A different kind of love song

When you think of love songs, I bet lines like “Oh baby, baby, baby, baaaaaaaaby, I love you” and other word conglomerations of that ilk come to mind. These songs run the gamut of happy, sad, mournful, or even overly goopy.

Leave it to my sweetie to write a song for me that speaks to what we value, not to mention what I spend my days navigating in varying degrees while I make a living. The lyrics go like this:

Shed
by Sven Eberlein

I’ve got a closet full of things
don’t know how they made it in
there’s that sweater I don’t like
and the tapes left behind by my friend Mike

I’ve tried to clear it out before
but all that stuff keeps getting more
my house is looking like a store
and now I can’t even close the door

Shedding thoughts, shedding fears, shedding layers, shedding years
shed the future, shed the past, shed what’s missing, it won’t last

I wanna buy a brand new car
wanna travel to Qatar
get my hands on the new Mac
be the first to buy the app

What the hell I wanna splurge
later I can always purge
there’s no deal I wouldn’t search
I just can’t resist the sudden urge

And now I’m drowning in my junk
oh Lord, why am I in such a funk?
but no, another gift, another chunk
where should I put it, in my trunk?

I’m overwhelmed, I start to pray
for all the stuff to go away
I wanna meditate all day
but then I gotta buy a cushion first — oy vey!

Shedding thoughts, shedding fears, shedding layers, shedding years
shed the future, shed the past, shed what’s missing, it won’t last
sit on the shed or underneath, find a little space to breathe’
clear the clutter in your head, if that don’t work, get rid of shed

I wanna set it all on fire
but that would get the carbon levels higher
my situation is so dire
my crap’s feeding the Pacific Gyre

Oh what can I do, what can be done?
my compulsion to consume seems so human
but when all else fails there’s still this song
all together, everyone:

Shedding thoughts, shedding fears, shedding layers, shedding years
shed the future, shed the past, shed what’s missing, it won’t last
sit on the shed or underneath, find a little space to breathe’
clear the clutter in your head, if that don’t work, get rid of shed
shed the garbage, shed the waste, stop the buying, slow the chase
get your shed together now, you don’t need much anyhow

(Listen to a raw un-studioed version of Shed!)

In addition to making me want to dance a little jig, the song gets even more awesome: he has donated it for use in Kate Schermerhorn’s forthcoming documentary called, Do I Need This?, a “quirky film about consumerism, excess, and what we really need in life.” Financial backing for the project has gained great momentum in its final Kickstarter days. I’d love to see this film get made, so consider chiming in with a pledge of your support. (Gosh, I hear myself sounding like Ira Glass during an NPR pledge drive.)

And what’s one of the greatest things about this song? It adds nary an ounce of clutter to the world.

Time to ramp it up to a happy Snoopy dance!

 

Chicken in a jar

This is a post about changing a habit. Habits take time. They require practice. Practice makes almost perfect. Why almost perfect? I believe that perfection is a perceived destination and that the journey is the actual destination.

If you’re like me, I’m on several journeys at any given time. This is about my journey to deepen a habit: to reduce my consumption of unnecessary waste and single use items. While this is something I’ve been working on for years and have gotten very good at, I was inspired to up my game after meeting Beth Terry, blogger extraordinaire and tireless crusader of My Plastic-free Life, in 2010. At the time, Beth interviewed me for an awesome piece she wrote about bringing our own reusable containers out into the world.

When I saw her April 17 post on Facebook announcing she would be attending the Lunchbox Project SF, a pre-Earth Day “large-scale Day of Action in which San Franciscans will order lunch in our own, reusable containers,” I kept my schedule clear so I could meet her for lunch with the very thing that brought us together in the first place!

 

Before and after

I am often asked about the lack of before and after photos on my website. I’ll be frank and say it: as a genre, they all sort of look the same, and without context, I find them to be quite uninteresting.

Generally speaking, before and after for organizers illustrates various forms of disarray transformed into various states of tidiness, and predictably, organization. To my eyes, these “results” are partial results as they simply show physical and surface alterations that have occurred. Little is told about what has happened and not a thing is said about why.

When I use photography in the course of working with clients, it is a tool to document a process — before, during, and after. When I choose to share the photos, it is to tell a story about the journey — the benefits and changes for the client and the decisions and observations we made along the way. Oftentimes, the physical changes barely scratch the surface of the shifts that manifest for and/or within the people themselves.

