the time we just figured subconsciously there was probably poison in the water. I weep for those who feel like those of us who still won't use it are crazy and I worry that their internal systems are at risk. I weep for many things lately, actually. Every day. But it's all really the same thing that makes me sad. Chemicals. And that's driving me to activism amid a very complex storm of issues.
But let me start at the beginning.
When I was a child in the 1980s, I ate whatever our family plucked from the aisles of grocery stores or from restaurant menus or fast-food drive-thru windows. We didn't read nutrition facts or ingredient lists, and much of the time they weren't available. We didn't concern ourselves with the ingredients in our beverages, our lotions, our medications, our soaps and shampoos, our make-up and nail polishes and removers, or our cleaners beyond putting the Mr. Yuk stickers on the bottles so we children knew not to drink the poison. And mind you, we only stuck them to the under-the-sink type poisons really, and just to warn the kiddies not to drink them.
We were just living life with modern conveniences. Poisonous unnecessary, cancer-causing "conveniences."
We smelled these chemical plants daily on our bus and car rides to and from our schools, where we practiced shelter-in-place drills from the time I was in kindergarten to the time I graduated college. A large number of occurrences throughout the years were not drills, but some semblance of public protection from toxic leaks, because the government has got our backs.
Now, I'm not surprised at all that many people are ready to "go back to normal" or "go back to sleep," depending on whom you may ask, a week or less after shaky public and private administrations tell them their water is safe*, one strand of words that should never end with an asterisk in my humble opinion. Pregnant women feel much better and so does the general public, right? *According to the CDC, “At this time, scientists continue to recommend 1 ppm as a protective level to prevent adverse health effects. However, due to limited availability of data, and out of an abundance of caution, you may wish to consider an alternative drinking water source for pregnant women until the chemical is at non-detectable levels in the water distribution system.”
I'm not surprised that the spotlight is again on the coal industry for their role in this and other disasters throughout history. I'm not surprised at the lack of attention we are getting in the world, the nation, the state, down to our own neighborhoods and homes. I'm not surprised by the Freedom Industries' bankruptcy I'm not surprised by the politicians who are eager to shift the blame away from the corporations and entities who fund their campaigns. I am not surprised that many are concerned about what happens to jobs if we take away big coal and chemical or even the privately owned water provider. I am not surprised that those things are cyclic with the apathy so pervasive in Appalachian and Kanawha Valley culture. It is not to say that I'm not disheartened by these things, but I am anything but surprised.
I am not surprised by any of this because I think about it everyday to some extent. It baffles me that so many of us continue to keep these cancer-causing chemicals in our cupboards and refrigerators for use and exposure every day, even as we learn what Mr. Yuk really means, and that his green sticky face belongs on all the things we slather on our skin to clean, moisten, or fragrance it, clean our counters and floors, spray in our air we breathe, and even consume in our food and beverages. How many of us actually take the time to think about what we force through our bodily systems daily that truly has no business in or on (which is also in) our bodies? It's all cancer to us and the environment. We are giving the Earth cancer. We are, after all, consuming the energy, the chemicals, and the minerals like greedy little children gobbling up their candy and making sure we have the most, the best, we are looking and smelling the prettiest. And tan, don't forget how important it is to darken your skin with harmful ultraviolet cancer-causing rays. Slather on more harmful chemicals to ensure that attain the desired crispness.
And I'm on my soapbox all guilty of being a hypocrite too; I am well aware, and I am sorry for that. I like beer and Hot Fries, and I indulge in Taco Bell garbage occasionally still. However, I have been working for over four years to try to live a cleaner life and consume less toxins so I maybe wouldn't die in the terrible ways that take my family and my neighbors down early and make them suffer every day. This is a poem I worked on during part of my awakening as I started to comprehend the high hereditary risks to my health with cancer, diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis, mental illness, fibromyalgia (is that considered hereditary? If not, blame the chemicals?), failing eyes, bad backs and teeth, and all the environmental risk factors the we can't even stop from seeping into our sinks and showers or filling the air we breathe or comprising the majority of readily available foods that are catching up where our DNA and our environmental toxins leave off.
I started exercising for cardio, strength, and flexibility. I quit smoking cigarettes. I stopped eating as much processed, additive rich, unnatural food. I limited my sugar intake, which is something nobody wants to face the bitter truth on, but our over-consumption of sugar is killing us. I bought a reusable glass water bottle and refilled with filtered water I will never trust again in this valley if things don't change. I stopped wearing make-up two years ago this spring. I rarely use perfume. I stopped using lotions as I learned about endocrine disruptors, which, along with other useful information, you can read about here.
