I visited one of the most fabulous friends today for an afternoon of playing with our children, six between the two of us. It was a visit complete with dangling costume jewelry and Darth Vader capes. An excellent afternoon of adventure if you ask me.

My friend lives about 30 minutes from our house so it was a little road trip with tollway driving in Chicago to get there. Those of you who live in big cities can relate. You sail along at a safe but respectable above the speed limit pace. Fast enough to feel like you are making good time but slow enough to not be nabbed by your nearest highway patrol person. As you cruise along you wince every time you see red brake lights ahead. You wonder, “is this a merely a slow poke changing lanes or am I about to hit traffic that will rob me of the next two years of my life?”

Thirty minutes and sans traffic jams we pulled off at my friend’s exit. Just a few blocks from her house we passed a new strip mall called Brookside Marketplace. A spacious parking lot filled with a few box stores, drive-thrus and chain restaurants. Nothing notable. What attracted my eye was the sign. “Brookside Marketplace.” This sign came complete with a metal sculpture of three children on their tip-toes, arms out to the sides, balancing on a log. It was designed to look as though three children were gingerly crossing a brook to find adventure on the other side.

It was a gorgeous piece of art actually.

Sitting at a stoplight I stared at it wondering where the inspiration came from. As the light changed and my engine moved us forward I saw a small brook that hugged the backside of the mall. A deep groove in the ground with ridges of ice and snow mixed with brown grass ran parallel to the backside of a big box store. I mumbled to myself, “this must be the brook.”

With my kids in the car I wondered if they would ever dabble in creeks and brooks the way the children in that sculpture did. You see, we live in the suburbs of the third largest city in the nation. With over 8 million people in the Chicago metropolitan area, we can find a strip mall in a blink. A brook with a log to teeter across? Not so much.

The irony slapped me in the face. To sell me on the fact that I should shop at this mall the designers used a whimsical little statue to lure me in. Never mind the fact that the brook itself was shoved to the back, out of sight, and fenced in to keep out any intruders (like playful children).

And it is easy to act all superior here, like I am above the Brookside Marketplace, until I realize that even in my ever-greening life, I still shop at a few of those stores. They sell cheap toothpaste and diapers and I can get a birthday gift for someone in less than ten minutes. My own desires for convenience, combined with millions of others, make the marketplace more desirable than the brook.

So I was reminded again today of how very important it is to shop locally whenever and however possible. If I shop local, I can walk to the store, I can support a local business owner, and the building that houses that store (at least in my town) is usually 100 or so years old. No strip mall, granted, no brook either, and no one making me feel like I can hop a stream on my way to a fast food joint.

So I ask myself again, as I do all the time, can I really see the valley from the Valley View Center? Can I really hop a creek at the Creek Side Plaza? Is there even a mountain in sight at the Mountain Vista Mart? Probably not. Shop local when you can and if possible, don’t shop at all. Instead, take a day to hop a few creeks, take in the views, and spend the day outside in the real places.

I have had two images thrashing about in my mind this past week. As a woman, daughter, and a mother, one of these images will likely stalk my memory forever. It is the picture of a young child in Haiti cuddling up to the dead body of her mother.

Her mother’s body is one of thousands like it lying in an open field. The life crushed out of it by falling debris and piles of rubble. The child is asleep alongside her parent, the one responsible for caring and calming her. Lost, confused, and snuggling tightly to the one place she knows to go for solace. The body of her mom.

Haiti, as we are well aware, has captured the hopes, prayers, and philanthropic efforts of the world. I’ve found myself crying during BBC reports and an hour later shutting off all the news and shooing my children away from the television. I explain that the images they might see are too graphic for a child their agee to understand. Ironic really because the tragedy involves the lives of children their ages.

The other image is closer to home. Of looming mudslides in Southern California. As unseasonably strong rain beats the landscape scarred last year by fire, mudslides threaten homes and lives. Turns out the vegetation that earlier wildfires gobbled up in smoke is necessary to keep the earth connected to itself. Without foliage to keep it all in place, without root systems, fallen logs and greenery to keep the mud in place, it will slide and take out homes and people in its murky wake.

I imagine my daughter’s frilly pink bedroom sliding forever into a muddy hillside.

Haiti and California have more than just the fear of earthquakes in common. The threat of disaster from eroding landscapes currently stalks them both. Aftershocks in Haiti are a way of life for a while, but rescue workers have shared another disaster that threatens their efforts, mudslides.

