Life: The Adventure Continues

(This artfully done photo of summer corn can be found on Flicker here.)

Here we are.  It’s July.  And what do I have to say about it?  So far in my recent adventures in seasonal, local eating, I have found that there is no more broccoli (it “bolts” in the summer heat) and very little lettuce (went the same way as the broccoli).  I am assured that they will be back in autumn.  For now we have tons and tons of zucchini, other summer squashes (keep meaning to try those cute little pattypan squashes) and tomatoes.  I can find onions and potatoes and those precious jewels, blackberries, in abundance.  Raspberries are present, but still maddeningly expensive.  I think they must be considered a delicacy, whether they’re in season or not.  Maybe the plants aren’t quite as productive as blackberry bushes… or maybe just not many people grow them here.  Hmm… another on the list of “Things to Find Out”.  Then there are deliciously dripping, juicy peaches, and corn!  Fresh corn on the cob, grilled right in their husks (do remember to soak them, first!), is one of my favorite things about summer.  And that I can get it grown locally, and it hasn’t been scientifically spliced and modified and turned into some kind of herbicide-pest-resistant uber-corn?  The thought makes me positively giddy!  All in all, not a bad way to try to save the world.

In other news, the weather has been balmy, switching from blazing sun to earth-shaking thunderstorms with alarming swiftness.  There is all the energy and hard work that one would expect from a summertime spent focusing on the earth’s bounty, and trying to preserve as much as one can for winter.  But in my heart, I’m all fall.  I’m already yearning for crisp days and the changing of leaves.  I’ve got characters chattering away in my head and am feeling the pull of my manuscript, beckoning me to come and sit awhile, with a hot cup of coffee and a little good music.  I can feel myself drawing inward, wishing to block out the world and dive into my own.  I catch glimpses, more and more frequently, of worlds I’ve created, whispers of woods I need to revisit and fictional friends I need to catch up with.  But there is so much to do, and, as always, so very little time.

Bash on Twilight Day

Ok, for a little interim fun, I've decided today must be Bash on Twilight Day, because that's all I've been reading (one thing leads to another, and there you go).  But I figure that anything that fills me with this much glee HAS to be shared.  Note:  if you are a die-hard Twilight fan, don't bother to read any further... unless you're just looking for a reason to get pissed at me, in which case, be my guest.  For the rest of you, let the dissection begin!

 First we have Twilight on Cracked.com.  This is a breakdown of each of the books in the series, and it is laugh-out-loud, crying, spewing your coffee (or water or tea or pop or whatever) through your nose funny.  I cried, I seriously cried, I was laughing so hard.

http://www.cracked.com/funny-36-twilight/

And now, the hilarity continues with this blog from Stoney321 on Live Journal.  She also goes through each book, pointing out many of the same points as Cracked (the creepiness of Bella & Edward's relationship, Bella's inherent weakness both as a character and a woman, the shoddy writing, etc.), but also lines out the parallels between the Twilight series and Mormonism... which is, admittedly, very interesting in a very bizarro sort of way.  You have to read it to see what I mean.  Each book has it's own blog entry, and there's a link to the next one at the bottom of each page, before the comments.  And, again, tears, friends... tears.

http://stoney321.livejournal.com/317176.html

Alright, that's all I got for today.  I'm going to go home and recover now, catch my breath, see if I can control these giggles.  Oh, the pain! 

The Burden (and Liberation) of Knowledge

Zucchini Blossom... doesn't get more summer than this!

Hello, my friends.  Long time no post!  I know, I know… I really shouldn’t neglect you like this, and I am terribly sorry.  It’s just that I was going about my business, trying to put things in order, getting distracted by this thing and that, when I turned the corner and ran smack into summer!  I can’t believe it’s here, officially, really here.  The Summer Solstice was just this past Monday and the days have been hovering in the mid-90s, with heat indexes soaring high above that.  Welcome, Ra.  Your time has come.

What has been my distraction, you might ask?  What is my excuse for being so absent?  I blame two things – education and Harry Potter.  Because I’m quirky like that (and because it’s the shorter of the two), I’ll start by explaining the latter.   You know, I’m sure, that the first part of the last Harry Potter movie (which you probably also know has been broken up into two movies) comes out this November.  In honor of this bittersweet event, my friends and I have started a little reading group, intent on re-reading the entire series, one book per month, before the movie hits the theaters.  We have just started Goblet of Fire.  But I’m sure that, because of Distraction No. 1, I am behind everyone else.  This seems to be my lot in life right now, consistently behind.

