Water, recycling, organic farming, and politically correctness...But don't forget the common sense.

When reading Donna Helen Crisp's article in the N&O today, I couldn't help but think about how many of us are missing the big picture when it comes to conservation. I want to live my life in a health-conscious way, and I certainly support water restriction efforts, yet sometimes I (and others, I'm sure) don't often recognize the required urgency needed to address this matter on a global scale.

Count me in as reminded today, however...

Donna Helen Crisp

RALEIGH - Patiently, I stand behind a woman wearing a green silk blouse, embroidered with small fuchsia flowers. She does not know I am there. Her lovely, lavender paisley scarf drapes her neck, underneath perfectly coiffed blond hair, as she explains her question to the man trying to help her at the local new-age supermarket coffee counter.

Her agenda is fascinating. She needs to know whether the coffee beans are organic, and she wants to know what kind of water the store uses when it makes the coffee. Will she ask about recycled paper in the coffee cups? As I listen to her talk, I think of water. Will this woman at the coffee counter want bottled water, spring water, surely not city water. I imagine her preferring a coffee farmer with a particular astrological sign, or wanting to drink from beans sold by a female coffee grower.

Will this woman think of bird lives she is saving while she sips her coffee? When the sun sets as this day is ending, will she count her delicious, politically correct coffee as a blessing for which she is grateful?

Then I zoom inward, to a time when I had to have water without ice. Later, I specifically wanted water with ice. At another time, I drank only bottled water. Sometimes I required a straw.

I recall a biology professor who reminded the class that we were all "walking lakes" and that was why there were water fountains everywhere. I imagine there are no water fountains in Somalia. Once upon a time I had no awareness of there not being any water.

Now, I think of African women who walk 12 miles each way to fetch water, their hardened, bare feet moving, dutifully, step by step, as they travel along hard, dry, red-brown earth. I cannot leave water running as I brush my teeth, not when I know about these women. I can turn off the water but not my awareness as to how precious and rare and even nonexistent water is in certain parts of the world.

Over 2 billion people exist on less than 13 gallons a day, an amount experts say is the minimum necessary for good quality of life. I recall a neighbor's teenaged grandchild leaving the water running in the kitchen, as she explained, "It's not that expensive!" She didn't get it about water. A lot of people don't get it.

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