The Inspiration to Recycle

Recycling is an interesting concept. The image the word “recycling” first conjures in my mind is one of a green and yellow bin that I throw things into and put out at the curb each week to be picked up by a loud green truck that barrels down New Market Road faster than one would think to be safe. It is a cold and impersonal interpretation of the word. Another image that it evokes is one of me and my roommates spending an evening in our kitchen painting a table with the sounds of Afro-Cuban funk emanating throughout the house. This is the inviting and personal interpretation.

So here is the Babs certified definition of recycling: We take something that was made for one purpose and change it into something that is used for another purpose or we create a different version of the same something to be used for the same purpose but in a way that more suits our individual style. Did you follow?

And now, here is the story to help you all expand on the personal image of the Immokalee girls hanging out in our kitchen on a Saturday night. One day at Habitat I got the pleasure of riding out to Naples with my supervisor to pick up some tools from a 90 year old volunteer. After 20 some years of volunteering he is retiring from Habitat and moving back to St. Louis to be close to family. What we thought was going to be a trip to get a bunch of tools kind of turned out to be us cleaning out his garage for him. No worries though, because we got some cool stuff. One of the items that I took home with me that day was an old table top. I was excited about this because the kitchen table that we inherited with the volunteer house was a nice 90’s themed glass table top with black metal legs. The legs may have been attached to the glass at one point, but many a meal this year has included shifting of the glass and/or legs. Sometimes this was intentional to better reposition the elements of our table, other times it was a surprise attack. So you can imagine why the prospect of a slightly more stable table was exciting. My original thought was to get some wood to make legs for the table top I had brought home. Then I realized that the circular wooden top I found fit perfectly underneath the octagonal glass top we already had. So in the spirit of recycling I decided to find a way to connect the metal legs we already had to the wooden top. Four long nails, some “exact” measurements, and some therapeutic hammering later and we were in business. So here comes the last step: decoration of the table. We divided up the table into four sections and each family member took one and made it her own. The designs ended up organically morphing into each other as we worked together creating our new kitchen table. It is one of the most beautiful images of recycling I have ever experienced. Now I just have to figure out what I’m going to do with the old piece of countertop I brought home.

But why do we usually reserve the verb recycle for inanimate physical objects? Why can’t we use the word to refer to people? I am a physical therapist and an athletic trainer by trade. I spent six years in school and took some pretty big board exams to earn these titles. I made myself into these professions, yet they are not words I would use to describe myself this year. I am fulfilling a different purpose. I am an activist, a kindergarten teacher, a social worker, an organizer, an English teacher, a Spanish student, a construction worker, an immersion trip planner/implementer, and a tiler/painter/caulker extraordinaire. Not titles that would have been bestowed upon me by others a year ago, but all things that in one way or another, I was made for. I have recycled myself.

And that is the beauty of recycling. Just because something was made in one way doesn’t mean we can’t alter that. We can make something different. We can make something better. We can make something our own—We can make ourselves different. We can make ourselves better. We can come into our own.

Peace Out

Love,

Babs