‘The world is changing, and we are in The Transition Team,’ I tell my 11-year-old daughter proudly, and then I cry.
She told me she thinks she lives in the worst of times ever because of how people are treating our planet these days. ‘Nooo,’ I answer, ‘The world is changing, and we are in The Transition Team.’ That is how I feel.
There are so many wonderful things happening now in our world. I am sure more good than bad. But unfortunately, the media chooses only to show the bad, which gives us the idea, all is bad.
Even though I do not watch television or read newspapers, negative news comes to me daily on Social Media.
When I came to the beautiful island of Bali, I only saw the beauty and was all in Aw. Later I started seeing all the rubbish and plastic everywhere, and I found myself in another kind of Aw.
Whenever I go into a shop or a market, and they ask me if I want a plastic bag, or if they give it to me without asking, I tell them in a very disgusted voice: ‘noooo, tidak plastic.’ As if I have to teach them something.
Talking to a friend who was here five years ago and is living here now, I realize I am wrong. He tells me the plastic now is about one-third of what it was five years ago. So there already is a lot of improvement. There already is a transition going on.
I could have known since there are many (beach) clean-ups and bamboo is taking over plastic everywhere.
I tell my daughter she is here on this planet to be part of the change, on the positive side of it all. And that I am absolutely convinced:
Good will win over bad every time.
As I tell her it has to be so because that is why we are in Bali, I burst out in tears.
At that point, I realized more than ever that being on The Transition Team was why my marriage broke. My husband could not cope with it.
Never would I have thought of being the kind of mother that leaves her children behind. Yet I did. My beautiful 19-year-old son is many miles away from his mother, as is my wonderful 23-year-old daughter.
They are no toddlers, I know, but they still need their mother. I need mine, and I am in my fifties.
Thank God for the internet. So we can call, video call, and Whatsapp as much as we want. Wonderful. But drinking a cup of tea together and being able to hug each other is way better.
Don’t think I woke up one morning and decided to be part of The Team. Without realizing it, I must have been on it already for many years, maybe even forever.
I have always been different.
My house was smoke-free, 20 years before anyone else’s. We ate organic before any of my friends. I still meet people who need to learn about GMO, MSG, and everything else. But they do know all about the most horrible deceases and all the medicines that go along with them. Yet looking at what you eat is not in their book. Talking to them makes me feel like I am from another planet.
You, the reader, may even ask yourself what food has to do with The Transition Team.
The answer is; Everything.
My grandmother was not the kind of grandmother my friends had. She was the kind of grandmother my children have. So she was ahead of her time. And that is how I feel. As if I am ahead of my time. Which is not easy because it means I belong outside this time.
Coming from a line of strong women, I know I will survive this, as did the women before me. I can already see it in my daughters too. As I believe we choose our lives ourselves, I wonder why I decided to be on The Transition Team.
Is this all worth paying this price?
Then I read a post from someone on the warrior side of The Team saying that in a few years, our children will ask us what we did about all the bad things that were destroying our planet.
And he asked if your answer would be, you did something, or if your answer would have to be, you didn’t give a damn.
I know my answer. Do you know yours?
Bali, 2019 October 15