Lunch Line

Lately I’ve been noticing how kids these days have quite a different perspective on food than was typical when I was young.  In my day, going to McDonald’s was a treat.  Today, kids do a pretty convincing vomit act at the mere mention of the place.  I felt kind of sorry for my son’s basketball coach when his team reacted with such vehement disgust after he enthusiastically told them they’d get to go to Micky D’s on the way back from a game.  Here he was trying to be cool and with it, but instead must’ve felt like all the kids were hand gesturing upper case L’s on their foreheads, extending them in his general direction.  They went, but some kids, including mine, chose not to eat.

And this stance didn’t come from me.  It’s part of the peer culture.  A couple weeks ago I took my 11 year old son and his friend to Subway, right across the road from their school, 20 minutes before a school activity was set to start.  The friend walked in, looking around like he had just stepped into a bizarre wax museum.  Before they ordered he asked, “Is the food here organic?”  Um, no.  “Is it local?”  No, it’s Subway, whattayawant?  He wasn’t sure.  Putting the pieces together here was a whole new experience for him. 

A recent issue of “Educational Researcher” had an article on nutrition tied to academic achievement.   The authors suggested that a deeply entrenched stigma of poor quality has been the accepted norm for school lunches for years, and big business contracts have kept cheap food (aka crap) on the lunch line.  But gradually, people have taken stabs at changing this.  Currently a local district is facing parental concerns that the food choices are too high in sugar and too low in nutritional value.  The parents are becoming vocal, and have garnered support from key figures in the mayor’s office and on city council.  The request is this simple line: Please serve nutritious food.  All kids deserve it regardless of whether their lunch is subsidized or not.

And there’s the rub.  For many children, 2/3 of their daily meals are free or at a reduced price, and school systems strive to cut costs in the interest of volume.  Some of these children actually receive all their meals at school, as dinner isn’t served in every household.  So yes, I’m willing to have my tax dollars go towards improved nutrition for these kids for the simple reason that they’re kids.  They’re growing, they’re learning about food choices, and they can’t do it on their own.  Just as I feel the school system should teach them how to write, I feel they should teach them by example how to eat.

And a cool thing about eating well is that there’s this added benefit of feeling good.  Who doesn’t learn better when their body is well-tuned towards it?  I have seen calm, quiet kindergarteners get out of control after their breakfast of sugar cookies (well, the label said “cinnamon rolls” but the actual item was a cookie with a swirl of cinnamon icing) and strawberry milk.  When adults scold children for acting out after watching them pump themselves full of sugar, I just cringe.  Bodies respond to what’s inside them, so let’s give kids some real power in the form of nutrition.  If standards are the end all and be all, how about we legitimately address nutritional standards? Perhaps one day we’ll actually have fewer people taxing the health care system with bad-habit induced health problems. 

No, don’t look away policy makers.  Pay attention!  The problem won’t go away by ignoring it or quibbling over immediate costs, which is the overused counter line.  Yea, it’ll cost money.  So does childhood obesity, diabetes, and a whole slew of health problems that will surely follow.  Instead of digging a hole where nutritional value gets buried, why not build a garden instead and get kids moving and eating right?  Quality in every way, shape, and form is worth it.

Input

I write this blog for a couple reasons: first, I like recording things as I begin to understand them; second, writing this sort of creative free-form way creates space for me to do the more tedious formulaic writing I do for a living. Writing the blog is like a mini vacation; when I get back to the more technical stuff, I feel invigorated, and ready to tackle the apollonian aspect of my life with energy and a positive attitude.  My output requires brainwork that reaches outside the office, stepping into the garden for a few tender bits to savor.

At times this garden walk is metaphorical, approached in an unexpected way. For instance, this blog has a stats section where I can see how people get to me.  Up until recently it’s been through Facebook or a straight shot on blogger.  I have friends who blog and will cite certain searches that led people to their blog.  I thought they had some sort of extra analysis tool that I was lacking, but recently, I saw that it shows up clear as day.  My stats showed the search line “a poem about rain softening everything.”  They found my post “Beautiful Reign,” and hung out to see what else I had to say.

I’m grateful, because when I did the search myself, I found this poem by Sara Teasdale here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Teasdale

There Will Come Soft Rains

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Published shortly after WWI, I find it amazing that her words ring true now with the wars we know today; wars against people and their beliefs and wars against all forms of sustainability.  In Teasdale’s poem, there is peace unaltered by human activity.  Written in 1920, this pre factory farming perception speaks assuredly of nature’s power. 

