this is not a review: ‘why shouldn’t i drop litter’? by mj knight

~ carin ~ 4 Comments

 
I’ve recently set out on a quest for trashy reading and have been happily led to what appears to be not only a most wonderful book on the subject of litter but to a whole line of (very smart) books being published by Smart Apple Media, primarily for schools as far as I can make out, but they’re such excellent things it would be a shame not to flaunt them more broadly.

Formatted as one of those hardcover, mini encyclopedia for kids, Why Shouldn’t I Drop Litter?  opens with a colour photo of autumn leaves on the ground and the reminder that this, too, is called ‘litter’, leaf litter.  The difference being that “Nature has ways of dealing with things that are no longer wanted…”

And with that perfectly passive aggressive irony, we enter the book by addressing a few facts about ourselves and how much we throw away every year (about five pounds per person  EVERY DAY). That *you*, personally, don’t throw that much away doesn’t matter. It’s not a problem that’s searching for someone to blame. It’s a problem that requires everyone to take responsibility. At least everyone who lives on the planet.

The pages, 32 of them, are beautifully laid out and not crowded with information in the way this style of book can sometimes be. Nor is its intention to scold or even shock. Rather, it seems only to want to remind us of the consequences of litter, that something which seems so trivial and innocuous has all kinds of horrible consequences.

Hedgehogs, for example, tend to get stuck in yoghurt containers because their quills make it impossible to back out.

Used or tangled fishing lines are often cut and left in the water (because we’re such geniuses). And if you can’t understand how this is dangerous for birds, fish, turtles, dolphins, etc…. google fishing lines/wildlife  sometime. Meanwhile, here’s a two minute story with a happy ending.

And those plastic holders that six-packs come in? If you haven’t yet heard, all kinds of birds and animals, fish too, get them wrapped around their beaks, bodies or necks and die that way. If you see one laying around, please pick it up. You may save a life, and you won’t die of cooties.

Oh, but if it’s germs you’re worried about, consider the gum that’s all over pavement everywhere. It costs between $2 and $3.50  PER PIECE to scrape off. Apparently no one has yet figured out a better way to remove it. Probably because all the money and brainpower is working on how to inhabit Mars (which will only remain gum free until we get there).

One of the biggest problems in the matter of waste is that which comes from fast food restaurants. Our convenience is apparently nature’s problem. It’s no small potatoes what we choose to support with our dollars. When we give all the money and power to fast food places we shouldn’t be asking ourselves why standards are slipping everywhere we look.

(Of note: interesting how people will throw money at the burger joint that happily pollutes the world for profit, but the same person resents paying a few extra bucks to keep a community well supplied with garbage cans.)

The problem is always us.

The solutions too.

It’s about the choices we make.

Anyway, the book is part of Smart Apple Media’s ‘One Small Step’  imprint, which seems designed to inspire engagement in our individual slivers of the world, to encourage us to understand that problems like litter are not someone else’s problem, but something we can work together to improve.

I think it would make dandy reading for families that give a hoot.

~

Also, if you come across books that deal effectively with the subject of litter, garbage, recycling, you get the idea… please let me know. I’m compiling a list for The Litter I See Project.

A million thanks.

 

the silence of moving water

~ carin ~ 8 Comments

 
 

Cosy on my couch with tea this morning.

And then the sky does something impossible to ignore.

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So I walk to the ravine at the end of my street

and stand behind a juniper tree above the creek, and listen

to the silence of morning before birds, of nothing but moving water

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and think how lucky to be in a place where silence calls you out to play.

How very very lucky indeed.
♥

Happy new year, friends…

Here’s to a little more peace and kindness for all.

 

______________________

“There is always an element of sadness in celebration. We cannot celebrate without alluding to it, because there are people on this earth of ours who are not celebrating, who are despairing, anguished, starving and mourning. That is why all celebration should end with a silence in which we remember… all those who cannot celebrate…” ~ Jean Vanier

 

but this… and this is not nothing

~ carin ~ 6 Comments

 
It hasn’t been perfect, true.

Whatever perfect is.

dsc08061 But there have been friends, and there have been children… there have been cats and dogs and horses. There have been visits and visitors and mist seen from a porch.

There have been sunsets.

dsc08064dsc08227-copyAnd the sun has come up each day and there have been meals and laughter and silliness shared. (Why does the lion always lose at poker? He plays with a cheetah.)

dsc08057_1dsc08235There have been creampuffs (and the cages are rattling for more). There has been candlelight and firelight and tea on the patio and music and words spoken and read and thought. There have been ideas realized and hands held, rides on strong broad shoulders, and monkeys. Yes, there have been monkeys!

dsc08231 dsc08219There was the ocean and the star that night and there have been birds and a fox, several rabbits,  deer leaping over a fence, too many squirrels to count and their nests impossibly high and visible only when the leaves fall. There was a crop of garlic and green bean salad and all those fat, happy worms.

dsc08050 bwThere was a campfire and sagebrush and the rumour of bears. There was pizza and good cheese and bread and long walks and friends met for the first time In Real Life.

There was snow and there were snow angels and invitations and real mail in real mailboxes.

There was rain and the lake with its waves and tides and beach glass. There were stones.

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*And now there are pomegranates to remind me of what is not nothing.

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With thanks to everyone who was part of the everything this year.

Everything that was. And is.

The light and love of the season to you all (laughter and pizza implied).

See you in the new year.

♦

*(Please read this beautiful piece by Leslie Prpich… and gather your pomegranates.)