And people think I'm nuts, I tell ya. Maybe I am nuts, but, pun intended, that just doesn't seem natural. People make fun of my fiance for eating egg whites and caring about his once out of control baconator-induced cholesterol. People scoff when he talks about quitting soda, something he insisted he would never do until he learned more about what it was doing to his body. People tease me about my flax seed and eating chia seed and ask me if I'm on a diet because I'm eating a spinach salad for lunch. I am dubbed "The Food Nazi" because of the way I grocery shop for my mother (53), whose illnesses do not permit her to drive or shop for herself. I can't blame people for teasing us or thinking we're snobs; it's not the norm here, to care about ourselves or our health or to question what's given to us. I'm sure everyone remembers world famous chef Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution coming to Huntington some years back. I never have watched the show, so I'm not promoting it, and I'm sure we could rage on about this subject; it is merely the first example I thought of and it works. Editing *cough* comments *cough* sure makes for an emotional response, eh? But, for our apathy, we are a joke in many parts of the country, even to idiots much like the idiots we know and love.
But I digress.
I started reading labels. And realizing we poison ourselves all of the time.
Why would we care about our water? And why would anyone care about poison in our water when we are knowingly and willingly eating and drinking poison and cleaning with it and rubbing it on our skin (or else it gets the hose again?), even in the name of staying more safe and clean, and breathing it all day because we can't stand the smell of humans and who the hell can blame us!? I don't want to smell our dirty rotten illusions anymore either. Whether it smells like Freesia or Eau de Dupont, it's all the same. Tricking our brains or telling the all too familiar truths that we are steeped in years of dirty convenience and chemical-induced stupor.
And did anyone else enjoy the bitter irony of having to turn to chemicals to clean our hands because we couldn't use our water and soap because of the chemicals? I've been using my essential oils, baking soda, bottled water, and vinegar, but I can't say I am not using harmful hand sanitizer daily and I'm either sucking down the chemicals in the plastic bottled water or I'm dehydrated. Saving for recycling, yes. Still a complete garbage move. More terrible irony is that we can't really afford to exercise; with our limited water supply we can't afford the extra hydration it requires or the extra bathing to stay clean. And we're forced back into the arms of many unhealthful convenience foods to avoid messy preparing, cooking, and cleanup that our water supplies can't match.
I'm actually using this as a jumping point to join the growing anti-shampoo, or "no poo," movement. I made myself sick the other day when I opened a bottle of nail polish. The smell was overwhelming. I'm turning into my Aunt Sandy, who can't even stand the smell of scented candles and insists our allergies are affected by every bit of this. She isn't the only one who believes in the allowable threshold of one's body to such irritants. The exposure compounds in your system and you're feeling awful, gaining weight, getting cancer, needing prescriptions, which is another issue in itself, as well as the same issue of us poisoning ourselves for pleasure OR relief. I do believe that some medication is necessary, but clean nutrition and exercise would be first and general healthful knowledge, like food safety and water cleanliness and chemical safety data. But we can't get all that when it's not so profitable. Or when people just ignore it and care more for traffic jams and Justin Bieber and their favorite television shows. Squirrel!
Today is the 16th day that my family has not used the water in our home besides anything but flushing the toilet and flushing our plumbing system. We have brought water into our home from the distribution sites that were set up the first week (not the ones that reeked of MCHM, but the bottled sites where the Belle Volunteer Fire Department and their gracious families worked tirelessly to help the community--and their brothers and sisters all over the state who helped so many were awesome as well!), the store (can you say $$$), and we fill containers up in Saint Albans, almost 30 miles from our home in Belle ($ gas $ ain't $ cheap), when we travel there once a week for a hot shower and my amazing mother-in-law to be helping us with laundry (<3). Even their water supply was threatened when the runoff from the flushing in Boone County came into contact with the Coal River, which is upstream and where Saint Albans pulls its water, and whose name suggests that there is a reason why West Virginia looks like the proverbial flipped bird. They are supposed to be testing their waters daily per the mayor. Maybe we should call and ask for that data? A huge thanks to all of those who are still coming in from other cities and states to bring in clean water and supplies for those who cannot afford it and the groups that are helping people find ways to feel safer when we cannot depend on our government officials to do so. I hope that we can all find ways to assist more as time goes on and we adjust to our new routines and behaviors.