For example, here is a set of before and after photos of the area beneath a client’s kitchen sink…

What do you see? A little less clutter and a little more organization? Yay! We like that. Mission accomplished. Were some containers moved or removed to make it look better? But of course! As before and after images, they do the trick, right? To make my point, the answer is “not really.”

Here’s the story:

 

Blooming in a D.I.Y. kind of way

One of the happiest joys and honors is an invitation to witness friends unite their lives. As a natural observer and sometimes documentarian, my eyes are always drawn to the quiet details that make each event so unique. In recent years, I’ve notice a proclivity to incorporate incredibly personal handmade or D.I.Y. (a.k.a. do-it-yourself) elements, and this has been most notable in the flowers.

A wedding I attended last year featured arrangements and a bridal bouquet lovingly homegrown by the bride’s sister. I consider this to be a brave and stunning undertaking, especially when one is at the mercy of Mother Nature!

 

Moving your money to where it matters

I was visiting my bank yesterday afternoon when a woman walked in to inquire about their services. She was talking to one of the tellers across a table covered with plates of heart-shaped cookies, bagels and cream cheese, and freshly cut fruit. This was Valentine’s Day at the bank. As she spread cream cheese on a bagel wedge, I heard her ask for clarification when she was told the bank offers free checking accounts that had no minimum balance requirements. “Wait, no minimum balance? You mean no fees?” she asked. Perhaps she felt as though she was waking from a dream or falling in love.

Moving your money to a bank that supports their customers and invests in the local community and economy truly makes a difference. Many friends and acquaintances have expressed interest in switching from their big fee-collecting banks to a smaller community banking environment. They think it’s a great idea and they want to do it, but it’s a multi-part project that cannot be completed in one sitting. It takes time and patience, and it feels daunting. I encourage them by saying that when they are ready, they will make the time.

So how exactly do you move your money?

The bank manager tells customers to allow two to three months for the process to be completed. Most of that time is spent waiting for payments to clear or changes to take effect. But like any other goal you set or project you undertake, you need to break it down into small pieces to make it both manageable and attainable.

First, you need to find a bank. In addition to asking family and friends for personal recommendations, use Move Your Money‘s online resource to locate community banks and credit unions near you. Visit the banks that interest you and ask about their account offerings, minimum balances, and fees. Find out if they offer other benefits and services you can use. Because most community banks and credit unions are local, inquire about reciprocal ATM agreements so you can access funds when you’re away from home while avoiding fees.

Once you’ve chosen the new home for your money:

• Make a date with yourself and go open your account.
• Change automatic deposits (i.e. paychecks, social security payments, dividends payments, etc.) so they are routed to your new account.
• List all automatic bill payments and direct debits that are taken from your soon to be former account. Changing these to your new account will be a mini-project. Be mindful of having adequate funds in your old and new accounts as you gradually move them over.
• Note the total of any outstanding checks. You want to be certain to keep their total amount plus any minimum account balance requirement in your old account.
• When all checks have cleared from the “old” account, pay a final visit to the bank and formally close your accounts.

When move your money, you are joining a vast community of individuals, families, small business owners, nonprofits, and even cities who are choosing to bank with institutions whose ethics and practices are in alignment with their values. Banking can be different. Maybe your new bank will bake and serve cookies every day. Mine does, and as such it provides another great service: allowing me to exercise restraint in the face of a tray of chocolate chip cookies.

 

Liberating experiences…thanks to some banks

Reviewing a test shot with photographer Stuart Lirette (photo by Sven Eberlein)

There I was in one of the most uncomfortable places you will ever find me: on the lens side of the camera. Always one to shy away from the spotlight, the photographer whom I had just met was adjusting a light that was shining in my direction.

I took a leap and stretched beyond my comfort zone by asking one simple question at my bank: how can me and my business be featured in one of your ads? Before I knew it, it was happening.

But first, a little back story.

The early days of the Move Your Money movement had me primed to leave the big corporate entity that was my bank until just over a year ago. I had requirements that included proximity to my home office and an offering of business checking and savings accounts. Most of the credit unions did not provide the latter, so I waited. And I waited. And I waited.

