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Wayside Sacrament

Never lose an opportunity to see anything that is beautiful.

It is God’s handwriting— a wayside sacrament.

Welcome it in every fair face, every fair sky, every fair flower.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Looking back through a few year’s blog posts, I can see a touch of seasonal sadness every winter. I write less; I rejoice less; it is as if I develop a thickness to my skin and an edge to my voice.

And every spring, a touch of mania. It starts off slow. I slough off the snake’s skin of the ending season and my new skin is tender, hyper-sensitive. The sun’s rays penetrate and scatter like glitter, magic. I thrill at the sound of bird song and peeping frogs. I look forward to the return of the insects, the bats of summer.

And during these weeks where every day unveils a new species of flower?

I lose my everlovin’ mind.

April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
Edna St. Vincent Millay

So, yesterday after putting the kids on the bus, I went out and inventoried our yard and woods.

The violets looked so pretty in their morning dewy finery.

I would photograph one, and then another would catch my eye, and another…

I spent a good 15 minutes army-crawling around, my entire front all wet and muddy, my cheek pressed to the grass as I focused the camera. Rush hour traffic hurling by probably thought I was mental, but I was happy.

After 15 minutes of viewing the world through the macro setting on a camera, you can develop a bit of vertigo. I took a break and stretched out— muddying my backside to match my front, a Rorschach of unkempt contentment— and sort of meditated on the fact that each flower is so lovely. And yet individual, minutely different. It’s mind-blowing when you consider it.

A woodpecker laughed at me, and I whipped my head around to find it, and realized the violets have spread quite a bit since last year. Blanketing the entire yard along the side of our house.

All… those… violets. I’d never get around to documenting every single one, the very thought was crazy. And I was sad to think there was so much beauty that would go unnoticed. Just here, in my yard. Think of all the violets in the nature preserve by our house, where virtually no one goes. Think of all the little beautiful things growing everywhere, miracles that edge through the earth’s surface without prompting, without tending, that are never appreciated.

And then I considered all the beautiful things that are never said or created, out of fear of ridicule or failure. All the beautiful things about people that we miss, all the time. All the beautiful moments that we fail to recognize.

I marveled about how we could spend each day in a state of constant wonder and overwhelming awe, if we took the time to pick out and notice all the beautiful and charming things about the world and the people in it. I am amazed by our human tendency to instead focus on the mundane and unfortunate. Why do we do this to ourselves?

I am not religious, this is as close to a holy experience as I get; but I know a wayside sacrament when I see it.

Cheers. Enjoy your weekend with eyes wide open.

April 29, 2011
Hoppy Easter, Everybody
When Rabbit said, “Honey or condensed milk with your bread?” he was so excited that he said, “Both,” and then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, “But don’t bother about the bread, please.”

-A.A. Milne, of silly Pooh bear

Observations about today’s Easter celebration:
- This may be the most exhausted I have ever felt. Yesterday I fell asleep multiple times while having my hair colored— suggesting I already had sleep-deprivation issues— but I still stayed up with the boys to watch The Ten Commandments on TV all the way to the end. And then of course someone had to let the Easter Bunny in after the boys (finally) went to bed.
- Therefore, this is the laziest blog post I have ever written. These photos are from last year; I am too tired to go get my camera out of my bag to download today’s pictures. (Mental note: need new Eye-Fi wireless card for camera.)
- Maverick somehow never got told the whole Moses story, so The Ten Commandments was fairly interesting but confusing for him. 1) It’s a good story, as bible stories often are, but sounds a little silly when you give the condensed version. 2) The idea of Moses leading all those people into the desert not knowing how he would find food & water for them is overwhelming. 3) Why do they show it Easter weekend? Shouldn’t it have aired for Passover?
- It doesn’t matter what time they went to bed or how old they are, kids will be up & ready for easter baskets and egg hunts at 7am.
- Perhaps sensing that I might feel left out, Cassidy fashioned an easter basket for me. In it: 3D construction paper renderings of a bunny, a carrot, a toothbrush and toothpaste. Apparently this is what the easter bunny leaves for grown-ups.
- We drove through Lancaster County to get to our Easter festivities and as usual it inspired rampant farm envy. I need some baby lambs, horsies, goats, cows, and oxen, STAT! Please and thank you.
- Easter, Halloween and Christmas are days that I let the sugar consumption happen without comment. The kids paced themselves but still ate a greedily ridic amount of candy. By 7:30ish pm they had all officially crashed and were in the depths of a sugar hangover: headache, tummyache, overwhelming sleepiness and overall crankiness. When they asked me why I didn’t feel yucky I pointed out that I hadn’t eaten myself into a sugar coma, which really seemed to click this time. They all opted for big glasses of water and bed, but then had a terrible time actually falling asleep.
Really, I don’t know how people can say sugar doesn’t adversely affect their kids’ behavior. Did you notice a difference?

Any interesting Easter observations?

C’mon, I set the bar low. I know you’ve got something.

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April 24, 2011
Seven for Saturday: News You Can Use 4/23

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

Security does not exist in nature,
nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.

