I was cutting open the goat cheese package this morning and noticed that goats in Orangeville, Ontario produced it. I spent my first 44 years in Ontario and it will always have aspects of 'home' with so many family and friends and memories there.
This got me thinking about the 100-mile diet and buying local. I agree with this practice. A few years back I suggested the 10-block lifestyle and engaged cheerfully by getting vegetables from the pocket market garden a block away; snacking on the scarlet runner beans that climbed the fence at the nearby allotment gardens and offered beans on the sidewalk side; getting eggs from chickens I could see over a fence from my own backyard; exchanging garden produce with neighbours; buying things at the local thrift store which may not have been manufactured within ten blocks but had spent some time within that area; donating back to said thrift store and the Fernwood Free 'Store' under the Square's gazebo; taking part in the community.
This morning the fact of the cheese coming from Ontario brought an epiphany: to me that was 'local'. And I thought some more. I have lived in Turkey and when I came across a pair of sheets that looked brand new at a church sale with a "made in Turkey" label, I bought them; I like the quality and the memories they invoke. The strawberries I buy in February here remind me of March breaks in Florida and eating strawberries 'just picked' and being so grateful that somewhere in the world it wasn't winter and that I was there.
I've heard the phrase "Think globally, act locally". And the term "global village". I feel I now understand this on a different level.