November 2024: A Life without Plastic
November 5: Today while you may be biting your nails about the election, Karen Mercado, our hija Mexicana, is canvasing businesses in Corona Del Mar, Orange County . Karen and her sisters, founded Nanah just as the pandemic began to sweep across the world. Nanah produces all organic, plastic free life style body products: shampoos, conditioners, lotions, sunscreen and even toothpaste! Nanah is the Nanáhuatl word for humility. Nanahuatl is the language of an indigenous people of the Yucatan peninsula. All Nanah products come in a solid form. They are packaged in colorful lightweight cardboard which is 100% recyclable. Check out Nana at Nana.mx. It will make you feel better than watching the election results. MAYBE THIS SOUNDS LIKE ADVERTISING: WELL, YES IT IS ADVERTISING FOR GETTING PLASTICS OUT OF OUR CONSUMER DIET and THE PACIFIC OCEAN!
The October Experiment: Trying to go Car-less in California:
October 1: It’s scorching in Berkeley: 97degrees…I don’t remember the thermometer climbing so high, ever! I want to do my part by riding my bike instead of driving. But…at 3 pm when I was desperate for a swim in Lake Anza, I felt no energy to bike there.
October 2: Another meltdown day in Berkeley. I rode to the Noon Concert at UCB. Beautiful chamber music including Beethoven, Mendelssohn , Schubert and Faure. At 4 pm, I managed to ride to Lake Anza, eat a picnic dinner and ride home. No car today!
October 3: Used the bike to ride to MLK Middle School for Writer Coach tutoring. The classrooms were stifling . I would have fallen asleep if I had to spend the day in that. After, I rode to the Monterrey Market to pick up a few items. I met Sophie and her five year old son as I parked the bike. I could tell that Sophie is French even though she spoke perfect English. She had just finished shopping and was loading the fruits and veggies into a large wire basket behind her seat. Behind the basket Phillip sat waving a bunch of hydrangeas as if they were a bat. I asked Sophie about her bike: does it have an accelerator? “I don’t think so,” she replied. “If it does , I’ver never used it.” She told me that she rides Phillip to school and back everyday from Kensingston to downtown Oakland. That’s just over 10 miles one way! Bravo, Sophie! Sopie told me that Californians seem to be rushing all the time. They are driving to get places fast. Some shout at her when she’s biking to get off the road! They don’t take time to visit with their neighbors. I wonder, if we were Car-less in California, would we be more connected to each other? Would we have more time to enjoy our lives than we do now as drivers?
October 4: I asked Julyan Peard, friend & former colleague, “why don’t you drive? “
“ I did learn to drive when I lived in Argentina. But, I never drove much because I had boyfriends who drove. When I moved to study in Durham, England, nobody drove. There were buses and trains. Then when I move to NYC, well, nobody drives in that city…if I wanted to go somewhere outside Manhattan my husband rented a car, and he drove. Then when we moved to San Francisco, I discovered that I lived one block from the bus stop that would take me directly to the university. I just never have had the need to drive.”
October 5: Today was another scorcher, the thermometer rose to the mid 90s. I rode my bike to the California Native Plants garden in Tilden Park . There I met Jasmine, a Berkeley High math teacher who was also volunteering as a Garden Greeter. She didn’t know about the Bike Station Parking lot in downtown Berkeley, where anyone can leave their bike, without charge from 7 am to 7 pm or over night if necessary. Mid afternoon, Robert came pedaling up the hills to meet me , and we rode over to Lake Anza. I went for an “illegal” swim to cool off while he read a Richard Russo novel. We sat by the lake surrounded by a thousand shades of cool green. It was a perfect Car-less in California day.
October 12: Clearing out my office I just came across a clipping in the Orange County Senior Reporter, “Time to Go from Cars to Trains”…I wish I could switch from my car to trains. I used BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) to commute to San Francisco State for 28 years… Now that I an retired, I drive more. I drive to the market, to Laguna Beach, to Truckee, and around Berkeley when I don’t feel up to biking or when it feels like too much of a hassle to find a place to leave my bike safely.
October 14: Oh how car-centric transportation is in California. I would like to try taking the train to southern California. The Amtrak service is called the Coastal Starlight. The only two places I can pick it up are in Emeryville and Jack London Square in Oakland. Neither have a BART station. I would have to take a Lyft, Uber or a taxi to get to a station. Another glitch is taking my bicycle on the train. The train doors are at least a foot and an half above most of the AMTRAK platforms. My e-bike is too heavy for me to lift onto the train. Yuck! Then what about parking my bike securely when I arrive? There may be possibilities, but it’s difficult to suss them out in advance. I feel condemned to my car.
October 22: Three glorious days in the Sierra Nevada mountains with Karen Mercado, long time friend from Mexico City. Sean took us on a fantastic bike ride in the eastern side of the Sierras jutting up from the clear blue water of Lake Tahoe. We started out close to Spooner Lake and rode up about a thousand feet to Lake Marietta amid a forest by gentle Jeffrey, prickly Ponderosa and lodgepole pines. Most beautiful today, however, were the Aspens. A rainbow of autumn yellows, ambers and gold glittered as their leaves danced in the strong afternoon sunlight. I am falling in love with Fall in the Sierras: the colors, the quiet, the clean sky. It’s a bit late for swimming, but beautiful for hiking and biking.
October 24: Had another car-less day in California. Errands to library, bicycle shop for a bigger pannier, the Tokyo Fish Market for salmon and swordfish cuttings, back up the hill to home, then down again to Martin Luther King Middle school for coaching and up the hill again. Whew! The hardest part is locking and unlocking my bike. A cycle with it’s own keyed lock system would be a bit easier, but Evo is my best bicycle friend now. I won’t be exchanging them for something else soon.
October 29: Now that I am in Southern California, going car-less is both easier and more challenging. Getting here, I had to come by car with Robert and I driving and Karen and Reiko, our kittykat as passengers. In Laguna Beach, I can use my bicycle, the Purple Pedaler, a human powered princess, to go just above everywhere I want to go. The exception is the community swimming pool, up a heavy pedal hill, so I drive the car. With an e-bike I could make it on two wheels instead of four, but I don’t want to forsake the Purple Pedaler. The other exception is going anywhere outside of this little oceanside tourist haven. There isn’t a bus connecting to the AMTRAK train station in Irvine, which I would really like to be available. In fact, there isn’t any easy way to get to that train station except by automobile. I’m going to lobby the Laguna Beach city council to extend the trolley system to the train station. This would encourage visitors from Los Angeles and San Diego to visit LB by train and trolley. This would be a good project for 2025.
October 31: We tricker-treated our neighbors across the alley…on foot, in costume (Robert as Napoleon, Karen at a Kitty, and me as a Rasta Queen. As for Car-less in California, I must admit that I didn’t achieve more than I had expected. If would be possible, if and only if, one traveled only within a very circumscribed circle. Even then, it is too tempting to use the car to go shopping for heavy items like canned soda water (which we probably should make at home) . It is much easier to use the bicycle for commuting around Laguna Beach than in Berkeley. In Laguna, I don’t take any recreational bike rides like pedaling to Tilden Park and Inspiration Point . I promise myself and the planet to try to keep as Car-less as possible in the days ahead.
CONCLUSION: Biking is still recreational in California. It’s still a long stretch to becoming a major form of transportation. The distances are far, and there is not enough safe cycling space. I am hoping that this may reach a tipping point to make being Car-less in California possible!