-Helen Keller

I skipped the local-things-to-do rundown since I figure people have enough to do, it being Easter weekend and all. But I can’t resist sharing my top picks for the week’s reading…

1. Classic kids games like kickball deemed unsafe by state in effort to increase summer camp regulation

State bureaucrats have identified a potentially deadly hazard facing our children this summer – freeze tag. That’s right, officials have decided the age-old street game – along with Wiffle Ball, kickball and dodgeball – poses a “significant risk of injury.” Also labeled dangerous: Capture the Flag, Steal the Bacon and Red Rover; along with the more obvious archery, scuba and horseback riding.

Basically, if a program offers any “risky” activities it’s required to register as a summer camp (which carries a $200 fee) and is then subject to regulation, including having a plan for medical emergencies. That sort of makes sense, until you remember that this would apply to, say, the nice lady down the street who watches neighborhood kids while their parents are at work. And that a kid is more likely to be hurt while riding in a car. What this comes down to is how ridiculously litigious our society is, because if a kid did get hurt playing freeze tag at the nice lady’s house? No one would be shocked if his parents sued her. Mean people suck and ruin it for everybody.

2. FTC to issue new green guidelines, address ‘tsunami’ of marketing claims

“For the first time, we proposed you should never make unsubstantiated claims,” says Kohm, who expects the revisions to be finished by year’s end. The agency is warning marketers not to make blanket claims such as “eco-friendly” but to be specific.

It’s about dang time. Organic, natural, environmentally-friendly, earth-friendly materials: there’s tons of “green” labels that consumers don’t necessarily understand, so greenwashing runs rampant. But… this is the first time they’ve proposed this? Seriously?

3. Organic Valley Accused of Violating Organic Egg Standards

OK, case in point. Federal standards for “organic” require “year-round access for all animals to the outdoors.” These chicken were in open-air screened porches and not able to forage freely in the sun— but that’s an allowed exception in California, due to practices intended to prevent the spread of Avian influenza. Obviously these chickens are doing better than factory-farmed chickens who are crammed in together and never see the light of day, but is that enough? There was no willful misleading, so are they at fault for carrying the label? Should there be middle ground, or is it important to keep standards tight?

4. Hand Sanitizers Carry Unproven Claims to Prevent MRSA Infections

FDA is cracking down on companies that break federal law by promoting their products as preventing MRSA infections and other diseases without agency review and approval. “Consumers are being misled if they think these products you can buy in a drug store or from other places will protect them from a potentially deadly infection,” says Deborah Autor, compliance director at FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

The companies who make the products pictured have been officially warned to relabel or risk seizure or legal action. Soap and water, folks. Wash your hands thoroughly and often. It’s cheap and it works.

5. The Joy of Not Cooking

This article is mostly about how we’re spending more and more money on our kitchens and kitchen appliances/utensils even though we spend little time in them. It’s an interesting read, and speaks to the divide between our desires and our skill set, but this was what blew me away:

in the 1920s, the average woman spent about 30 hours a week preparing food and cleaning up. By the 1950s, when she was raising her family, that number had fallen to about 20 hours a week. Now, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, women average just 5.5 hours—and those who are employed, like me, spend less than 4.4 hours a week. And that’s not because men are picking up the slack; they log a paltry 15 minutes a day doing kitchen work.

I just don’t understand how that’s possible? Five hours a week? Talk to me, Goose. How many hours a week do you spend in the kitchen?

6. Obesity and Food Marketing to Children

…is it reasonable for food and beverage companies to spend hundreds of millions of dollars targeting children with marketing, mostly for obesogenic foods, placed literally everywhere and anywhere a child might eat, study, or play, and then demand that parents run interference against them?

I am continually shocked by the backlash when it’s suggested that certain establishments shouldn’t provide toys with their kids’ meals until the the meal is made healthier, and by the rancor of the people that Jamie Oliver attempts to help on Food Revolution. This article is a good roundup of all the ways marketers target our children; are we OK with this? Should advertising to kids be restricted, or is it solely up to us as parents to just say no?

7. Food Fight: Beating Processed Food Marketers at Their Own Game

The sheer number of sales messages launched at my kids was enough to qualify as brainwashing. In fact, studies have shown that the less healthy the food product, the greater the marketing assault. Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity discovered that cereal having the least nutritional value and highest sugar content was marketed the most aggressively.

“But, Fruit Loops have fruit,” my son said.

One mom applies aggressive marketing methods to good foods. I don’t know how effective this would be for everyone but it’s a fun read.

Bonus: Word Cloud: How Toy Ad Vocabulary Reinforces Gender Stereotypes

This is the one I tried to link to last week, but the site was down due to heavy volume. The author noted the words used in TV ads during prime cartoon blocks and shows them in word clouds (the more frequently the word is used, the bigger it appears). “…[the] boys’ list included 658 words from 27 commercials… By way of comparison, I also looked at girls’ toys. The girls’ list had 432 words from 32 commercials.”

Does anyone else find it irritating that even the vocabulary used for girls’ toys is limiting? Anyway, check it out & make sure to read the comments too.

Video: Ticklish Penguin

Yeah, you’ve seen it already, I’m sure. Does it matter? THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER.

Happy weekend! What good reads did you see this week?

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April 23, 2011