April's Pants

How do we teach our kids to leave something better than they found it?

I learned an important lesson in the eighth grade when I borrowed a pair of pants.

Remember when you were little and you borrowed something from a friend? You were likely told to return it at least as good as you found it. I'm sure our parents and grandparents learned this from their elders.

There was nothing particularly special about April's pants other than they were slightly fitted white cotton, speckled with tiny blue flowers. And of course they were really, really cute. My mom was a Kmart shopper which was considered an improvement from her dad, my Pepere, who mostly shopped at the Goodwill long before thrifting was cool. If you're old enough to remember Kmart, you recognize their limitations for style. Not saying my mom didn't have style or that I didn't have stylish clothes. Clothes have ALWAYS been a way for me to express my creativity. However, April had an older sister and so reaped some of the benefit of a more experienced eye for identifying what was hip. And if Laurie (April's sister) said they were cool, then they were definitely cool.

And these pants fit me which was also a pretty big deal because I wasn't a slender or lean child like many of my peers. Even in middle school I had to squeeze my bum into pants. I have not grown much since then. And although that makes me a mostly tiny human today, it did NOT make me a tiny human then. Being able to borrow someone's pants helped me forget about self-identifying as chubby and exonerated me from the body dysmorphia encouraged by MTV, Cosmo and the now seemingly limited media sources persuading my 13 year old brain that I would never be enough. I won't even begin down the rabbit hole of how this is magnified for today's young people.

I've always identified as an athlete, yet basketball wasn't my sport. I'm athletic enough to hold my own, but standing a stretched-out 5 ft 2.75 inches tall doesn't give me much to work with, especially knowing that I'm much better handling a ball with my feet than with my hands. I played basketball simply because my friends did and what else would I possibly do after school if I didn't have a sport to play or friends to hang with? One day between school and basketball practice, I was loitering with friends as middle schoolers do. The specifics of exactly what we were doing remain vague and cloudy yet the feeling remains strong--we were up to no good. Not the kind of no-good that would land us in jail. Just the kind of no-good that kids do when they're bored and looking to push adolescent boundaries.

Tall, fragrant juniper shrubs lined the sidewalk outside the school. I was with a handful of friends, boys and girls, whose faces I can't make out. It was a grey New England afternoon and, not wearing a coat, I was underdressed for the late winter weather. Our interactions with one another were playful, innocent and awkward and I remember feeling confused about what to say, how to act or how to communicate with my peers. Maybe I had a crush on one of them. I'm pretty sure that's the middle school experience in a nutshell--awkward. Without warning, I suddenly felt two hands on my shoulder, launching my body into dark green shrubs. There was no malicious intent. Whoever pushed me was trying to be funny. I don't remember who did it, but I remember the smell of dirt and juniper and the feeling of my throat clenched, choking on the kind of fear only embarrassment provokes, and, on the brink of tears, I nearly failed at trying to laugh it off. The branches bit when I fell, piercing my skin on my upper left thigh. One particularly sharp limb poked right through those flowery pants putting a hole the size of a finger where I could see my own skin. In my experience both personally and as the now mom of young teens, strong theatrics pair well with one's desire for peer acceptance and social status. No doubt, up to that point I was trying to act "cool" letting no one see my embarrassment bubbling up in the form of tears I forcibly choked back as I climbed out of the shrubs. And now I had to deal with the uncool circumstances of branches in my hair, peers laughing and knowing I ruined something I had borrowed.

Because I had no idea how sewing worked at that time, I thought my mom could make this problem go away with a needle and some matching thread. And as it turns out, my mom couldn’t make it go away. You can't mend a hole in a pair of pants without someone noticing. Dammit. My mother declared that I was to inform April that I ruined her pants and must offer to pay for them. Dammit again. It wasn't MY fault that someone pushed me into a bush. As if the embarrassment wasn't enough, why couldn't the person who pushed me pay for them? I had lots of 13 year old reasons why I needn't take responsibility. And so began the boundless journey navigating a world filled with faults and responsibilities, twisting and turning my mind around how I couldn't possibly be held accountable for something I didn't do. If we didn't ruin something, is it our job to fix it?

This process of discovery that began that day in the juniper shrubs continues to build on itself in my life today. Like a perennial garden builds on each year past, every time I fail to take personal responsibility for my contribution to the state of the world around me--broken food systems, inequity, environmental degradation and more--I play a role and, therefore, maintain some responsibility for doing better, being better and working to leave my mark on this planet better than I found it. I'm not saying that the state of the world is entirely my fault. I'm saying that responsibility and fault are completely different beasts. Arguably, if we all felt the kind of responsibility to our own health, the health of our communities and the environment they way I was taught to feel responsible for April's pants, we probably wouldn't be faced with the acute challenges associated with these epic, contemporary human failures.

At the time I felt my mom was harsh in forcing me to look my mistake square in the eyes. I was afraid at what I may see and what that said about who I was. Catholic guilt is like a bad tattoo you wish you never got in the first place. I wonder if admitting fault and taking ownership comes more naturally to some people than others, or that maybe it just becomes easier the more we do it. Maybe it's a practice. And maybe the more we do it, the better we are and the better we leave everyone and everything around us. Maybe. Just Maybe.

I returned April's pants mended and explained to her the details of what happened. Of course she was slightly annoyed that I ruined her her pants. The fear and anxiety over my responsibility for April's pants faded and negative emotions were replaced with relief and gratitude at the fortitude with which I was forced to approach the solution. I looked my imperfections square in the face and knew that even though I didn't leave the pants better than I found them, I certainly left the experience better than I entered it. And I offered my best solutions to help make things right. I’m grateful for my mother's response--both stern and kind enough for me to remember that when you borrow something, it's your responsibility to leave it better than you found it, even if the damage wasn't directly your fault.

My mom, April and those super cute pants helped shaped my experience in the world, and laid the foundation for my desire to leave the planet better than I found it. My time on earth is borrowed. It is my job to return it better than I found it. And right now, even if climate change, polluted waters, destroyed ecosystems, a food system that perpetuates sickness and eliminates health and destroys nature aren't my fault, it is absolutely my responsibility to do better and to lead by example. I owe it to myself, my children, my community and to the planet. This perpetuation of leaving something better than I found it takes form at our farm where I work to breathe life into inert, dead soil. And it also manifests in my work as a functional nutritionist where I identify the deep connections between human health and the health of the planet, striving to leave both better than I found them. From where I sit, humans remain responsible for cultivating positive change, not only to ourselves but to the world around us. Arguably, the majority of our modern species wears harder on the world than any other living creature on this planet. And arguably again, most of us have not done a great job leaving anything better than we found it. On the contrary, we seem to rip a lot of pants without mending or taking responsibility. And when it comes to passing this philosophy of respect and improvement along to our kids, we don't need an endless supply of pants. We simply need to lead by example, though flawed and imperfect, it is our responsibility to leave this world better than we found it. Perhaps we just need a little more practice. Perhaps we would all benefit from ripping April's pants.