Finally there came the new banking kid on the same block as my “too big to fail” financial establishment. After conducting preliminary reconnaissance online and learning it was a local community bank that provided the services I needed, and that they, like me, were a Bay Area Green Business, the time came for a visit. It was love at first conversation. I felt as if I had landed in the warm green embrace of the bank’s logo, a contemporary stylized zen ensō. The time for change had come.

Liberating was the day I closed my accounts at the bank from which I was Chased Away™, a phrase coined by my partner, Sven, in his blog post about how and why we moved our money to Circle Bank.

Fast forward nearly a year, and I find my query about being a featured customer for the bank’s print ad campaign setting a proverbial ball in motion. An interview was scheduled, a photographer would be in touch, and then the ad would appear.

Not being in control of the shutter was huge. Imagine how hard that would be for a visual control freak! It took a little getting used to, but when I simply allowed myself have fun in front of the camera, I let go. I had to trust. (Actually, make that two cameras, as Sven was documenting “behind the scenes.”)

Trust is liberating. When we’re vulnerable and can trust ourselves, we are open to having experiences that illuminate (sometimes literally) a new degree of focus and awareness. When we trust, anything is possible, like becoming a half-page ad in several Bay Area publications.

Little did I know that in the process of engaging in this fabulous collaboration, I would experience a truly liberating experience. Ah yes, sometimes advertising rings true!

 

The start of a revolution

For starters, I haven’t started a revolution…yet! But this blog post is a bit revolutionary for me. This paragraph aside, the story you are about to read was penned by my partner, Sven, around a series of photographs I shot on a historic day in the sustainability movement. It was a foggy morning that found us on our way to Sacramento to pursue what we hoped would be our first true documentary collaboration. His recorder in hand, my cameras’ viewfinders taking turns at my eye, we’re happy to share the fruits of this creative jam session. The day was…

January 3, 2012: California becomes the sixth state to adopt law that allows the formation of corporations whose main purpose isn’t to make money.

A day at the Secretary of State’s office in Sacramento, where California’s first twelve businesses filed to operate as benefit corporations.

California Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Sacramento’s Capitol Park, only a short walk from the Secretary of State’s Corporate Filing Office, honoring Brien Thomas (B.T.) Collins, Vietnam War veteran and CA Assembly Member, who “never wavered in the belief that one should give something back to society.”

I hope five or ten years from now we’ll look back on this day and say “this was the start of a revolution, because the existing paradigm isn’t working anymore. This is the future.”

- Yvon Chouinard, Founder of Patagonia, California’s first benefit corporation.

 

A homegrown recipe for multitasking

I’m sitting at the kitchen table absorbing whatever rays of reflected or direct sunlight are finding their way through the east- and south-facing windows on this, the shortest day of the year. I’m also absorbing the heat emanating from the oven as a kabocha squash browns in preparation for it’s entry into today’s menu. The cherry tomato plant out my back door (below) is also working the light, this despite overnight temperatures in the 40s and the fact that it’s December 21.

On days like today, when I’m not seeing any clients, I like to maximize the work-from-home opportunities to do one of my favorite things: cook.

“What!?” you may be thinking, “You’ve got time to cook while you’re supposed to be using your office time to balance the books, take care of billing matters, and work on outreach?”

 

Trashin’ up the holidaze

Few things made me roll my eyes more than the media reports of a woman who pepper sprayed her fellow shoppers in what is now a toss up between self-defense and defensive shopping. I find it hard to imagine why on earth one would ever put themselves in the situation where the ritual of gift shopping for loved ones becomes a life or death struggle and race to the cash register. This is not sustainable in any sense of the holiday spirit.

 

Look behind the curtain…and the name

When you read the name Homeless Prenatal Program (HPP), it’s easy to assume what population this nonprofit serves and make a good guess what kind of services it provides. That assumption changed drastically for me and several of my colleagues when I extend the invitation for a tour of their facility.

Five years ago, the now 22-year-old HPP purchased and occupied its current home, a big grey building with a nondescript facade on the corner of 18th and Potrero streets in San Francisco. Once we were past the front desk, we were struck by the friendly and open physical interior of this surprisingly modern and inviting space that once upon a time was fixed up by a now evaporated dot-com. Visual awe gave way, however, to a deep sense of amazement and frequent mouthing of “wow” at one another as the extraordinary array of services provided by HPP was described by our tour leaders,