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.

So here I am after blogging again about a story from a few weeks ago. A lovely little Basal Cell that needed to be removed from under my eye. So small. So super insignificant. But so the way I started out my day so, as blogging goes, we write about what we are experiencing today. And here is my day:

I hop out of bed at 5:45 AM as I need to be at a doctor’s office ready to go by 6:45 AM. This is not really an issue except while I am in the doctor’s office I receive a text from my husband that informs me that our children (normally awake by 7:00 AM), have slept until 8:20! SERIOUSLY! I shout to my phone. SERIOUSLY! The day mama gets up early and daddy is on patrol they decide to sleep in?! 

The procedure itself is really benign, just like the little skin cancer. No big deal at all. The funny thing was that this doctor lines up all the surgeries like mine on Tuesdays. Since this little bump is within a centimeter of my lower eye-lid it required a delicate little procedure to minimize scarring and the chance of nicking a tear duct. Lots of people get these things on their faces and end up at a specialist like I did today. The procedure is such that the doctor removes the questionable bump from your face and then you have to sit in the waiting room for 2 hours awaiting the biopsy results. These will tell you if you need to go back in to have more removed and wait another 2 hours, or if you can go home.

So this is the funny part. I can tell that the doctor just went down the hall, room by room, loping off this or that from our sun-kissed faces. Then a group of us end up sitting in the waiting room with bandages on our noses, cheeks, eyes etc. I looked around and just laughed at us. All minimal issues, all bandaged up will little bits of gauze.

But then, at the same time, not so funny. All so finite, sitting there to have this or that scraped so that we don’t have something labeled “cancer” on our faces (no matter how benign a basal cell is, it still falls under the moniker, CANCER. And that word is gross and scary). All sitting there after doing something that led us to that office. Sunbathing too much, forgetting a hat too many times, going to the beach too often, getting too many x-rays or something strange like that, or just finding ourselves of swedish or irish or english or some other phenomenally fair skinned descent.

I got out of jail early today. Thankfully, just two shots near the eye and one cut later and I was free, a clear biopsy. Gotta go back Monday to deal with stitches. In all my wisdom I managed to book this appointment just 5 days before I would need to wear goggles in a triathlon. This dawned on me this morning. I am a rocket scientist when it comes to managing my calendar . . . . . 

So did you know that you can have your under eye sliced open and then go home with a bunch of band aids slapped across what will remain basically an open wound so that you can race a triathlon and then come back on Monday and get it all stitched up? And that this whole debacle won’t make for a worse scar? I did not know this. Now I do. cool I guess. Although I did tell the doctor that if he had a good excuse for my missing my race that I would take it.

So, yes, here is me today with a bandage under my eye and yet another opportunity to contemplate everything from my own mortality to the disappearing ozone that can be blamed for it. Never mind the fact that I am really the one to blame since I was a stupid 17 year old who worshipped the sun. Let’s blame ozone today. I’ll take responsibility tomorrow (or in this blog somehow).

So that’s it for today. A little medical procedure. A little snip here and stitch there with a triathlon thrown into the middle. Such is life I suppose. A little reminder of mortality here, a little glimpse of life and death there, and a whole lot of activity and busyness thrown in between.

Here’s hoping you all are both busy and catching a glimpse of the big picture today.

I think I grew up in the best little neighborhood on the planet. ever. And if you happen to disagree, I challenge you to some sort of a duel, my childhood gang versus yours. We could take you. I spent my childhood in the suburbs of Chicago where strip malls reign supreme. But I happened to live on a street that had a little slice of childhood heaven just 5 houses down, a swamp. A certified mud hole complete with bridges made from logs and old plywood, trees to hide in, enough water to ice-skate on, and enough privacy to play hours of hide and seek in. It was our swamp, we claimed it. We owned it. We ruled it. And we built more memories there than anyplace I can remember.

“We” were a band of girls and a few outnumbered boys who lived in 5-6 houses all next door to one another or across the street. In this little group of homes there were 9 girls and 2 boys. There was also a cool girl from way down the block that we played with, she made us an even 10. We were mostly tom boys. We’re all cute and sassy now that we’ve grown up and realized that Keds without shoe laces and pinstripe jeans are no longer cool. But at the time, we were tough ones (at least in our own minds).

We played outside constantly. Rode bikes with playing cards slapping the spokes to make them sound like motorcycles. We sat on skateboards and rode them down our big hill, narrowly missing a head on collision with the mailbox at the end of the driveway. Every now and again someone nailed it head on. It was awesome (except for the gal who hit it). We swam in one another’s pools, played Barbies on the patio, played ghost in the graveyard, kick the can, truth or dare, and had endless slumber parties. 

We’re all adults today, we’ve got careers and kids and all the trappings of the grown up life. We’re all really different and we live all over the place, well, just my sister really, the rest of us never really left Chi-town. But we all stay connected. We’ve been in or to one another’s weddings. Our kids play together today and we reminisce every chance we get about those “good old days.” I never thought I would be so uncool as to actually use that phrase so someone please shoot me.

When my husband and I were looking for our current home, the place we moved into this past November, I became a neighborhood stalker. Each house we viewed was an opportunity to find a neighborhood gang for my kids. Places and people to play in the dirt with and run across the street barefoot. A place where you would all sit around and pound through a box of Twinkies after someone’s mom went shopping. I looked earnestly for kids, for any sign of kids. A tricycle here, a big wheel there. This would signal to me that there was a potential play mate for my children. We found a great home and are now officially on the prowl for every kid we can find.

I want my little brood to run outside in a big neighborhood pack. I don’t want them to play video games. I’m not against video games per se, I just happen to think that you could have a ton more fun building a fort in the swamp. I want them to find little friends to go sledding with and buddies to play endless games of tag with.

But right now, they are small and we just moved in. There are a few families on our block and I am giddy about that. But what is it about memories that make them so much bigger in your mind. When I think back to my childhood I think that I climbed the biggest trees. That my house was perched on the biggest hill on the planet. I feel like our swamp could easily have been the Everglades. And I fear that no amount of playmates could rival the childhood I had outside, in the swamp, with 10 girls and 2 boys. 

I hope I am wrong. Today we have laptops and cell phones and the Wii. And we have DVD’s and DVR’s and ADD. And honestly, I completely love all these things, except for the ADD. I would be lost without my laptop and I would not be able to sleep without my phone. And while I don’t have a Wii, I want one. I threw my shoulder out playing Wii tennis one time and want a chance to undo that drama. Bring it. 

And we also have a hyper news media that scares the crap out of me. And I know, thanks to mandated reporting (a good thing), that there are ex-sex offenders living in my area. And I’m pretty paranoid. And I cannot manage to figure out how to get my kids outside and let them run wild and keep them safe. How to let them enjoy this short time in their lives when they are not glued to a computer screen, yet teach and equip them for school, where they are glued to screens. I don’t know how to say no to soccer and t-ball and guitar and swim lessons and just let them play outside when there are not a ton of kids to play outside with because they are all at soccer, t-ball, and guitar.

And I just don’t know how to let it all go and let life unfold. So this summer I am going to try to slow things down. To sit on the front porch rather than the back deck. To ride our bikes on the sidewalk rather than the driveway. And to take the time to talk to our neighbors, meet some new friends, and spend the afternoon at the pool. And I pray that in a few years, my little ones will find themselves swept up in a giant game of Ghost in the Graveyard with the best little neighbor buddies in the world. And I will then eavesdrop with a joyful heart on all their play time, from my front porch, sitting, smiling, remembering, and listening. One -o’clock, Two o’clock, Three o’clock rock . . . .