Children grow up

I would call it a confluence of circumstances: I had the time, I didn't want to go fishing with my husband, and the shed really needed going through. Part of cleaning the shed is ridding our lives of some of the apparently useless junk we have accumulated. In addition to the lids without canisters and canisters without lids, I found a pair of rubber boots that would no longer fit anyone. (With four kids, we are BIG on hand-me downs.) So when my fishless husband returned, I told him that in addition to all the other useless junk I had purged from the shed, I had found a pair of rubber boots that everyone had outgrown. It's one of those odd, bittersweet parenting moments, a milestone you only understand if you have kids. More than once we've gone through boxes and bins in the shed and come across tiny mittens or little coats, or bows and ribbons that I tried desperately--and without success--to use in my daughters' hair. These items stir up a whirlwind of memories. "Remember, she wore this on that trip to Victoria! I can't believe any of them were ever this small?! Remember how I taped this to her head just long enough to take the picture." Some of these items are tucked away to be rediscovered and their memories enjoyed anew some other day.

The boots were not nearly so romantic, but then they weren't tiny, baby clothes. They were size 13 rubber boots, and to realize that none of the kids are even that small signifies that we are moving ever forward toward a day without kids.

Honestly, I hope for the day when planning a vacation means budgeting for two tickets and not six. (Obviously, we don't vacation much!) And it's not just a selfish desire to take a vacation I can't afford in multiples of six, although I am only human so its definitely in there. But for parents, this is a bittersweet thought. I look forward to the day when "cleaning" one's room or the common area is not subject to interpretation. When "close enough" is good enough for just horse shoes and not for putting something away. ("Well, I put it in his room!") Children are a joy and watching them discover the world around them, showing them the wonders that delight you, is like making the discoveries and experiencing the joy for the first time. But make no bones about it, parenting, when done properly, is work.

And as sad as the thought might be of someday facing a house when they are all gone, a house that does not resonate with a 9-year-old's irrational laughter or the bickering of two teenagers, the alternative would be worse. I will be sad for myself when my children leave home to go to school, to work or to marry and raise families for themselves. But I will have joy for them and the challenge of living life that is before them. A child leaving home to live his own life is not a tragedy. It might have a tinge of sorrow for the parent that part of their life is over, but overall it is a joy and a blessing.

True sorrow comes to my heart when I consider that one of my children might never leave home. My youngest is autistic and might never be able to live on his own. He might never be able to focus and communicate well enough to hold down a job, maintain a home, much less marry and raise a family. It is too early to say for certain that his autism is that severe; between natural remedies and behavior modification he might live a relatively normal life. But the prospect of him never leaving him brings a heaviness to my heart that does not match the bittersweetness of a child leaving.

It's not the burden that causes me sorrow. I in no way resent the idea of caring for my son for the rest of his life. I can with joy, not resignation, provide for his needs and give him the oversight he needs. The sorrow is that he would not experience the same wonders and joys in being on his own, in having a family of his own. It is the thought that his life would be incomplete because he would never fully mature.

And so I hope that ALL of my children experience the joy of growing up and moving on, but will tend him with love and care if my son cannot.

My Review of CamelBak Sutra Backpack (For Women)

Originally submitted at Sierra Trading Post

Closeouts . The CamelBak Sutra backpack is the perfect size for day hikes, school and more. It features a spacious main compartment with padded laptop sleeve and fleece-lined pocket for MP3 player or sunglasses. Organizer compartment Side water bottle pockets Side compression straps Front b...

CamelBak Sutra Backpack (For Women)

Just as advertised

By Offcenter from Soldotna, Alaska on 9/24/2009

 

4out of 5

Pros: Comfortable, Easy To Load

Best Uses: Hiking, Day trip

Describe Yourself: Casual Adventurer

What Is Your Gear Style: Minimalist

I use this for day hikes and/or minimalist packing for overnight visits/travel. In fact, it is almost more than I needed at the moment, but as we hike more, I expect to "grow into" the bag.

(legalese)

go vegan and take up yoga

My mother will be 67 in just a few months and I'm already wondering if she'll see 70. Like far too many Americans, she is obese and has serious health issues as a result: high blood pressure, diabetes, heart damage, kidney damage. And she is on a virtual rainbow of pills, all of which affect what she can and cannot eat and what she can or cannot do. Her weight makes it hard to exercise. Further exacerbating the situation, she has always been a "picky" eater, but the drugs and diabetes further limit what she can eat (at least in theory), ironically enough eliminating many foods otherwise considered healthy. And then to top it all off, last week she sends me an email: She has gout.

