earth love

I made these cupcakes to honor Earth Day, then felt depressed about it. Because instead of the cupcakes representing a celebration of the earth, as I had intended, I could only visualize the literal devouring of the earth as people ate them. As children of my co-workers ran around the yard with detritus of earth smeared on their faces. Disturbing. The greasy residue of their inheritance.

It is hard to make it through April without feeling inundated with earth-saving awareness. I'm not complaining. Bring it on. Today my boss rode to work on his longboard instead of driving. But aside from that, everyone went about their material business. Twelve boxes full of reject promotionals have been sitting behind me at work the last two days while I try to figure out which is more eco-friendly: throwing the boxes away, unopened, or splitting open each shrink-wrapped CD, removing it from its recyclable paper sleeve, then consolidating the unwanted CD's into less boxes and shipping them to Pennsylvania to a plant that recycles them- at the expense of the company I work for. There are 4800 CD's. I am also pondering whether it is worthwhile to ask my dad to drive 140 miles with his rototiller to Minneapolis to till up a small garden plot outside my workplace. As if the carbon offset of a few tomatos and a bunch of carrots will make up for the transit of heavy machinery for 300 miles. The answer for each is fairly clear- forget it. Unless...you consider the impact of the public act. The radius of awareness connected to things requiring sacrifice and labor that we are willing to do with only the hope that some good will come of it. It is no small thing. Which is why I plan to undertake both of these questionable acts. Hope is better than the alternative.