First published on this site November 30, 2018, I’m happy to kick off this year’s year-end/new year Redux Series with Christine Higdon’s ‘bad rubbish [good riddance]‘, in which the difficulty of breaking up, breaking a habit, or simply moving on is explored through the lens of a littered tube of mascara.
It’s this kind of magic that never fails to delight when I send out a litter pic and the response I receive is the alchemy of random photo and imagination having created beauty from something discarded, something that would otherwise be, and almost always is, overlooked.
For my own interest and as a way of sharing info, I include at the end of each Redux post, two questions I’ve asked each writer: what’s their biggest litter peeve, and to share any drop of good news they might be aware of, sites, or groups that are making a difference in cleaning up the land. Christine doesn’t disappoint… for which, many thanks.
Keep talking trash!
& happy Redux holidays to all.
It’s complicated. We’ve been in a love/hate relationship since I was sixteen. We try it on. It works for a while. Then. Well. You know. It feels like it’s over. A few months later, we’re back at it again. Two or three weeks pass. We’re doing it every morning and I’m starting to feel obligated. I find myself staring at my reflection in the mirror, questioning my sanity.
Hay fever season comes along. I can tell we’re heading for another breakup. I’m rubbing my eyes all the time and Maybelline tells me I look like a raccoon. I say, I’d like a little time to think. I go home by myself. It might be permanent this time.
But I dream weird dreams of Maybelline: Experts say: replace every two months. Two months! Aren’t these the sexiest eight dollars you’ve ever spent? I don’t think so. Are You Dreaming of Bold! Sensational! The False-Lashes Effect? Um. No. Do you understand the latest technique: sweep from the root to tip with a rotational or zig-zag motion? WTF. Rotational?
That’s the tipping point. Like it never happened, I know it’s over. Forever.
Only it’s not. Maybelline is omnipresent. I see that pink and green outfit everywhere. At the beach. In the café. Rolling down Yonge Street at two in the morning. That Maybelline is going to be around for another thousand years.
♦
Christine Higdon is the award-winning author of The Very Marrow of Our Bones and Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue. Another novel is in the works. She has been shortlisted and long-listed for CBC fiction and nonfiction prizes, and her short stories have been published in The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, untethered, and Plenitude: Your Queer Literary Magazine. She sometimes lives in a cabin near Lunenburg, NS, and sometimes in Mimico, Ontario, where she alternately marvels at the beauty of the world or gnashes her teeth over it.
♦♦♦
What is your BIGGEST LITTER PEEVE?
My biggest litter peeve is cigarette butts—those seemingly small bits tossed out car windows, ground out at bus stops, swept down city storm drains, or left to litter the sidewalk outside bars and restaurants. They aren’t biodegradable! They break down into microplastics and chemicals that leach into the ground and water.
And do you have any GOOD NEWS to share ON THE LITTER FRONT?
Regarding good news on the litter front… My lovely niece, Haley, an ardent environmentalist, has recently joined the board of Mind Your Plastic. https://mindyourplastic.ca/ Among other things, the organization runs a “Circular Economy Ambassador Program” in schools nationwide. They aim to create real solutions to stop plastic pollution at the source by educating students about it and engaging them in community cleanups. Interestingly, the most collected litter item is cigarette butts! Check out their Instagram page!
https://www.instagram.com/p/DSKkVnyEb7N/?img_index=1
♦
♦
♦
The Litter I See Project 