Saturday, December 14, 2013
Untitled Post
(Let this blank page stay here to represent all the moments I had something profound to say but not the time to express them. I think we have too many "blank page" moments...place holders for as yet unshared experiences)
The Wisdom of Snow
Written 12/14/2013
In Memory of the Victims of Sandy Hook
When you are called to the window by your childlike instinct
or the insistence of your child...to witness, to wonder, to watch
Each fluttering, floating, completely unique flake fall from
heights beyond sight and comprehensions, and we feel
our hearts soar with possibility, and delight at the knowledge.
Too many to count, too quick to move past us, too full to contain;
too much like our selves. Countless numbers of souls around us,
like the infinite number of snowflakes we will encounter and pass.
From the pane of your window, to the pain in your heart, you
move from the inside to the outside...the only way to truly see.
Catching at the corner of your eye, clinging to a lash or two -
face tilted, tongue extending...naturally; 10 years old again.
We find it a simple joy, as easy as pie for breakfast, cartoons
on a Saturday morning - cozy slippers shuffling on a wood floor.
Coffee mug in hand. We are still transfixed by it somehow.
The wisdom of snow, like the wise woman in the child of 10.
The beauty, majesty and unmistakable peace of a snowfall
reminding us of the rapturous wonder and intimate playfulness
of nature, love and life.
By Karen Biscoe-Dufour
In Memory of the Victims of Sandy Hook
When you are called to the window by your childlike instinct
or the insistence of your child...to witness, to wonder, to watch
Each fluttering, floating, completely unique flake fall from
heights beyond sight and comprehensions, and we feel
our hearts soar with possibility, and delight at the knowledge.
Too many to count, too quick to move past us, too full to contain;
too much like our selves. Countless numbers of souls around us,
like the infinite number of snowflakes we will encounter and pass.
From the pane of your window, to the pain in your heart, you
move from the inside to the outside...the only way to truly see.
Catching at the corner of your eye, clinging to a lash or two -
face tilted, tongue extending...naturally; 10 years old again.
We find it a simple joy, as easy as pie for breakfast, cartoons
on a Saturday morning - cozy slippers shuffling on a wood floor.
Coffee mug in hand. We are still transfixed by it somehow.
The wisdom of snow, like the wise woman in the child of 10.
The beauty, majesty and unmistakable peace of a snowfall
reminding us of the rapturous wonder and intimate playfulness
of nature, love and life.
By Karen Biscoe-Dufour
Monday, August 12, 2013
Mars: A nice fixer-upper planet if you don't mind the trip.
I miss writing these blogs. Most of my writing now is for my business, Green Search Partner. The passion I have for writing about green, environmental, social, and spiritual issues has not been forsaken, though! I'm writing regularly on professional hiring issues, but it's not as fulfilling as this blog feels...mostly because this one is uncensored :)!
Let me begin with the inspiration for this piece: Tonight at 6:30 p.m. I pulled into the parking lot of a favorite Chinese takeout restaurant. Not bad Chinese either. I would say it's consistently middle-of-the-road cuisine (Harry will appreciate the inside joke). This place is so popular for it's takeout that the owners removed most of the tables a few years ago, replacing them with a wall-mounted television, pin ball machines and quarter-slot candy/trinket dispensers, because that is about how much time you have between ordering and receiving your dinner.
When parking I noticed the only other car in the lot was a 2010 Ford Mustang. Black, glossy, well cared for, and occupied by two fresh-faced, baseball-capped teenagers. They paid little to no attention to me and the kids as we climbed out of the car, noisily chatting about whatever a Mom, a 9 year old and an 11 year old noisily chatter about. I noticed the car, so did the kids, then I noticed the occupants. They were sitting there, engine off, with their heads bent down over their smart phones like most teenagers and 20 somethings these days. At least, that's what I figured each was holding...until I got a little closer.
Now, this probably sounds like the build up to a shocking, 'cover the children's eyes' moment. Nope, this is a PG-rated segment. What they were doing when we walked into the restaurant was fairly innocent. In fact, it was perfectly legal thrill-seeking. It was what they were doing when we came back out with our dinner that I found absolutely appalling. So appalling, in fact, I actually stopped to question, comment and lecture them some. My poor 9 year old was so offended he was rendered speechless.
These 'just on the other side of 16, so you ought to know better, and by the way, shame on you!' teenagers were scratching lottery tickets and then purposely throwing them out the window onto the ground next to the car! No, they were not aiming for a recycling pail and missing. No, they weren't putting them there for safe-keeping. They were littering the ground around the car...at least half a dozen on the driver's side, and who knows how many on the passenger side. Admittedly, they had no intention of picking them up! I truly thought they were kidding when they said they do this "all the time". Well, that explains a lot.
