Ten Ways to Celebrate the Season of Restraint

This time of year, we take a few months to slow down and hunker in, perhaps catch up on pleasure reading or deep clean the garage or make a lot of soup. I love this time of year. No major holidays, no feelings of guilt for not getting out in the sunshine, a quiet time before the seasons change.

In my younger days, this was the season of Lent—the forty days starting with ash on your forehead and ending with a huge box of saved-up candy and gum, plus the Easter candy supplement. These were the days of no meat on Fridays, rosary time, and worst of all, no television. For a kid, Lent was a real bummer.

Those sober days and Catholic ways are long gone from my life, but I do like the idea of a season of living purposefully. Easily said, not always easily done. So here are ten ways in which I am celebrating the upcoming season of restraint.

1. As environmentally-aware people, we strive to live a lower-impact life. We do what many people in the Northwest do. We compost, recycle, buy gently used, limit our energy use, public transport when we can, and so on and so forth. But, we love Ziploc bags. And we throw them away after one use, I’m not going to lie to you. Me: “We need to get those bigger reusable containers for sandwiches and chips that we won’t be compelled to throw away.” Have been saying that for at least a year. Will go find said reusable containers.
2. My mom, well, she was a modern Catholic, and she let us cheat during Lent and also changed the rules somewhere in the 1980s, moving from giving up something to doing something nice. If you are reading this you are probably deeply involved in many good social change endeavors. For me, I’m going to do the volunteer job I always avoid doing. You know that one. The really hard one. The one that no one wants to do.  The really depressing one. And then I’m not going to tell anyone I did it. No accolades.
3. Meatless Mondays and Sustainable Fish on Fridays. We try, we fail – we’ll try again. I just heard Ruth Reichl, former Gourmet editor and The New York Times food critic, speak and she reminded me yet again that meat is a luxury to have occasionally. It’s hard when you’re partner is a truck driver. I’m just saying. Need to find better veg recipes.
4. We are not a T.V. family. Lately, we’ve been watching a lot of Top Chef, Gold Rush, Swamp People, Project Runway and Downton Abbey. We are a T.V. family! Crap. Need to turn that off again.
5. Contemplate something beautiful every day. Who said that? Hold on, googling… can’t find it. Think I saw it in a movie. Anyway. I have been doing this and man, it’s really something. Just looking out the window for three minutes and the way the trees are blowing or the hints of colors starting to show or a bird or a squirrel. We are living a life of screens. Good to look at the real thing every once in a while.
6. As a kid, Palm Sunday was something to look forward to amid the drudgery of Lent because 1) mass involves an interactive play and 2) you get to take home a palm from church. Support your local theater. I just took my partner Ian to a local production of The Spitfire Grill, the musical, and man—there were a lot of songs in that play. Still, there’s something about community theater that is so dear and well worth the inexpensive ticket. Waiting for Guffman.
7. We are cooking every night. We’re not caving in. It’s going okay. We miss the Thai. We’re doing it as a challenge to our pocketbook, waistline and some carbon footprint in there as well.
8. In place of the saying the rosary, I’m working on organizing/getting rid of 20 years of files and misc. boxes. Same-same.
9. A guy at work told me he’s buying only local beer and wine this year. We are copying him and doing the same. This is a total freebie because we live in the Pacific Northwest. Think it might be hard to drink unlocal.

10.  And finally! The daily walks. We have a 40-minute loop. To be honest, we’re averaging about 2 nights a week. But much better than before. In the old days, I would feel guilty. Now, we just try our best.

Sara Freedman is the editor at Groundwire, a nonprofit providing engagement strategy and online tools to nonprofits working for healthy communities and a thriving planet.