Tuesday 16 May 2017

Progress Through Uncharted Territory - by Sharon Flood Kasenberg

Volume 18

Another volume is complete,
I'll set it on my shelf -
filled with bitter and with sweet -
this book about myself.
Took six years to fill this one -
my inspiration waned -
but new tome I have begun;
excitement is regained.
Life evolves in varied  ways,
I've moved, and I've moved on;
found new ways to fill my days
while mourning friendships gone.
Brand new phase of life I'm in,
new book is required.
On fresh pages I'll begin
to write as I'm inspired.
Each new day will bring changes
to thrill, or cause me grief,
and as life rearranges
I'll cling to this belief:
Every time I lift my pen
to write another line
I can edit who or when
as my tale I define.
Mine - this story that I write,
be it foolish or sage.
My words will not be contrite
as I begin new page.

Sharon Flood Kasenberg, May 16, 2017

Six years in the making, Volume 18 of the story of my life now sits on a shelf with the others. A lot has happened since I started writing in a journal that was a gift from a girl in a youth group I once led. Both she and I have chosen different routes from the path we once both trod, and I enjoy watching her life evolve through social media. I was touched when she gave me this gift. Dealing with other people's teenage daughters was foreign territory for me, and it was gratifying to know that at least one of those girls felt I'd made a positive contribution to her formative years. Every time I've written in that book I've thought of her, and our different but parallel paths, and oddly it kept me writing in that particular book until I'd filled every page.

So many times during those years I wanted to leave the rest of that book blank and just begin a whole new journal. That kind of symbolism felt warranted, but when I thought of the giver I could remind myself that it is enough to record every new chapter on "a new leaf".

Life has changed a lot for me during the last half-dozen years. The first half of that book was very sporadic, as I had barely begun a long dig, with a teaspoon, out of a very deep middle-aged rut. Six years ago, I questioned my purpose in life. I had always considered myself a mother first, and a wife second, but with children coming out of their teens I no longer felt very needed. I was in the midst of a faith crisis and an identity crisis. I was neither happy nor sad - just stuck in neutral. And what bothered me most was that there wasn't a tow truck in sight. It wasn't very inspiring fodder for journaling.

Gradually things began to change. My younger son got married, and moved away - again. We decided that meant it was time to pursue our dreams as an old married couple - move toward a pre-retirement plan of sorts. Finally I had things to write about in a journal that was beginning to show its age. I chronicled our search for the right property and the woes of buying, selling, uprooting and moving. I mourned a lost garden and celebrated dozens of small victories as our new old home began a metamorphosis of its own.

I wrote about new activities and meeting new people. I wrote about the flavour of small town life and my efforts to find a place for myself in this new venue. I wrote about what I saw, heard and felt through a very transitory period of my life, and it was cathartic. 

As with any other move, and any other transition in life, I learned that relationships are full of surprises. Some of the people I thought would understand where I was in life didn't even try. Others paid lip service, but disappeared as soon as I spoke up and expressed a differing opinion. Some who I thought would never understand where I was actually understood that I'd never really "moved" at all - I was still who I always was, even if my coordinates had changed slightly. Through it all, I've learned incredible lessons about love, tolerance and just letting go of those who are focused on listening to their own voice echo through my lips.

I have my own story to tell, and I'm not apologizing for a plot twist or two.

I gradually made peace with the fact that my sons were grown up - a hard adjustment for me. Yesterday, we returned from a visit with my younger son and his wife. It was wonderful to see them and spend a little time together. I'm beginning to learn how to converse with my sons and daughter-in-law as adults. We don't always see things the same way, and I can accept that. If the only thing we ever agree on is that love matters more than religion or politics, that's enough for me. There's a heady circularity to having your child treat you to a nice meal and plan entertainment for a weekend. Sadly, while my husband and I took a road trip to visit one son, the other stayed home. He's "adulting" these days too, holding down a full time job and saving money, maybe for a car - or even a house of his own. Still, by virtue of the fact that he is residing with us, I probably over-mother him. Old habits die hard, but I'm trying to let him be his own man.

While away, I purchased a new journal. I was two pages from the end of the old one, and knew it was time to buy a blank book to serve as Volume 19 in the ongoing story of my life. I wanted something a bit unique, and while browsing at the Harvard Bookstore I found it - a simple, wooden covered book emblazoned with the words Today's Master Plan. It spoke to me. I've begun to see that what we plan to do today is what really matters. Nothing I plan to do tomorrow will be accomplished if I don't tend to the tasks of today first, right? I've lived too much of my life deferring tasks, satisfaction, and well - life - and time is a-wasting! So, there will be no more apologies for prioritizing today.

I used to wait for the new year to write a detailed and carefully categorized list of resolutions, which would be buried in my journal on a random page that I'd never bother to locate again. I think I'm through with taking that approach. It might serve me better to write as list of objectives at the beginning of a fresh book - use that first new leaf to outline where I'd like to be by the time I reach that last page of the volume. Somehow I think I'll fill these pages faster than I completed my last installment. I have more topics to cover, as well as a more interesting life to report on.

Nobody knows how many days they'll get, or how many pages - or tomes - they'll fill as they write their own story. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm enjoying the journey. Thus I'll look upon this next book as a Captain's Log - a record of my progress through the uncharted territory known as my life, and my future.

Volume 19 begins today.

Monday 1 May 2017

Wasteful - by Sharon Flood Kasenberg

Wasteful

We are wasteful on our planet -
trash heaps to the sky.
Always buying and consuming
without knowing why.

Much we could re-use - recycle -
rather than just toss,
but we pile more on the scrap heap -
treasure becomes dross.