Who are these kids? Where are their parents? Do they know they have raised two lackadaisical, littering, loitering, lottery losers? Are they aware of the incredible amount of household trash strewing the streets of Whitman and choking the hell out of the vegetation? Of the garbage galavanting in the gutters and riding in the rivulets that run through town? If they do I expect they look the other way, or shut off their conscience as their eyes glance across the mess. Perhaps they even believe that there is a town clean up crew taking care of these things while they're out cruising to the next convenience store which surely holds their million dollar ticket.
And what would they do with that million dollars? Probably get the hell out of Whitman. Why? Because the only thing growing faster than the population here is the trash problem. Despite the current and older generation's multiple attempts to clean up the town's park and common areas, we're still dealing with a boat-load of improperly discarded waste, and a prevalent "it's not my trash, so it's not my problem" attitude. Furthermore, I doubt very much the town is going to issue lidded recycling bins in my lifetime.
Whitman's problems aside, I want to address the bigger issue of what we are teaching our kids at home about respecting this very old, very important planet of ours. I know many good people, friends actually, who still don't recycle on a regular basis. I witness people all around me caught up in the consumption of convenience items, but turning a blind eye to improper disposal of their waste. I watch the garbage truck go up the street, and the trash tippers chatting and laughing absentmindedly while papers, wrappers, plastic bottles and boxes fly out of the back of the truck and into my neighbor's yard. I wait until they are a few houses up, then I go outside and fetch the escaping item and put it in my own bin before the truck makes it's weekly u-turn for my side of the street. I know it's not my trash, but I live here too. If my neighbor were home, I know she would have picked it up. I know she would have done the same kindness for me had the situation been reversed.
What have you taught your kids about recycling and trash disposal? Do they ever ask you where all the stuff goes when it leaves the house? Did you get a chance to describe the overflowing landfills? Did you mention the millions of dirty diapers, milk containers, styrofoam coffee cups and take-out cartons? Have you tried but failed to describe the various colors and textures of plastic pieces and parts that have joined together to form a 3 mile wide island in the middle of the pacific ocean? Did you tell them not to worry? That we're working on it and we hope to leave them something closer to what we inherited from our parents 40, 50 or 60 years ago? Yes, I did too. And when my 9 year old asks me why people litter...a question I get from him almost weekly...I tell him "because they don't know any better". I say this instead of telling him the truth. If you tell a child "they do it because they just don't care" I'm afraid this might send the false message that we as a society maintain some sort of tolerance level for chronic abuse of the planet, and that living here together doesn't require that we all work together to keep it clean. I don't want him to grow up thinking that we own this place, and our occupancy of it is more of a right than a privilege.
I try very hard to instill in my children a sense of civic and social responsibility for the things we buy, consume, use and discard. I see a few of my friends and neighbors participating in their own civic and social responsibilities, but I know we may be outnumbered here by those who don't. In this seven square mile town, the dark and the light of these issues seem hopelessly intertwined. The parents who grew up here want to pass on the cultural and social norms of this once thriving, rural mill town. I know they want for their kids what they had; a small, safe, insulated community where everyone knew everyone else, and you could find your relatives gravestones in the town cemetery several generations past. They want the simpleness of all day long fun in the sun, huffy bikes populating quiet side streets and smiling neighbors greeting them in the parking lot of their church on Sunday mornings. They want to be surrounded still by a population they know and trust. But that's not what life is anymore, and we're grieving that loss. Now, it seems almost normal to see a still-smoldering cigarette butt or rolling beer can in the middle of South Ave on a Sunday afternoon. It seems like it's neither suspicious nor surprising. It seems now like it's just another sign that good old-fashioned American livin' is alive and well here. What a shame.
This town...this PLANET could be such a nice place if we took better care of it. My question is, if we don't take care of it, where are we going to live? I've heard Mars is a possibility...but it's a fixer upper, definitely not turn key like we have here, thick with oxygen, vegetation and livestock. And if the trip out there doesn't kill you, the relocation costs will.
Let me begin with the inspiration for this piece: Tonight at 6:30 p.m. I pulled into the parking lot of a favorite Chinese takeout restaurant. Not bad Chinese either. I would say it's consistently middle-of-the-road cuisine (Harry will appreciate the inside joke). This place is so popular for it's takeout that the owners removed most of the tables a few years ago, replacing them with a wall-mounted television, pin ball machines and quarter-slot candy/trinket dispensers, because that is about how much time you have between ordering and receiving your dinner.
When parking I noticed the only other car in the lot was a 2010 Ford Mustang. Black, glossy, well cared for, and occupied by two fresh-faced, baseball-capped teenagers. They paid little to no attention to me and the kids as we climbed out of the car, noisily chatting about whatever a Mom, a 9 year old and an 11 year old noisily chatter about. I noticed the car, so did the kids, then I noticed the occupants. They were sitting there, engine off, with their heads bent down over their smart phones like most teenagers and 20 somethings these days. At least, that's what I figured each was holding...until I got a little closer.