Haiti is one of the most environmentally impoverished countries on the planet. E&E reporter Nathanial Gronewold reports, shockingly, that only 2% of Haiti’s forests remain. 98% have been destroyed to meet energy and development needs. The result is a nation of naked hillsides where Matthew Marek of the American Red Cross says that “Haiti has experienced natural disaster-related fatalities regularly.”

And unlike California, Port Au Prince and other areas of Haiti lack virtually any infrastructure to aid in relief efforts. So the fear of mudslides and other disasters as people seek to pull one another from the disaster of an earthquake is frightening. Mark Ashton from the Yale School of Forestry reports that these slides can slow down relief efforts when they occur.

It is also a reminder of what an intricate world we live in. Who knew that as hillsides were deforested that it would eventually complicate some of the relief efforts from an earthquake unparalleled in the lifetime of our Haitian brothers and sisters. It is also a reminder that responsible care for the earth is about more than reusable bags and recycling. It is about preserving the very land, the earth itself, that was designed to protect and help all people.

Without roots and trees, whether destroyed by wildfires or by human hands, we cannot hope to rebuild a thing. Whether the threat of losing million dollar homes in the San Gabriel mountains, or the threat of losing more lives and rescue workers in Haiti, we need to care for the land so that the land can take care of us. It is a partnership that cannot be upset. The balance must be maintained for today, and to hold us safe for the future. In Haiti, as we scramble to save, to hope, to pray, to love, to help, let us do so hoping to partner in the rebuilding both the lives of the Haitian people and the land that sustains them,

Hi Everyone!

I’d like to introduce you to a fabulous writer, Jennifer Grant. Jen has been writing for years and is a regular columnist for the Chicago Tribune, the Wheaton Sun, and a number of other publications. She is also my friend.

She did this piece in 2008 on Richard Louv’s now famous book “Last Child in the Woods.” It originally ran in the Wheaton Sun. In an effort to widen the voices and perspectives represented on this blog, Jen’s words seemed a fun fit.

Also, with winter still pressing it’s cold weight upon us, I though it might be nice to think about what to do with our families once we emerge from our snow cocoons once again. The midsection of this piece was originally layered with local Chicago options to get outside. I’ve replaced them with some national thought provokers.

Enjoy the piece and if you want to find out more about Jen, you can find her here: http://www.jennifercgrant.com/

Post:

You’ve heard of ADD (attention deficit disorder) and ADHD (attention deficit – hyperactivity disorder.) You may even know about CD (conduct disorder) or ODD (oppositional defiant disorder.) Well, here’s another acronym to add to your list:  ND (nature deficit disorder.)

The term “nature deficit disorder” was coined in 2005 by Richard Louv in his book “Last Child in the Woods.” In the book, Louv explores the trend of children spending less time outdoors and describes the physical and behavioral problems that follow.

Childhood in our country, as any parent of young children knows, has changed radically over the past few decades. The days of mothers opening their front doors on a summer day and shooing their kids out, telling them to be home by dark, are long gone.

We parents glance, with sinking stomachs, at the photographs of missing children posted in public places. It seems like we can’t escape stories of abducted children on the news. We give our Saturdays over to sitting on the sidelines at nearby parks and watching our children play team sports.

When we were growing up, we ran around at twilight, playing “ghost in the graveyard” or “kick the can.” We arm older children with cell phones so we can check in with them easily, but mostly we want to keep our kids safely in sight.

Unstructured outdoor play, then, is nonexistent for most children. And, as a consequence, kids have few opportunities to know the natural world that is all around them.

Chances are that you don’t spend your summers alongside your kids, crouching by the side of a creek looking for tadpoles or bushwhacking through a natural area. You have jobs to do, the house to clean, and email to answer.

And there’s no way you would drop them off at the edge of a woods. Who knows who may be lurking in the shadows? So the kids, kept safely in our sights, are in the next room playing Nintendo or watching TV. It’s not ideal, but at least we know they’re safe.

Louv’s book defined this trend, acknowledging that kids are outside less than they used to be because of their parents’ fears for their safety, increasing restriction of access to natural areas, and the amount of time they spend with electronic media. The fact that childhood obesity has tripled in the last ten years is no coincidence. (Never mind the increase of depression and other disorders in children.)

Mary Kravchuk is a Wheaton resident and mother of two who was deeply affected by Louv’s book and who makes spending time outdoors with her children a priority.