Further towards our modern ways, E.B. White said that mankind’s approach to nature is to beat it into submission.  “...too ingenious for its own good,” he suggested the human race should appreciate nature rather than try to rule it.

But, I can’t quite go down that road because I need to ask first who he meant?  The human race is a big group of people.  Surely not all of us went the dictatorial route, maybe just the ones with the big guns.  Sadly though, that’s been enough to create devastating change.

However, ingenuity coupled with observation that takes in the whole is a completely different matter.  There have been plenty of groups who figured out how to keep things going without trying to rule nature; abundant crops, pest control (not pest destruction), and stable animal populations have been a part of some human existence for ages. Also, various groups have historically understood that natural influences on production are a way of life, and adjusting to these is part of being human.  There’s a process that leads to product; input is the magic that generates output. 

In my opinion, that’s the difference between sustainable practices and agribusiness.  The former respects input, the latter glorifies output at any cost.  Sustainability is all about process; there’s a road one travels where any glance back is met with a beautiful view of a thriving ecology.  Its opposite leaves a scene that’s been stripped and flattened, confused about how it will manage to regain the severed connections.  But, as Teasdale wrote, nature will find a way.  She might not be able to support the humans anymore in the rebuilding, but she’ll rebuild all the same.

A link you may find of interest is attached below.  I found this when I searched “sustainability practices around the world.”  For those interested in seeing what some humans have knows for quite some time now, take a look!

http://insight.glos.ac.uk/sustainability/unescoculture/Pages/default.aspx

Garden Groove

Sometimes in the car or garden I have these eureka moments, which could be really cool if I actually remembered what they were at least some of the time.  For my blog, I bought myself a pretty nifty voice recorder so that I could document these amazing thoughts as they occur.  Now, if I could just locate it, I’d be set.  Last week while harvesting potatoes, I’m pretty sure I uncovered life’s greatest paradox.  But like a dream, it slipped away before I made it out the garden gate. 

As a kid, I loved car rides because I could somehow be alone with my thoughts with 6 other passengers and a blaring radio.  My family was big on educational field trips to historic places and natural wonders.  I was always disappointed when we arrived because it meant my thinking time had come to an end and I’d have to get out and learn something.

 It’s interesting that the other place where this happens to me is the polar opposite to the loud confining high speed venue where my thoughts can get cosmic.  When I go out to garden, it’s to do maybe one or two specific things that may or may not get done once I get out there.  I get into a flow where I just do what catches my attention, and when I get really into it, whatever my task is teaches me something.

Perhaps because I have a big garden, people often ask if I have my kids do garden chores for me, assuming, I suppose that it’s too much for one person. 

No.  I don’t.

 And besides, “garden chore” is an oxymoron.  Well, I guess I’ll make an exception for Bermuda grass, but even that can be a good thing if you’re in the right frame of mind.

Is this wrong?  Am I denying my children the hours of drudgery that every childhood should earn like a badge? If they want to come out, great, but they know that I’m not out there to chit chat and get all “educational,” unless they ask for it.

At times I will call them out to see something of immediate interest, but the garden’s not about work and it’s not about togetherness.  It’s about reflection and being in flow because that’s just what happens to me.  When people come out and ask me questions, like “When are we eating?” or “Have you seen my shin guards?” I’m sure they can see the gears working as I come back to the here and now.  It’s sad, really, to see how long it takes me to register what’s been said.  Early onset?  No, just a woman doing what she loves and welcoming the drift into a different consciousness that naturally comes with it.

On occasion I’ve had opportunities to garden with others who are really into it.  We ride the same wave of peaceful , quiet concentration and it’s a beautiful thing. When I get to enjoy that, it’s like a new bond has formed, similar to the connection one feels as they realize they’ve met their best friend.  It’s deep and rooted, where understanding and love get things growing.  As I said earlier, it’s not about togetherness, but I guess what I meant in my words above is forced togetherness.  That just can’t happen.  However, real connection happens naturally when you garden with a fellow gardener.  I guess it’s like in sync musicians getting a good groove going, celebrating the unspoken joy of sharing a common language that only registers with a few.