Now, this probably sounds like the build up to a shocking, 'cover the children's eyes' moment. Nope, this is a PG-rated segment. What they were doing when we walked into the restaurant was fairly innocent. In fact, it was perfectly legal thrill-seeking. It was what they were doing when we came back out with our dinner that I found absolutely appalling. So appalling, in fact, I actually stopped to question, comment and lecture them some. My poor 9 year old was so offended he was rendered speechless.
These 'just on the other side of 16, so you ought to know better, and by the way, shame on you!' teenagers were scratching lottery tickets and then purposely throwing them out the window onto the ground next to the car! No, they were not aiming for a recycling pail and missing. No, they weren't putting them there for safe-keeping. They were littering the ground around the car...at least half a dozen on the driver's side, and who knows how many on the passenger side. Admittedly, they had no intention of picking them up! I truly thought they were kidding when they said they do this "all the time". Well, that explains a lot.
Who are these kids? Where are their parents? Do they know they have raised two lackadaisical, littering, loitering, lottery losers? Are they aware of the incredible amount of household trash strewing the streets of Whitman and choking the hell out of the vegetation? Of the garbage galavanting in the gutters and riding in the rivulets that run through town? If they do I expect they look the other way, or shut off their conscience as their eyes glance across the mess. Perhaps they even believe that there is a town clean up crew taking care of these things while they're out cruising to the next convenience store which surely holds their million dollar ticket.
And what would they do with that million dollars? Probably get the hell out of Whitman. Why? Because the only thing growing faster than the population here is the trash problem. Despite the current and older generation's multiple attempts to clean up the town's park and common areas, we're still dealing with a boat-load of improperly discarded waste, and a prevalent "it's not my trash, so it's not my problem" attitude. Furthermore, I doubt very much the town is going to issue lidded recycling bins in my lifetime.
Whitman's problems aside, I want to address the bigger issue of what we are teaching our kids at home about respecting this very old, very important planet of ours. I know many good people, friends actually, who still don't recycle on a regular basis. I witness people all around me caught up in the consumption of convenience items, but turning a blind eye to improper disposal of their waste. I watch the garbage truck go up the street, and the trash tippers chatting and laughing absentmindedly while papers, wrappers, plastic bottles and boxes fly out of the back of the truck and into my neighbor's yard. I wait until they are a few houses up, then I go outside and fetch the escaping item and put it in my own bin before the truck makes it's weekly u-turn for my side of the street. I know it's not my trash, but I live here too. If my neighbor were home, I know she would have picked it up. I know she would have done the same kindness for me had the situation been reversed.
What have you taught your kids about recycling and trash disposal? Do they ever ask you where all the stuff goes when it leaves the house? Did you get a chance to describe the overflowing landfills? Did you mention the millions of dirty diapers, milk containers, styrofoam coffee cups and take-out cartons? Have you tried but failed to describe the various colors and textures of plastic pieces and parts that have joined together to form a 3 mile wide island in the middle of the pacific ocean? Did you tell them not to worry? That we're working on it and we hope to leave them something closer to what we inherited from our parents 40, 50 or 60 years ago? Yes, I did too. And when my 9 year old asks me why people litter...a question I get from him almost weekly...I tell him "because they don't know any better". I say this instead of telling him the truth. If you tell a child "they do it because they just don't care" I'm afraid this might send the false message that we as a society maintain some sort of tolerance level for chronic abuse of the planet, and that living here together doesn't require that we all work together to keep it clean. I don't want him to grow up thinking that we own this place, and our occupancy of it is more of a right than a privilege.
I try very hard to instill in my children a sense of civic and social responsibility for the things we buy, consume, use and discard. I see a few of my friends and neighbors participating in their own civic and social responsibilities, but I know we may be outnumbered here by those who don't. In this seven square mile town, the dark and the light of these issues seem hopelessly intertwined. The parents who grew up here want to pass on the cultural and social norms of this once thriving, rural mill town. I know they want for their kids what they had; a small, safe, insulated community where everyone knew everyone else, and you could find your relatives gravestones in the town cemetery several generations past. They want the simpleness of all day long fun in the sun, huffy bikes populating quiet side streets and smiling neighbors greeting them in the parking lot of their church on Sunday mornings. They want to be surrounded still by a population they know and trust. But that's not what life is anymore, and we're grieving that loss. Now, it seems almost normal to see a still-smoldering cigarette butt or rolling beer can in the middle of South Ave on a Sunday afternoon. It seems like it's neither suspicious nor surprising. It seems now like it's just another sign that good old-fashioned American livin' is alive and well here. What a shame.
This town...this PLANET could be such a nice place if we took better care of it. My question is, if we don't take care of it, where are we going to live? I've heard Mars is a possibility...but it's a fixer upper, definitely not turn key like we have here, thick with oxygen, vegetation and livestock. And if the trip out there doesn't kill you, the relocation costs will.
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