“Inside our houses, we cannot possibly experience all the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations that nature offers in abundance,” Kravchuk said.

Kravchuk agrees with Louv and others that in some children, health concerns including childhood obesity, attention deficit disorder, and depression are linked to being disconnected from nature.

Many of us in the US spend our winter sequestered inside with below freezing temperatures and dreams of summer sunshine still months away. It is January now. And as many of us are hunkered under blankets, this makes it the perfect time to plan summer adventures that will get our children back into the woods. So log on and start dreaming:

Check out the American Hiking Society’s website for trail events in your area and around the country (http://americanhiking.org)

Plan a camping trip and make your reservations now! Many favorite local and national places book up for the year by Spring. Find a park at http://nps.gov and make a reservation.

Consider a membership to a local zoo, botanical garden, or nature preserve. Share it with another family and make frequent trips part of your hope for summer.

Put dreams of the sunshine on hold and make a snowman!

“It doesn’t take an expert to link kids with nature, just the willingness to discover together what’s out there,” Mary Kravchuk said.

Thanks Jen!!!!!!

I’m blogging from Colorado today. With John Denver’s sunshine literally on my shoulder and a few cloudless days of skiingbehind me. I would take a moment to lament the fact that my legs ache, my back hurts, and my lips are chapped, but those of you who ski will not have sympathy for me. Three days of sunshine in the mountains with good friends are worth the muscle aches.

Spending time in Colorado is always a boon to my soul. Majestic landscapes can do this to us, whether the shoreline of Maine or the grandeur of Lake Tahoe.

Pulled out of my midwestern slumber and chair lifted up to 11,000+ feet made my heart sail. One afternoon I took some solo time and made my way across the 5000 skiable acres of Vail. Heading to a place they call the “Blue Sky Basin” I took my time hopping on and off lifts to plop myself atop a snow covered peak (ironically, the site of a formerly famous act of eco-terrorism).

As I slid off the lift I was reminded anew of the vast wilderness space that is so accessible to many of us today. I shuffled my way over to the edge of the summit and took in the views. A majestic panorama, miles of open space. Jagged peaks, ridges that jut up into the sky, avalanche gulches where only thoughtless trees dare to grow. All this with perfect blue skies as a canopy.

I leaned on my ski poles and took a deep breath. It was quiet up there too. Sure, there were other skiers sitting at picnic tables, adjusting gear, crunching on snacks. But the overarching silence of the place was awesome. The backdrop was not the hum of a freeway or the clanging of construction equipment, but a sort of quiet that almost presses down on you. You cannot help but hear it, even with closer, smaller sounds nearby.

Anyway, it was pure bliss. And as I skied away I felt a little boost to my spirit.

As I made my way down the mountain and back to rendezvous with my friend, the moment had passed. We grabbed some coffee and within a few moments had tossed our gear into her truck and began the journey back to Denver with the other thousands of Saturday skiers bound for home on I-70. Which, can probably boast the country’s highest, weekly traffic jam.

Tourists, natives, locals, vacationers etc., all plodding along through Summit County and beyond. All who crept up to the mountains to sneak a view of the landscape or to hear the silence. All who took a gasp of clean air and grabbed a glimpse of blue skies, only to find themselves tailgating an 18-wheeler a few hours later.

As we snaked along I-70 I noticed again the landscape that is covered in increasingly brown and dead trees. Millions upon millions of dead lodge pole pine trees cover the hillsides of Summit County and other areas throughout the state. A voracious pest called the Mountain Pine Beetle is eating its way through the Rocky Mountains. From Montana to Wyoming, from Colorado all the way up through British Columbia, this pesky little bug is killing the forests.

After millions of dollars in research and seemingly endless hours of time, the USFS has largely determined that there is not much they can do to prevent the spread of the outbreak. And while it is a naturally occurring event that should simply clean out the forests and make room for new trees, this outbreak is particularly nasty for many reasons.

First, the average winter temperatures out West have increased and where the beetle once would eventually die with a long enough cold snap, a warm up of just two degrees or so has helped the beetle carry on. Second, our decisions to manage forest fires (often for very good reasons) has left us with overgrown forests that should have burned naturally long ago. This means that there are too many trees of the same age and they are so dense that the spread of the beetle is easy.

I could go on for days about the fight against this pest, that is expected to take out all of Colorado’s lodge pole pines in the next 5 years. But, what I realized as I headed down I-70 was that I was caught in between two worlds and I could not find a way out of either one.

