My husband is one of those older men who have routines. One of Gary’s involves our walks on the beach, another is burning debris. He generally goes out very early in the morning to burn junk mail, rose clippings, and other papers and wood trash he can’t recycle—going to recycling is another of his routines. If the wind is blowing onshore, he can’t burn, but during an offshore breeze, he will dash out to get his job done.

The other day, a member of the crew putting a new roof on the house next door ran up to him and began yelling. “You should be composting—global warming—CO2!” Gary thought he was kidding at first, and then realized that he was being confronted by an angry young man waving a shovel. Gary listened and then walked away when he was through.

If you know Gary, you probably know he is a pretty even-tempered and completely non-confrontational man. He did tell another young man who was harassing me on the beach to “back off” last summer. He was determined and calm and the guy did back off, but generally Gary avoids trouble on principle. This incident troubled him more the more he thought about it.

He has been uneasy for two days since. He didn’t want to walk by the house after eight the next morning. And then . . .

And then this morning he found out who it was that had yelled at him. A former student of mine. I wrote that boy a letter of recommendation that helped him get in to Reed. Since then his mother blocked me on Facebook. I had written a post on my old blog that addressed the cost (actual dollars) for women trying to maintain the beauty expected of them. Cosmetics and hair care do not come cheap. She accused me of “hatin on folks.” (Yes, she spelled it that way.) It was one of those bizarre exchanges that has made me grateful I left that platform.

My computer won’t open that young man’s recommendation. It’s just as well. I recall him as a very intelligent student, creative but entitled. Anyway, apparently he graduated from Reed in order to invest energy in harassing 70-year-old men, and now Gary is chuckling about this and I am allowed to tell the tale. There is a great deal more, of course, which comes from living in a small community for 40 years and teaching entire generations of teenagers.

Had he come over and simply talked to Gary, my husband would have apologized and explained that we do have a compost heap, that we have been largely vegetarian for decades (wild seafood a few times each month) and that we absolutely support Greta and efforts to curb greenhouse gasses. The only packed foods I buy are small jars of avocado oil mayonnaise and the occasional bag of honey-dijon chips. We do drink bottled water when we can find it in glass, but that would not have mattered, I guess. We wrestle with long-cherished desires to visit sites in Europe, but flying . . . Barcelona and Crete have been on my wishlist since I was ten or eleven. But we respect that flying has a terrible impact on the environment. Gary points out that the young man wouldn’t have cared since “it was never about me [Gary], it was always about him.”

The sky is blue and I have a sinus infection so we missed our walk this morning. Yesterday, I made stock from vegetable trimmings (a weekly routine of mine) and I mean to make soup later this afternoon (another routine). I have completed 5644 words since yesterday morning for my NaNo challenge. If my head didn’t hurt, I’d be feeling pretty great about now. In fact I do.