Category: FreeForm

  • What We Need

    Alex Steffen on Worldchanging had this to say recently (in the middle of a much longer piece on the need for sustainability to focus on resilient, complex, urban solutions) “See, I’m more and more convinced that the idea we as individuals, or little pocket communities, or small towns can lead the way to sustainability on…

  • A Mom Who Blogs?

    Just to be clear: I understand that I’m just about nobody in the “blogosphere”, so my reaction to the “Moms who blog” furor that recently hit after the NYT scoffed at us is a little less intense than that of women who are doing it for a living, as a calling, or for other reasons…

  • Chopping Wood

    It is a commonly quoted Zen proverb: “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” I first came across it at the entry to the Zen Garden in the Arboretum at the University of Guelph, and I was struck motionless. It seemed so obvious; even the attainment of enlightenment doesn’t absolve…

  • Swimming with the kids

    Yesterday I decided to do something different. At the end of the day, when I was about to dash off to pick up the kids from after-school program, I realized that I’ve been intending to take them swimming all winter. I had decided at the end of the swimming classes that I needed to spend…

  • No Body

    You do not have a body “What?!” I hear you respond. “Clearly ludicrous! This woman’s insane.” Very good, very good. Glad to see you’re listening. I’m afraid it’s not as exciting as all that, though. I’m not going to claim that existence is an illusion, that the body, or life (or the world for that…

  • School Gardens – or not?

    Sierra on Strollerderby asked us what we thought about Caitlin Flanagan’s article on School Gardens in the Atlantic Monthly. I did make a comment, but it left me thinking all evening, so I guess it goes in here. If you read my last posting, you will rightly predict that I’m in favor of school gardens,…

  • The Dinner Blues

    Let’s be up-front about this: I recently found myself saying to my husband (and not even in the heat of the moment), “I hate having to feed my children healthy food.” Sometimes it is tempting to throw my hands up in the air, and simply declare a moratorium on these family dinners that everybody says…

  • Idea Collector

    I spend an enormous amount of time pondering the overall arch of my life. In front of me on the desk is a mock-up of a pamphlet that highlights the range of my experience, which goes from nuclear engineering plants (drafting of shut-down systems, studying the materials that surrounds the fuel rods), through universities (teaching…

  • Review: No Impact Man

    Title: No Impact Man Author: Colin Beavan Farrar, Straus and Giroux, September 2009 This book surprised me. I have read a LOT of the “My Year Of…” category of books, and I arrived at this one from a not-particularly positive commentary on the New York Times. I found myself with book in hand only a…

  • Local Buying

    I have been lying awake trying to solve the economic problems of the island I live on in my head. I did this all day also. This is not a new activity; I grew up in Newfoundland. I spent rather a lot of my youth on this issue. Here’s the problem in a nutshell: Every…

  • Book Review: Cheap

    Title: Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture Author: Ellen Ruppel Shell Penguin, 2009 This book begins in the same place as a surprisingly large number of books of this type: with the author’s (seemingly sudden) realization that something she takes for granted might be a problem. In this case, it is the purchase of…

  • Watching out for Joy

    I am surprised to find that the first thing I started to do with this blog was look for joy. I want to explore possibility, sources of hope, people doing the Good Work that needs to be done. But as soon as I started looking for things that were good about the world, I started…