You-You, MeMe

March 31, 2009 | Category: In My Life

Spend 15 minutes on Facebook and you'll end up tagged for a MeMe. The electronic equivalent of one of those folded notes you got passed in junior high.

"What is your favorite soda?"

"Have you ever..."

"Do you like Steve? Rate Steve 1-10 for cuteness."

These used to be fun. Perhaps because I didn't give up my adolescence until, hmm, last December?

I have now, however, reached my fill. Past my eyeballs and all the way to my hairline. While I am happy to read others, there is no way God or the devils could drag me to fill another one out.

Maybe it's because I'm still in recovery. Maybe it's because I get distracted by the opening licks to "Slippery When Wet". Maybe it's because there's other things to be written - bodacious, velvety words to be romanced onto a page.

Maybe it's because I never did pass those football-shaped rule-lined notes way back then.

I didn't peak in high school. Hell, I didn't even get started in high school. I ripped off my training wheels in my mid-20's. Roared up the stairs of Piper Hall with my backpack swinging off my shoulder. Jumped over a pond with God at my back and no limits before me.

We may be older now, wiser, fettered by Roth IRA's and term life insurance - but are we even remotely there yet?

I strongly suspect my life hasn't peaked. Hope so. Hope the same is true for you.

So, no. I don't know how much I like Steve. Today, I'm not even sure I like my dog. So, with your forgiveness, I'll love the you-you... but I'm done with the meme.

The secret is plastics...

March 23, 2009 | Category: In My Life

Once upon a time, I was a nut for Mother Earth.

I built recycling programs, and championed re-use/reduce schemes at work, and rinsed out my plastics before carefully tucking them into my green box.

Then came motherhood.

Oh, I am sooooo ashamed.

I used disposable diapers. I DID. I have a very low "ick" factor and about 5 seconds of dry heaves were all that was needed to send my arms around a massive Costco crate of Huggies.

I would wince, thinking of them piling up in landfills. But convenience and comfort and cooties won out over my better demons.

...And then came my plastics addiction.

It started simply enough. No dishwasher. Newborn. Muck. Mess. The need for cost-cutting measures.

I was carrying plastic freezer bags on me to dispose of the disposable diapers and wipes when I was out with my baby. I was chopping up salads and packing up leftovers for my husband's lunch in those little plastic containers. I was portioning out carrot sticks and teething biscuits for Bear.

With all the best intentions of cleaning everything out and re-using them, I would end up with stacks of foul-smelling baggies and incomprehensible pile of square lids and round containers. And back to the store I would go.

The bad habits followed me even into recent years, even after I had a dishwasher to help keep things clean and get several uses out of them.

I know, I know...I was saving the planet with one lo-water showerhead and bashing it with a stack of binned bags and lids.

My son recently called me one it. As his teacher, it was important to share with him the state of the environment. As his parent, I reaped that whirlwind.

"Mom!" he bellowed Saturday, tapping his foot as he looked into the cabinet stuffed with mismatched plastics.

"Um, yeah?"

"You're killing the environment! Remember that picture? Piles and piles of garbage and chemicals in the air?!"

"Yes, but -"

"Mom!! Seriously?"

"Look, it saves money for us to use-"

He raised his copper eyebrows at me and I admit it, I caved. Big strong momma bear went....mush. I imagined a mountain of odd-shaped lids and seas of baggies. *sigh*

"Why don't you help me clean this cabinet out and come up with a better system?"

"Wait a minute, you want ME to do the work of helping fix it?"

"Yes, dear. It's a little something called passing the buck. Er, sharing the responsibility."

He gave me a dirty look as he dug up a cloth bag to put the lids into. A slow smile spread across my face, as we got down to work.

Christian, Not Conservative

March 11, 2009 | Category: Nearer, My God, to thee

I'm a committed Christian. I'm NOT conservative.

These two positions were natural to me and my world viewpoint. Until I move to the Midwest and discovered - I'm a spotted tiger.