 

remembering

~ carin ~ Leave a comment

 
Geneviève Bergeron (born 1968), civil engineering student

Hélène Colgan (born 1966), mechanical engineering student

Nathalie Croteau (born 1966), mechanical engineering student

Barbara Daigneault (born 1967), mechanical engineering student

Anne-Marie Edward (born 1968), chemical engineering student

Maud Haviernick (born 1960), materials engineering student

Maryse Laganière (born 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique’s finance department

Maryse Leclair (born 1966), materials engineering student

Anne-Marie Lemay (born 1967), mechanical engineering student

Sonia Pelletier (born 1961), mechanical engineering student

Michèle Richard (born 1968), materials engineering student

Annie St-Arneault (born 1966), mechanical engineering student

Annie Turcotte (born 1969), materials engineering student

Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (born 1958), nursing student

imageimage♦

Sadly, violence against women continues.

And, sadly, it’s probably up to women to do something about that.

“Let’s not pretend that being hopeful is an easy or straightforward pursuit. Hope can be a fracturing, even a traumatic thing to experience… Experiencing hope may bring oxygen to a stifled set of lungs, but hope also brings the realization that if something else is possible, then the stifling wasn’t necessary or inevitable. Experiencing hope means running the risk of a kind of crushing disappointment and agitated torpor… cruel optimism.
So yes, it’s complicated to be a hopeful feminist killjoy, complicated and necessary.”

—Notes from a Feminist Killjoy,  by Erin Wunker

 

 

how to write seasonally unaffected greeting cards

~ carin ~ 9 Comments

 
The key is to write more than your name.

dsc08085-copyIn other words, resist the urge to buy a seasonally affected message under which you leave your signature.

Write words. Thoughts even.

Write in ink. (or pencil or crayon or anything along those lines)

Sit down with your address book, by which I mean an actual book made of paper and cardboard that lives in a basket on your kitchen counter and which is dog-eared and generally beaten up.

Flip through its pages and see names of people you see and talk to all the time and some you haven’t spoken with all year.

dsc08080-copy dsc08078-copyThere may be a reason you haven’t talked all year, but not to worry… there’s something very possible  about keeping in touch via annual conversations in ink. And in many cases, preferable.

So open your battered address book and begin.

dsc08074-copy dsc08070-copy dsc08069-copyRemember the woman you haven’t seen since the 80’s that you used to work with and once took an auto body repair class together. You had a rusty Dodge Dart. She made amazing rice. You haven’t seen each other or heard each others voices in more than thirty years. You don’t even email. The only time you’re in touch is at this time of year. By card. You’re up to date on events, if not inner psyches. (Not necessary to be up to date on every psyche.)

And your godmother who you never call often enough and friends across the country, and those who live an hour away but you only meet once a year.

You will find a man who turns 99 this month and still has all his marbles, and a woman who is 83 and has the smile of a teenager.

And the address of an old friend no longer around. You keep her name in the book anyway and every year you think what you might have written to her.

dsc08065-copySend notes also to the names you see and talk to all the time because the things you say in handwriting are different than what you say in keyboard or words out loud.

dsc08058-copyYou can buy cards or make them. From photos. Or potato stencils.

(In the past you may have chosen to drink rum and eggnog as you wrote but have since discovered you’re lactose intolerant and the rum makes your handwriting illegible by the time you get to the L’s in your address book.)

Options: Light a fire. Get cosy. Make tea or open a bottle of wine (see above). If it snows so much the better.

dsc08075-copyEmbrace the remembering that goes with each name and notice the different things you write to each person, the reminder that each relationship is its own thing.

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See the exhibit of textile sculptures by Judith Scott (who is part magpie and part genius.)

Go with a friend.

(Stop here for lunch. Have the kale and quinoa salad. Say hey to Debbie.)

Pay a visit to the French store and say yes to that bottle of almond milk hand cream that will not stop flirting with you.

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Use pictures of the exhibit for this year’s cards. (If gallery approves said use.)

And even though you just saw the friend, send them a card too.

Especially them.

♦

 

i drove to barrie

~ carin ~ 5 Comments

 
I’ve never been to Barrie before.

dsc08000I’d heard there was a nice waterfront.

It’s true.

dsc08006dsc08008But I didn’t go for the waterfront. That was simply a bonus, a nice way to spend the hour before sunset.

dsc08010 dsc08014At 7 p.m. I was in the living room of people I’d never met, about to be entertained by one of my favourite musicians, Laura Smith.

And Paul Mills.

A house concert, my first.

dsc08015 dsc08016And I really can’t even begin to describe how extraordinary it is to hear a concert quality performance in the comfort of a private home.

dsc08036And Laura Smith’s voice… well, if you’ve ever heard it, you might understand the mind-boggling effect of hearing it up close. If you’ve never heard it, listen to this…  And more, here.

It was Laura’s voice on a couple of CD’s that kept me company as I drove back, solo, from Prince Edward Island last year. For me, her voice and driving, travelling, looking and seeing and finding new things… are all connected.

I’ve also been known to dance in my own living room to her tunes.

I did not dance in the living room of strangers, though I suspect they might not have minded.

dsc08048I must have had the feeling I wouldn’t be able to describe anything and so I scribbled down lines throughout the evening… some from stories Laura told about the origins of the songs, why and how she wrote them; others from the songs themselves. This is a sliver of things, my concert mash up…

 

I Drove to Barrie to Hear Laura Smith

I was never safer
because of my smart dog
—the hardest part was starting.
Only an echo will answer my name;
I look into your eyes and see stories
that will never get told, like a father
and a daughter—love to have you here
havin’ a beer, right about now, steamin’
with toil, with the seagulls around me
and crows on the plough; you are loved
and you are loved always, you’re home.
I hear voices in the salt spray, the last
light of the sun going down; I sit in the
same chair every night, Jordy—
a bad hair day in a cheap motel—I’m a
beauty. I’m a beauty.

♦

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Nothing else to say.

Except, thanks. It was the best…