And now, onto Distraction No. 1.  Education.  See my last post and you’ll get an idea of where I’m headed here.  Due to my recent studies, I now know too much about the industrial food industry.  I can hardly stand buying food in grocery stores anymore, because I so vehemently disagree with our society’s food system.  What I knew before as abstract, bigger than me, concepts has now become too personal to ignore.  In a nutshell, this is what I’ve found.

Produce is grown on huge industrial farms, full of pesticides, the soil stripped of nutrients so drastically that these fields are only viable with the addition of massive amounts of chemical fertilizers.  Then the produce is shipped thousands of miles to the “consumer”… i.e., the people who eat it.  Meat, on the other hand, the stuff you get in the supermarket, is raised primarily on feed lots where the animals (mostly cows, pigs and chickens) are confined to pens, standing without being able to turn around or lay down, knee and belly deep in their own feces, eating diets that they were never intended to eat, causing not only a horribly sad diseased existence for these animals, but also causing their meat to be unnaturally unhealthy for us, leading to outbreaks of e. coli, mad cow disease, high cholesterol, etc.  Yes, I’m ranting.  This is only the very vaguest tip of this iceberg. 

On top of that scary picture, farmers, regular farmers, are losing and have lost their livelihoods.  Industrial farming has all but obliterated them.  Small farming is making a comeback, thanks to the local food movement and the slow food movement, but most of these farmers would go out of business if it weren’t for the farmer’s markets.  Am I freaking out?  Yeah, a bit.  Because all of this education has led me to look at myself, to look at all my talk and wonder what it amounts to if I’m still buying genetically modified corn and a hamburger that was once a cow who very likely was so sick at the end of its short life cycle that it could barely walk to the slaughterhouse. 

If we are what we eat, and we’re eating this, than what, as a nation, as a people, as a society, are we?  Are we sick and used and imprisoned?  Are we stripped of our soul like the nutrients of the soil in which our industrially farmed vegetables are grown?  Are we thieves, like the corporate food giants that have stolen a way of life from not only our nation’s farmers, but from farmers in countries (usually the poorest ) all over the world?  Do we have no sense of honor?  Do we have no standards?  This touches on every level of every issue this world currently has.  This is about human rights, animal rights, the economy and the environment.  This is about public health and war and national security.  This is about people dying of starvation in third world countries.  This is about people dying of malnutrition and obesity in the United States of America.  This is bigger and more important than I ever let myself see before.  And this is something that we can change.

I know no one wants to hear about it, and I know I’m supposed to shut up and just buy my groceries at Wal-Mart like everyone else, because who really cares?  It’s food, and buying stuff that’s produced in another way, a more NORMAL way, circa pre-World War II, is more expensive and a hell of a lot less convenient.  But I do care, and I can’t just ignore that fact anymore.  I can’t keep eating the crap they’ve been feeding us, justifying it with “it’s easier” and “it’s cheaper”.  If I was Jewish, and I had to eat kosher, you would understand.  Instead, I’m just another human, trying to recognize where I came from and what that means, with no other reason for my choices than to say that I am trying to take some responsibility, to live up to my own standards.  They say ignorance is bliss, and maybe they’re right.  But once you know a thing, you can’t un-know it.  At least I can’t. 

So now I am working through my current biggest conundrum – how to feed my family without supporting the industrial food industry, without going hungry this winter, and without going broke.  I’m hitting the farmers markets, buying up seasonal produce and anything else I can find and afford.  I’m freezing however much I can, socking away food like a squirrel, preparing for winter.  I’m meeting local farmers and trying to keep track of what’s in season when, so I can plan our next meal.  Food has taken over my life.  And, I have to tell you, it’s one of the happiest “sacrifices” I’ve ever made.

Here are some links, if you want to learn more on this yourself.   

http://www.appropedia.org/Local_food

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_agriculture

http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/

http://www.localharvest.org/

And if you're prone to dig deeper, you might read these books:


(Please note, I have read all of these books but the last.  I am including it here, however, because The Omnivore's Dilemma comes highly recommended by others who share in my quest for a better relationship with food and I do plan to read it very soon.)

A Little Motivation Goes A Long Way

Hello friends.  I know it's been awhile.  Life has been it's usual encroaching, attention-demanding self, keeping me working, organizing, cooking, house-cleaning, tending to family (and extended family) crises, one right after another, and generally going in mad crazy circles.  But today the world stopped.  They called off school for thunderstorm debris (this was a new one on me).  I couldn't find an alternate place to take my son on such short notice and was left with no choice but to park my butt at home with him.  Call it an enforced slack day.  

Of course, the house still demands my attention at every turn, as our accumulated possessions are starting to take over our life and are screaming to be sorted, culled, and the remainders put to better use than their current positions of gathering dust and creating a nuisance.  There's still (always) so much to do.  But I've had this blog brewing in my head for a few days now, so I thought I'd take advantage of this little bit of down time I've managed to steal.  