First time I heard Mark 12 (The commandment of Jesus is Love) in Sunday School at St. John's), I flipped. Revelatory moment.

So I've been a Christian since I was 10.

When I moved to the Chicago area at 18, I discovered that there was a political agenda attached to being Christian.

And I don't agree with it.

This was profoundly confusing. How can I be of such like minds with a congregation in so many ways and SO split in others?

One of the key reasons I have remained a staunch Episcopalian is because it is a church that seeks inclusiveness. Does it often fail? Um, yup. But the seeking is important. The seeking is what resonates with me.

I spend much of my days with people who live their Christianity out loud. As someone prays fervently and often, studies the Bible, and looks for God's guidance in my choices - it can be really comfortable to be around others who don't freak when I bow my head in Thanks before I dig into my orange chicken.

But I love agnostics, atheists, Buddhists, Jews, and everyone else, too... I've even broken bread with the Krishnas and not once did I fear for my soul. In fact, we had a pretty cool time.

Then election season comes along. Signs start popping up on the lawns of those folks I hang with. Conservative signs.

And our lawn? Stays empty.

I sometimes vote conservative.

I usually don't.

Does this make me less "Christian"? Sometimes, it feels that way.

Living in the "Bible Belt" there seems to be a standardized definition of what Christians should vote. But what if you disagree (sometimes violently) with the popular opinion? How much faith is needed to outweigh societal norms?

This is what is bedeviling my mind this morning.

Trying to use the self-timer

March 10, 2009 | Category:

I am often inspired by the amazing pictures of Angela Giles Klocke, Tyler Knott Gregson, and Helen Adelaide (Everyday Stranger). Especially by their abilities to take pictures of themselves - honest, playful, clear-eyed, smiling.

I? Am neither photogenic nor particularly talented with a camera. I finally figured out (8 years later) the self-timer on the Canon but no clue on how to put myself (instead of my monitor) into focus.

Behind me is the massive desk I share with my son (my head is blocking his iMac). This is supposed to be a picture of me - day 1 of the new "move my body, mind, and soul" regime.

This the all-natural me: no make-up, hair air-dried post-swim, midnight, end of a long - but good - day.

Dear Chicken Little Newsmedia: Screw. You.

March 02, 2009 | Category: Rants & Raves

One of the headlines on my Yahoo:

Consumer Spending Up - But It Won't Last!

A neighbor remarked that if he was a reporter, he'd would also be shouting the sky is falling. Because for them? It is.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth...

Let's get real.

No, I mean it.

Let's. Get. Real.

I am an American, a woman, a wife, a mother, a writer, a teacher. I have lived both pampered and impoverished. Shared the company of great and simple minds. I have walked in the footsteps of conquering Romans, Vikings, Redcoats, and Cypriots. I have contemplated my own mortality, stretched my mind to the breaking point, looked a man in the eye as I took his living from him.

I expect many things from this life. And none of them easy. No one promised me easy; and nothing easy is worth getting in any event.

WHO ARE THEY TALKING TO?

They can call it a recession, a depression, a downturn, or a dip. Do you think it matters? Do you think any one of the real people on the ground are affected by the LABEL? Is there really any person, from the President to the rural reporter, who thinks they truly have that kind of power over reality?

We KNOW it's hard.

This? Is life. It's SUPPOSED to be hard!

It is our purpose and our passion and our blood and our dreams. Yes, the challenges today are so much more than they were yesterday. Yes, hope and opportunity are harder to come by. Yes, there is more fear in the mornings and more uncertainty chasing the sleep. Yes... yes.

It is winter. A time for pushing against the harshness. A time for reaching out a hand. A time for making do, or doing without. And as sure as this is winter, spring will come again.

Sometimes I look to the news and despair at their view of my world. As if I would surrender my hope.

As if I could.

There's a great speech from West Wing, that reads in part; "...every time we think we have measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we're reminded that that capacity may well be limitless. This is a time for American heroes. We will do what is hard. We will achieve what is great."

THAT is how I see us.