What happened?

Last week, I flew from San Diego to Boston with my 5-year old son. It was just the 2 of us - we left the little guy at home with Daddy and Grandma. Because of this, I was able to bring some reading materials on the plane- a luxury for us traveling moms.

Perusing through the airport newstand, Life Savers and Rolos already in hand, I picked out 3 magazines without hesitation - Vogue, Vanity Fair and domino. The reason? Aside from the obvious, each focused on "green" or "sustainable" themes.

Once we settled in for the long (and I mean long) flight, I pulled out our snacks and fun stuff. First came the healthy stash, filled with whole wheat sandwiches, carrots and apples. Next came the "treat" bag - cookies and more cookies - yum. While laying out the spread (on my lap, because the seat-back tray was broken, of course), I was suddenly overwhelmed by all the plastic packaging I had used to wrap our food. What a load of saran wrap and ziplock baggies I had packed! Why did I do that? Did we really need 2 layers of disposable storage bags for the sandwiches?

Something in me just snapped - "no more," I said. "No more." Right then and there, I decided that it was time to make big changes. (To be truly honest, though, while that was the moment I finally broke down, I had been thinking and worrying about environmental issues and my own laissez-faire attitude for a long while. I obviously needed a good kick in the pants.)

So, like I said, that was the proverbial 'last straw'. I was finally free to openly admit that I had a problem. A weight was lifted. Like many, I was in complete denial that my own life habits were contributing to the destruction of our global environment. I think I always thought to myself, hey self, you're not a paper plant or oil refinery spewing forth greenhouse gases every millisecond, right? So, what's the big deal if you use a lot of paper plates, napkins, etc. or drive a big SUV? You're just one nice little family. How could you do any harm?

As I sat there riding out some turbulence, I thought about why I couldn't watch "An Inconvenient Truth" when it was in the theatres. It wasn't because I didn't believe in global warming or because I was scared of Al Gore or the Earth's impending doom. I realized then and there that the reason I couldn't watch the movie was because I didn't want to face the fact that I had done damage to the environment. I was culpable. I am culpable. The guilt was enormous.

It was time to do something about it, so I set up my son's portable movie player - Fox & the Hound II was on tap- found my notepad and pen and starting writing...and writing...and scribbling...and writing. I couldn't stop. I wrote lists of ways I could change my household, books I needed to read, research I needed to start googling, people I needed to contact, terms I needed to define. Pages of ideas poured out of me. I was literally shaking with excitement.

I knew I couldn't become an activist like Laurie David (who, by the way, is a passionate and intelligent force of nature!) at this point in my life. But, I realized that I could change my family and maybe inspire other people to change, too, in a different way. Like me, I think that other moms want to become more eco-friendly, but they are just too overwhelmed by 1) the oft scary changes we need to make; 2) the reasons behind the changes; and 3) the potential (large) expense of making changes. I began to believe that if we take a "one step at a time/baby steps" approach, we can start small now and then gradually (yet quickly-- those ice caps are melting every second) make even bigger changes.

So, somewhere 35,000 feet over Minnesota, modernecomom (www.modernecomom.com will be up soon) was born. I was going to help my family and others get "green" by helping to make sense of it all. I don't want to feel guilty anymore or be scared by people screaming at me to change because the world is falling apart. I know I should have started implementing these changes years ago, but gosh darnit, I'm finally starting!

So, moms, let's go. Let's start trying to heal our planet together. After all, they don't call it MOTHER Earth for nothing.