Look up gout on wikipedia and you will find that it was once called "the rich man's disease" because it was associated with rich food. Essentially, the body is overloaded and cannot clean out all the waste and it builds up in the joints.

So my advice to her: go vegan and take up yoga.

I knew she would never listen to me and she had a ready list of excuses. I am not a vegan and I do not oppose eating meat, so why did I tell my mother to go vegan if I haven't? The first and foremost answer is that her bad eating habits have so destroyed her body that only an extreme change is going to make a difference. Meat and animal products are harder to process than plant products. The gout signals that she is consuming too much rich food, meat in particular.

But there is a second, subtler reason I told her what I did: awareness. I feed my family a vegan meal at least once a week. Not only is it healthy, but it helps put things back into perspective. Meat and and rich foods taste great but there are so many wonderful flavors in foods that are healthier for us on a day to day basis and so much of that has been lost. My advice was to rediscover those basic foods that sustained so many generations before us, when meat and fat-rich foods were saved for special occasions. If you examine French cooking, notorious for being "rich," what you find is peasant fare built on simple, healthy foods. The fats (such as olive oil or duck fat) that are added not only to contribute flavor but boost the calories so that the meals could sustain someone through a day of manual labor. Ratatouille is a good example. It is essentially a vegetable stew of eggplant, zucchini and tomato flavored with herbs and olive oil. It tastes wonderful, the kids eat it up, and it just happens to be vegan.

When studying Economics, one of the first ideas discussed is that of "unlimited wants." This is most easily seen in children. Parents discover quickly that you can never satisfy a child's desire for new toys. It doesn't matter if you spend a hundred dollars or a million, when it is all finished, the child would still want more. As adults, I don't think we ever really outgrow our "unlimited wants," but (hopefully) we learn to control them. But the capacity in our society to eat so much rich food, especially meat, means we have lost sight of wants versus needs. Just because we want it and it is cheap, doesn't mean we should have it.

The epidemic of obesity in this country could be curbed if not reversed by a return to simpler fare. If factory farms were abolished either through legal or social pressure, then the price of meat would increase and the problem would solve itself. But I don't see that happening. Fortunately, our lives, at least for the moment, do not depend on those around us discovering the pleasures and joys of simple foods. We can do this ourselves with no laws or regulations.

Now if I can just find someone around here who teaches yoga.

Living off the Beaten Path

I just turned 42 this past weekend, which according to Doug Adams is the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.

Maybe.

But it did get me thinking, which is the point of this blog.

We spent the Labor Day weekend camping in Denali National Park. The park has numerous established hiking trails; Denali also welcomes hikers to leave the established trails and hike where they will in the park, but with the understanding that groups of more than two people should not walk in a straight line. Hikers go off the beaten path to experience Denali and the wildlife in a richer, and some might argue truer way. And although hikers are always welcome, each must walk his own path. In this way, the 6 million acres of Denali National Park are criss-crossed with hikers/backpackers every year but once you leave the single road and handful of maintained trails, the only paths are those left by the animals.

So how does one live off the beaten path and experience a richer, perhaps truer, life?

Being off the beaten path doesn't mean moving to Montana or Alaska. It's not even a case of Living Simply (although that helps). Ironically, in American society, you are automatically off the beaten path when you decide to live within your means (much less beneath them). When doing something because it is right trumps doing what you can get away with, you have left the common path that dominates our society. When you live with what you can afford and not by what you can finance, you have departed from the crowds. You can trod your own path by what you eat, by what you wear, by what you watch, read, drive, and say. And all of these things reveal who you truly are.

Hikers leave the established trails to see Denali as it "truly is" --without the crowds or the tour buses or the established trails. As a metaphor, it only goes so far because living in Denali is generally frowned upon. But if hiking through Denali is a simply a metaphor for seeing life as it truly is and not simply as it is being packaged and shown to us, then we can learn from it.

Every year, an easy million people visit Denali National Park, and most of them come on train or bus, stay in one of the large expensive hotels, take a bus into the park to look at the sights, and leave on another bus or train. They are herded from bus to hotel to souvenir shop and restaurants without ever experiencing what it really means to visit Denali. They have seen the park, but they have not experienced the park. If we are herded through our lives, moving from institution to institution, doing as the experts say without ever questioning their credentials, living in fear of losing our jobs because it would mean we might lose our things, have we truly experienced life as it is, or have we simply viewed it from the bus window?