You see, if indeed climate change is to blame for the beetle, then my chugging along, spewing CO2 from the car after a day of skiing is partly to blame. My desire to spend time in nature is harming it as well. But on the flip side, I do believe that we are designed to enjoy and marvel in open spaces and wild places. Not submit them to our insatiable appetite or destroy them, but to hike them or enjoy their silence is not a bad thing.

You see the dilemma then? Killing the very forest I went to enjoy definitely defeats the purpose. Is it naive and idyllic to want blue skies on a day of skiing and all the trees to be intact on the way home? Probably. But what is the alternative? Not to go at all? Some extremists would say yes here. I respect that. But will also confess I am selfish enough to want to play. So what do we do? Any thoughts?

Hi Green Mama Friends. Here is a post that I had the chance to do for a great little green effort called Flourish. Cool, humble people doing some proactive thinking. http://flourishonline.org

Last year I borrowed a copy of Doug Fine’s book Farewell My Subaru: An Epic Adventure In Local Living. It’s the story of Fine’s decision to live on a ranch in New Mexico without an automobile. A humorous vignette that, it just so happens, I listened to as an audiobook . . . . in my car.

I cruised around taking in the harsh realities of our national oil addiction while idling at traffic lights and filling up at the gas pump. It was more than a little ironic. Great as Fine’s story was, it was also so far removed from any lifestyle I might actually experience, that I had a difficult time making sense of what to do with his journey.

I had a similar struggle with Barbara Kingsolver. Her writing is one of the great treasures of my heart and who has not had their view of life changed by Animal, Vegetable, Miracle? It remains, to this day, one of the first books I recommend to just about anyone I know.

That said. As I sifted through her story of life in southern Appalachia, I could not help but wonder how I might pull off the local eating feats she so wisely managed. “How can I live this way and not have to move?” I kept asking myself. Where I live, I cannot find a forest with succulent morels within fifty miles. Or, for that matter, due to a city ban, raise chickens in my backyard.

So, whether it is saying farewell to an automobile or plotting a garden in rural Appalachia, I keep stumbling over a recurring theme I’m not sure I agree with. One that says, to live a more sustainable life means moving. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, I find many folks who are so rooted in their communities that they find those who live elsewhere impossibly un-sustainable.

For example. I know huffy urbanites who believe that anyone outside the city limits has clearly missed a chance to engage with different races, cultures, and socioeconomic classes. They may equate suburban living with a lobotomy. They loathe anyone who cannot deftly navigate a public transit system.

I know suburbanites who have nestled smugly into their inner-ring, architecturally swanky suburbs only to scoff at those farther out on the crashing waves of urban sprawl. Track housing is to blame for the loss of landscape they quip.

Then there are rural adolescents who graduate from high school and dash off to the big cities, never to return. On the flip side, some city kids drift West to camp out in mountain towns, craving open space and often mocking the trappings of the densely populated life they’ve always known.

In all of this gazing around, I have to ask if it is actually possible for a person live wisely where they already are? Moses offers a prayer in Psalm 90 that urges us to “live wisely and well.” Our days are numbered. So what does wise living entail when it comes to conversations about sustainability, environmental stewardship and social justice? Are the only options distrust of those in those “other” places, or literally heading to greener pastures ourselves?

Perhaps one of the wisest moves we can make is to look at the life we currently live, in the community where we live it out, and start making smarter choices from that center. Rather than snub our noses at those living elsewhere, or sell our cars and head to the farm, maybe we can just begin a bit closer. Say, like connecting with our neighbors.

Wise living might mean reaching out to those in our community so that we can be proactive in bringing bicycle lanes, hiking trails, or sidewalks to the unreachable parts of our towns. It can mean taking the time to get to know our neighbors well enough to curb our emissions by carpooling, running errands together, or walking with our children. It can mean starting or enhancing community recycling, composting or gardening programs. Or perhaps nudging local libraries to include books and resources that move people toward more socially and globally conscious lives. Maybe it means championing hot lunch programs for under-served families.

Wise living might mean staying put and, as the cliche goes, blooming where we are planted. For if we all pack up and take our growing, increasingly thoughtful lives with us, who will remain to transform the very communities we’ve left?

If we are blessed to have thought through the issues deep enough to know that change is desperately needed where we live, then perhaps one of the best decisions is to simply stay put and help bring about that change. By open our hearts and minds and by living more wisely right down the street rather than simply dreaming of those greener pastures.