I noticed something about myself the other day.  It had to do with motivation.  I had reached the end of my little give-a-damn rope and had slunk into a dangerous kind of apathy that was approaching depression.  Nothing seemed worth the effort all of a sudden.  All of the energy I'd been spewing forth seemed to be getting me nowhere and I was tired.  So tired.  And then something amazing happened.  I sat down at my usual thinking place in the kitchen and picked up this book I'd been reading a few days before about saving the environment and making an effort on an individual level.  This is not new information to me, not really.  The environment is a real issue with me and I've read on the problem extensively.  But this particular book is unique in that the author isn't telling the reader what to do... instead he has documented what he has done, how he changed his life and his perspective to lower his own impact on the planet.  It's inspiring.  And within ten minutes of reading through the Appendix to the book (I'd already finished reading the rest of it a couple days prior), I was back on my feet, ready to take on my day again, ready to do anything.  Because, hey, there's work to be done.  There's a planet to save, and how can I save the planet if I can't save my own home? 

Which leads me to the interesting problem of motivation.  I don't believe I'm alone when I get overwhelmed with all there is to do and it all seems hopeless.  I think this is a common problem, at least in our society.  We sit and we give up because there just seems no point.  But as soon as we are inspired by something we truly care about, suddenly the energy floods us and we can't wait to get up and get started.  Suddenly, everything is in perspective again, working is rewarding and every act has a purpose. 

I'm coming to believe that of all the problems there are in the world, the biggest may be lack of motivation, or that at least a renewed spark of motivation could go a long way toward solving the world's problems.  I think this may be one of the most important issues to ponder as an American, with so much work to be done here at home.  People stop caring.  We become apathetic.  We start blaming each other and the government and other countries and "society" and on and on for our problems.  For why our economy's been tanking, for why more and more of our kids are being diagnosed with asthma and ADHD, for our lack of healthcare, for our obesity, for why our families are failing to stay together, for our lack of community, for why we're not happy.  Since we have convinced ourselves that it's, as Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy so aptly put it, Somebody Else's Problem, we have painted ourselves into a corner of helplessness, and there's nothing more depressing than being a victim.  

The sad truth here is that we are victimizing ourselves.  We are our own victims, because we have convinced ourselves that it is so.  Every one of us has the opportunity to wake up in the morning, or in a moment, and stop and think consciously about what we are doing and what we are going to do next.  We can start to realize that "society" is us!  And we can remember what it is to be a good example again, and how people learn from each other.  We got where we are now, here in our apathy and our nothing-I-can-do-ness because of what we saw other people doing.  If it became the social norm to be responsible for ourselves and our world, then we as a society would shift our focus.  We would spend our time grappling with the problems we face as a society instead of spending our time watching reality TV and shopping for hours on end for stuff we really don't need just to give ourselves some sense of control.  We would each know that we, individually, are responsible for what we, as a society, are doing.  You are society.  I am society.  You are, I am, our next door neighbors are, and family members and coworkers and friends.  WE are society.  If we each realized that, then we'd see that there's work to do, and we'd want to do it.  We would have a sense of purpose. 

One thing that de-victimizing yourself does is to free you up to move, to act.  You don't have to become and activist, necessarily, to help change this apathetic tide.  You just have to care.  And you have to make an effort every day to live a life that is more in keeping with what you truly care about.  Nothing will improve until we believe that it can improved and that we can do something about it.  

If you're wondering what book it was that so inspired me, it was No Impact Man by Colin Beavan.  He and his family tried to live making no adverse impact on the planet for one year.  They live in New York and the challenges were great.  I admire what they've done and the philosophy of inspiring by doing that Colin Beavan developed through this project.  

Motivation is easy when you're inspired by someone else's actions.  I am now convinced that leading by example may be our only real hope.  

On that note, I'm going to get back to de-stuffing my home, and I'm going to make sure that anything we get rid of goes to charity, gets recycled or gets put to some good use.  I don't think it will be as hard as I feared.  It's not for nothing.  It's for a greater purpose, and I'm just doing my part.

 

Happy Earth Day

Just popping my head in to wish all of Earth's inhabitants a very happy Earth Day and to urge all of you Sentients to get out there and love your Mother any way you can.  Plant a seed, spend some time outside, walk a little more, drive a little less... those fabulous bike rides are definitely in the realm of green travel.  Whatever you do, do so consciously.

"The difference between animals and humans is that animals change themselves for the environment, but humans change the environment for themselves." ~Ayn Rand

"The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard." ~ Gaylord Nelson, former governor of Wisconsin, co-founder of Earth Day

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children." ~ Chief Seattle