Water we can buy in bottles,
and you say to me
that you will not fill my bottle -
quench my thirst for free?

Food we do not think delicious
we just throw away -
decadence in first world lifestyle
always on display.

The technology we pay for
with our hard earned cash?
It's designed for obsolescence -
it is made to crash!

Nothing's made to last forever -
or that's what we hear.
All the things we've ever owned will
someday disappear...

Ploughed under a giant landfill,
buried in the sea,
out of sight - by us forgotten
for too easily.

But not so for our poor planet -
Earth cannot contain
all the waste that, though forgotten,
always will remain.

Sharon Flood Kasenberg - May 1, 2017


Over the past few years I've become a lot more aware of how wasteful we are as a society, and how much I carelessly toss in the garbage. I'm trying to put a lot more thought into what I buy and how I dispose of things I no longer need. Sadly establishing more conservative practices isn't easy in a disposable world.

We see an onslaught of consumerism and wastefulness all around us. Advertisements tell us to buy, buy, buy - regardless of whether we actually need. Garbage cans overflow with uneaten food at restaurants. Malls are full of aimless shoppers looking for "something"- a bargain to fill an empty spot in their lives. Once, after a shopping trip with a friend I asked her what she'd bought. Her reply astonished me,

"Oh - I bought a dress. I don't think it looks great on me, and it's not really what I wanted, but it's better than buying nothing at all!"

I really couldn't have disagreed more, but I kept myself from being too forceful about expressing my contrary opinion, lest I be accused of being a parsimonious prig. My approach to shopping has always been the opposite - I'd far rather come away empty handed than waste my money buying something that I don't really need - or at least really want. My closet already contains far too many items that are seldom worn, and I feel guilty admitting that. I'm trying to cull my closet more often, because the things I don't wear anymore will be appreciated by someone else.

I've always felt guilty about wasting food, which was seen as a sin in the family I was raised in. You took what you could eat, and by golly you finished it! A childhood filled with eating leftovers helped me develop a distaste for anything reheated (a lot of the meals I cook aren't that good the first time around) - but since my younger son (aka the family garbage disposal) left home I've made a more concerted effort to finish up the remains of previous suppers at lunchtime. I've also tried harder to plan use of leftovers in advance - yesterday's roast beef can be tomorrow's stroganoff, right? Thinking this way doesn't come easily to me, but I'm getting better at it. (Living in a town with no grocery store provides a bit more incentive to purchase groceries carefully and use up every scrap!)

One of my pet peeves is water bottles. I'm trying hard to not buy them anymore. Every time I head out the door for the day I fill a reusable container for the road. My big dilemma becomes how to get refills when I've finished the water I packed. Water filling stations are few and far between, as are drinking fountains, and few public bathrooms have actual taps with cold water, as opposed to weird sprinkler things or motion activated faucets that provide lukewarm water and turn off when you position a bottle under them. If you ask for tap water at a fast food place they'll give you the smallest cup they can find. (One sub shop actually gave me a Dixie cup!). Likewise, sit down restaurants have gotten stingy with their water. Many seem oddly willing to keep the "free" pop refills coming, but reluctant to offer to refill for my water glass - I usually have to ask for more. The only conclusion I can find is that these places are a bit annoyed that I don't want to pay for a beverage. They'd rather see me sucking in empty calories (and excessive aeration) with the meal I've purchased than provide free drinking water from their tap.

Frankly, I resent having to pay money for bottled water - especially when I know that some of it is pulled out of the ground a half hour from here. These companies pay pennies for mega-gallons, and sell our resource back to us for a dollar (or two dollars) for each 500 ml bottle. Most bottled water is less pure that what we get out of our taps, and the bottles will pollute our land, our lakes and our oceans. Sure, the bottles can be recycled, but how many actually are? Why bother paying for, and recycling, bottles of a beverage that we can get out of our taps for free? Sheesh - it's not like there aren't plenty of other plastic things that we buy and need to try and recycle - like excessive packaging - and electronic components....

When I complained a few years back about how quickly electronics became outdated or wore out, my older son introduced me to the concept of planned obsolescence. Things are made quickly and cheaply now, and therefore have a short shelf life (or desk life, or TV stand life...) so that we'll have to repurchase them in a few years. Why produce quality when you can mass produce a great quantity of mediocre to downright crappy products that people will have to keep on buying? Our first television was a wedding gift from my father-in-law. We've been married almost twenty-nine years, and it still works! A few years ago we went shopping for a flat screen television, but when the salesman told us we could only expect to get - on average - six years out of our purchase we decided to hold off. Likewise, we had our first computer for a looong time, and just kept adding new components to it. But now? No such luck - you have to replace the whole thing every few years! Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?

I know I run the risk of sounding like an old crank when I say it, but I miss the days of cars and kitchen appliances that routinely lasted for more than a decade. Think back to your childhood. How many times did your mother replace her fridge or stove? I'm betting that if you're close to my age you've bought three fridges for every one that your mother owned.

My point is this - we waste without thinking about it. We spend without thought and waste a lot of what we buy. We need to come up with better purchasing strategies and better ways of disposing of our trash. We need to hold companies accountable for what they produce. We need to demand quality more often. If I get better quality I will buy less. If I buy less, I'll waste less. I understand that every business wants to make money, but there's a truth out there that's more important than any bottom line.

 If our planet is taken care of, we all profit.

Maybe if we can all learn to live more frugally, and make more careful purchases, this crazy downward spiral of buying and trashing will stop before Earth becomes a barren, polluted wasteland.

Waste not.