Dizzying

So I've been thinking a lot lately about energy. Who hasn't, of course? In the broadest sense, there's the boundless energy of the girls, which is constantly renewed by 12-hour nights and naps to boot--contrasted of course with Mike's and my somewhat limited gusto, compounded by bad night-owl habits and a current bout of flu. But related to that somehow is energy in the physical-chemical sense, the juice that makes stuff run.
We try to keep our footprint light. We really do. We live where we're within short distances to important things. Mike bikes to work, I walk Chloe to school. We link errands together and drive a small car. All that stuff.
But we live comfortably. Mike once said the South was once a completely different place without air conditioning and TV. Now that Spring is over and days are sultry, I've developed a renewed interest in sewing. Along that thread (haha), I'm trying to complete a handful of projects which had lapsed happily along until they all of a sudden turned into obsession. So over the last two weeks, I've been making repeat trips to craft and fabric stores, each time forgetting to get some tiny but important element (like matching thread, or, the fabric I'm supposed to match the thread to, or, the 50% off coupon that was going to cover the backing for the next project, and on and on). Each time, it's another 5 miles, which in my car is a quart of gas.
But then even if my brain was unfettered by stuffed sinuses and I was organized and not forgetful, I gaze upon the vast arrays of thread colors, the rows of quilting calico prints, the racks of needles and pins and bulk velcro. There was the energy of the staff who put everything up, the energy in the trucks that brought all this here, the energy of the warehouses that assemble and divvy everything up, the growing of the cotton and the weaving and the shipping.
I drive home in the heat. Past the medical center where Mike works, all lights on at midday, temperatures so low people keep fleece jackets for their desks and come out at noon to thaw. Inside, an amazing array of equipment and supplies and medicines and reagents and cleaning products, all of which had to be made and brought here and organized. I get stuck behind an SUV and think, frankly, whether I drive a four-cylinder soda can or a magna-disaster, does it make a difference? Bringing cloth bags everywhere and sorting every bit of trash and compost and buying my goods on craigslist and boycotting bottled water, whew. It's busy work, and I think it doesn't really nick my carbon-output, but it relieves me of my sense of powerlessness (there it is again). Because with E=mc^2, it's, like, every single thing! I'm getting this sense of awe mixed with nausea, it's so much easier to turned the music on loud, or NPR so I can fret over other people's woes and forget about it.