Aside from our two excursions to Saint Albans, we heat water on the stove out of bottles for washing our faces and hair and bodies so we can work and go to school. We were also lucky to still get to work during the first week of the water crisis, when many companies were shut down, unable to use their water. My boss even let us bring our kids because their schools and daycare facilities were also shut down. Like I said, we have been so fortunate. We have clean-ish bottled water to brush our teeth and cook with. To make coffee with. For now. And some don't even have that. And even the worst of us are more fortunate than the victims of other like disasters or constant life in third world countries have been. Is this the way America is supposed to feel? What does this mean, as our lawmakers move on legislation to weaken water standards? As we still heat bottled water at $1/gallon to wash and rinse our dishes, trying to stay under the threshold of chemicals that makes us ill. And we're still getting higher water and sewer bills. That last link is a valuable resource for all of us, so I again link the main page.
This is honestly just another hazy man-made mist on what should be clean consumable renewable resources. We can't have clean and natural anything, not even water. But we'll keep getting assaulted by chemicals until we stop living on complete garbage and killing ourselves like we're not worth more than a box of Little Debbie cakes or smell good girly goop or pills and bills and chemical spills and licorice-scented water, or ash slurry, toxic runoff, oppression, depression, suppression, repression. Cyclic human failure. That's what some people say, and I feel it when I'm angry.
But I also say we're still people with lives and loves who try desperately to get out of this box we're shoved into. We're sold out and forgotten. Don't forget that we ARE here. And we want clean water and food; it's not like our fish or our local farms are benefiting from these messes. Exactly the opposite. We have no choices with the way things are going. Rural communities and poor communities have no "clean" or clean* water that they want to consume. We don't have enough public education and government and commercial support of cleaner processes all around. We have slowly growing organic, gluten free, natural aisles of grocery stores, and variants of our regular chemically enhanced fare being substituted for minimally processed forms that may be a little less convenient that we need to enjoy more of. And many people can't afford it; that is broken. We shouldn't want to keep the people sick for economy's sake. Many have referred to the timely construction of the new possibly $50,000,000 (WHAT!?) cancer center in Kanawha City that is now well underway and scheduled to be completed and serving our cancerous hordes within the year, I'm sure.
You are what you eat. And drink. And absorb through your body's largest organ: your skin. We have a right to clean food and water and products to use. Supply and demand. Take your stand to lessen the poisons in your homes and your communities and Earth-wide. Without clean water, even healthy food and all vegetation becomes poison before we ever spray it with pesticides and ripening agents and preservatives, all also toxic. Protect your waters. Protect your futures. Hell, protect yourself today.
Anyone who cares, activists, politicians, trolls, democrats, republicans, religious or not, just be accountable for yourselves. Try to help your fellow man. I don't mean to offend anyone. These are just truths that I have had the pleasure of experiencing. Your experience may vary. I know many of us have things we do not want to give up. I haven't given up all my toxins, but I have limited them severely, as I discuss in more detail in this earlier blog. I'm not responsible for your views, but I will back mine up and gladly listen to yours.
So, be safe, and live in peace inside yourselves my friends. Protect your families with knowledge and action and hope for a better future.
I'm sorry that you are seeing the first drafts of this (I even had to come back and learn about embedding and sharing links, that's how little I've been writing and that's also broken and needs fixed) and if there are errors of any sort they will be fixed soon. I've been writing this all day (two days now) and researching and reaching out to others who care and chatting with best friends I've been missing so much because they jumped the chemical ship and got out of the state. It's late now. I'm ready to expose my opinion, for better or for worse. This won't be the last of my voice on the subject, and that's a promise.
As much as I would rather have spent these days this weekend with my family, playing board games and video games and building cities that toxic chemicals don't destroy, I spent my days caring about this and caring about others so much that I want to share my feelings. I'd also love a shower to wind down. But it scares me rather than relaxes me. So I relax with a pot of water and pitcher. It's not bad, compared to the alternative. I could explain the daily frustration of living water-less next time perhaps. The nastiness of capitalism or having a privately owned water provider. Or the frustration with anything that's going on in this twisted story. But these past weeks have been more than exhausting for my mind, body, and spirit.
Goodnight. Sweet dreams. Or nightmares that your grandchildren can't find clean food or water to survive.
