Day 21: My Inconvenient Life.

On the heels of an exhausting day-and-a-half trip to a city 70 miles from our house, my husband and I had a date night.

Date night movie? “An Inconvenient Truth.” So romantic.

The movie finally had come to Normal’s downtown theater so my husband and I, trying to stay dry on a particularly wet and cold night, headed for the packed-house theater. For the first time in a while, I felt like maybe my project had some purpose.

Even as I bitch about the inconvenience of public transportation, I think when I start driving again I’ll think twice before getting behind the wheel. Maybe I’ll be more likely to consider the bus, or walking. I sure do notice the driving habits of others a lot more, especially the hundreds of people piling into their cars and vans last night after they just finished watching a movie about the sudden warming of the Earth.

But I keep coming back to one issue that seems impossible to rectify: money. Not driving in a city of drivers is expensive. Taking a train that gets delayed is expensive. Buying bread at the corner store is expensive.

I can’t help but think people will continue to put their family’s best interest in front of the earth’s. And who can blame them?

I don’t know if it’s possible to get a mom to stop driving to the grocery store to find the best deal on her family’s food, or give up carting children around town for soccer, or convince a family to take the bus downtown for a festival. First, they need to be convinced they’re doing the best thing for their family’s future. Next, it has to affordable. And finally, it needs to be safe.

And it really is romantic to walk through the rain to a movie. When's the last time most suburban moms did that?