Recycle this!

Is it possible to digress before you get started? Some folks make fun of my recycling box, itself a recyclable item: a big cardboard box from Amazon. When one wears out or grows a little funky I fold it up and put it in a new, recyclable box. It feels like an elegant solution to a daily responsibility. Something about getting a plastic box to collect recyclables just feels…

Wrong.

This evening I ran out to Cheryl’s car with the boxes, anticipating a trip to the recycling center.

Saying we’re going to the recycling center feels too antiseptic. What it really feels like is a trip to the dump. It reminds me of my childhood, before Billerica (MA – my birth home) had curbside trash collection. I loved going to the dump with my dad, backing the old Pinto up to the precipice. I loved the sense of danger (or what passed for peril to a seven year old). I loved throwing junk into a giant pit.

I love that I can share some of the joy of the dump with my children, even if it is a much smaller scale: no giant pit, no throwing trash with all your might into the abyss, no smell, no danger.

But I digress (properly this time).

Cheryl pointed out our stash of left over IKEA boxes I’d missed. So I made another trip out to the car. Then we made our grocery list, discovering the weekly cache of empty boxes left by the kids. So I made another trip out to the car. By the fourth trip I should have figured it was time to bring the boxes back into the house, but by then I’d surely gotten it all, right?

Wrong.

Give the gift of words.