Changing the World

The girls and I have been plogging a lot lately!

…It looks like I don’t know how to spell, doesn’t it? No worries… it’s spelled that way on purpose. Plogging is a Swedish fitness craze that is a combination between jogging and picking up trash. It not only helps you get a cardio workout, but also helps the environment!

When we first moved to California, we were appalled by how filthy our new city was, especially compared to our beautiful Cache Valley. We moved into a neighborhood where there are cars constantly lining the streets. Most homes house several families, and the houses themselves are often old and cluttered. Our neighbors throw loud parties at all hours of the night, and the dogs and cats are constantly fighting or mating. We hear firecrackers and guns go off all the time, and it’s commonplace to hear drunken quarrels, blaring sirens, and police helicopters. On top of all that, I’m fairly certain that the people who live across the street are drug dealers. All in all, the general feel of the neighborhood is that its people are surviving, not thriving.

It was quite a lot for a 5-year old

to go through all at once.

Our 5 year old, Liz, was having a really hard time adjusting to the move. She missed her friends, and her preschool, and her dance class. She loves with her whole heart, and the thought of having to make new friends did not appeal to her at all. She missed Cache Valley. She had always been an easy-going, gentle, content child; now suddenly she was struggling day-to-day just to be happy. She was lonely, with her older sister in school and her friends so far away.

We had also just lost my baby nephew to SIDS. He was only 4 weeks old when he passed away, and Liz had gotten to hold him just once before he was gone. She was struggling with a huge change from the move; adding the grief from that loss was a big blow at a vulnerable time. It was a lot for a 5-year old to go through all at once.

That we had moved to a crowded neighborhood, without anyone her age to play with, didn’t help. Add in the fact that it was filthy and heavily littered, and she was just miserable. She constantly begged us to move back to Logan. And any time we went anywhere, she would point out every piece of trash, and ask me why people threw their garbage on the ground. I would explain as best as I could about poverty, ignorance, general debris, and living in a more populated area. No matter how I explained it, she didn’t understand why it was so different from Cache Valley… and she was determined not to like it.

One day, as she was struggling through all of this, I played a Youtube video for the kids that seemed to really inspire them. The video was about a book called The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. It is a true story about a boy named William Kamkwamba (the author of the book), who came from a small village in Malawi. Despite many obstacles- his family lived in poverty and he was forced to drop out of school at a young age-, William was able to help his village by building a windmill out of junk to generate energy and to pump water. He was just 12 years old.

I told my enthralled children that little people could change the world. We talked about how Jess was doing that through her efforts at her school. And I told them that they could do something, too, to make the world a better place. I think that’s where this all started. Liz decided to change her world by “helping the Earth.”

Back in Logan, the girls and I were part of a multi-family preschool group, something like joy school. During one preschool lesson taught by one of my dear friends, Liz learned about helping the Earth. She learned that she can help by keeping it clean. She took this so much to heart that she would talk about it all the time, even before we moved. If there was ever trash anywhere, she would pick it up and tell me that she wanted to do her part to help.

When she saw our new neighborhood, she decided that the Earth needed a lot of help in California… so, continuing the habit she’d started before, she did her best to pick up trash everywhere we went. At first I was a bit apprehensive. I didn’t want her picking up any truly nasty things. But, inspired by her big heart and beautiful desires, I decided that I needed to be supportive; she was right, the Earth needed it.

I gave her specific rules to not pick up cigarettes or broken glass or anything that looked sharp, and told her that she had to ask before picking up anything that she wasn’t sure about. I also kept a pretty close watch on her. I often didn’t have a trash bag with me, so she would just hold the trash until we found a garbage bin. It wasn’t easy, and it certainly wasn’t comfortable… but it seemed to help her feel happy.

That was right about when Ben found a video about plogging. He showed it to me, and I knew right away that we had to show Liz. The moment we told her about it, she loved it. It was the perfect thing for her, as she struggled to find her place in this new life… it became something that she could let define her, and ground her. She finds such joy in making her world more beautiful, and she inspires everyone who sees her to do the same.

“Mom. I’m changing the world!”

I try to go plogging now at least 3 times a week with the girls. If it’s been too long, my Liz reminds me. Maybe at some point we’ll go everyday. At least, we’re trying to work up to that. Sometimes we go to a park, clean it up, and then play at the playground. We take gloves, trash bags, and hand sanitizing wipes to make clean up a bit easier. Other times, we go plogging around our neighborhood, and then admire our handiwork as we take off to run errands. It’s been so wonderful to see how such a little thing has helped my girls see the good in the world around them, and to feel joy in serving and preserving it.

I believe that we can find beauty wherever we are. Sometimes, we see it easily. Other times… it takes a bit more effort; we can’t find it as readily, so we have to make it. As we have been putting in the effort to make beauty in our own community, we have felt happier, knowing that we can make a difference. It feels good to serve. Especially for Liz, who has found the service to be a special kind of healing. And not just healing… it has given birth to grand ideas and dreams. She now has a goal to visit cities all over the United States, just to go plogging.

One day, after a particularly satisfying round of plogging, she turned to me and said, “Mom, I’m changing the world!” Yes, you are, darling. You most certainly are.