home.

home. Home. Homa. Oklahoma.

I don’t know where this image came from – people have been using it a lot this week. Maybe it came from this shirt designer from Tulsa? Maybe it’s been around a long time. But I like it.

Home is like family. When a place is really, truly Home… it may still be able to surprise you, but you know its strengths and weaknesses. You’ve seen it at its best and at its worst. You love it anyway. Maybe you love it just because you’ve seen it go through so much; because you know the depths (both good and bad) it can go to, how it behaves under pressure, how it gets knocked down but keeps standing up again and again and again. How, in its peaceful calm and its violent terrors, it is still beautiful. And you know it is worth going back to. And worth working for. And worth fighting for. And worth making it as strong as it can be, every time. The land gives us strength. We give our community strength. Our community gives the land strength. And back and forth.

Give me an EF-5 and not a Category 5, an EF-5 and not a Richter 10. They can all kill me when it comes right down to it… but when it comes right down to it, I can only ride one of them out from home. Were I to live somewhere else, it would not be home. Not like this.

Not like a quirky cousin, not like an old friend. Not like this place that I trust like any other to have the fortitude to pull together and come back stronger than it was before. Not like this place where I know - where we all know - we Okies can and will do this together. It's just what we do.

May you all be safe and sound and dry, and have all you need for health and comfort this week.

The Role of Pride in Your Environment

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, I lived in this city that nobody liked. If you admitted you liked it, that meant you were unenlightened, probably boring, and definitely uncool. Parents taught this to their kids, their kids taught it to other kids, and all kids bragged about leaving as quick as they possibly could. The only time this city ever made the news was when something awful happened. Natural disasters. Crimes. That sort of thing. And so the rest of the world thought this city was crummy, too. It was a depressed, unnoticed little splotch in the middle of America. I never understood it, honestly – I was happy enough. But I also planned to leave like everyone else and live somewhere more interesting and more beautiful. In the long run, I didn’t – partially because I realized with no small amount of shock that I love my hometown, despite everything. And because of that, I witnessed this incredible transformation that started not long after I moved away to college and continues to this day.

For a variety of reasons, people wanted to be proud of their city again. They quit moving away. Or like me, they moved away and came back. They invested in their city with their time, talents and money. They passed taxes to make improvements to all sorts of things – to dilapidated parts of town, to transportation, to schools, to community recreation and education facilities. They rallied together around local businesses, artisans and sports teams. They made it cool to keep your money in the community instead of sending it to the box stores. They passed incentives for companies to locate here. They started making the news for something aside from getting their houses blown over – they made the news for low cost of living, for high employment rates, for their sports, for creative policies, for all sorts of things - and finally, people started to move in instead of move away.

The city I live in now is a far cry from the city I lived in twenty-five years ago. The difference is so shocking that it brings tears to my eyes because everyone else has finally started to love it the way that I have always loved it, and it is making it beautiful and exciting. A couple of weeks ago I drove down a street in the dark that used to be abandoned - but at night, on a Tuesday, lights shone. The buildings were buzzing. There were people eating dinner in their living rooms. There were store fronts. There was art in the windows. There was a catch in my throat. But it has always been a good city – it always had talented, intelligent, hard-working people fueling it. It always had an arts scene; it always had diverse citizenship; it always had recreational options and pretty garden parks. It always had some cool architecture, lots of possibilities, and innovative businesses. But now everyone knows it does. And it keeps getting better.

Now, it’s this.

The Cinderella City.

We aren’t perfect- no city is. But people have decided that we are decidedly Not Too Shabby, either.

Why did the scullery maid become a princess? Because people were proud of it. And because they were proud of it, they turned it into something to actually be proud of.  

You see, you have to value something before it can become valuable. If you don’t think it’s important enough to take good care of, not important enough to repair or improve, it will keep getting worse. It’s a vicious cycle.   

So how does this apply to the environment? Simple. Pride first. Value first. Why would someone take care of something they don’t care about? If people don’t think the Oklahoma landscape has any value, why would they care if they damage it or not? On some small level, they have to begin to feel proud of it.

So the next time someone tells you that where you live is boring – if they tell you there are no mountains, no interesting wildlife, no Big Nature or wilderness worth protecting (a line I have heard many times) – stand up for it. If you know they’re wrong, tell them so. If you agree with them, do a little research and find out if it’s really that bad. I’d wager it’s not because every ecosystem holds some beauty. At the very least, have something positive to say in return. Like this: “You’re right, but what IS cool about Oklahoma is that…” Don’t contribute to tearing down the ownership and pride for the land – contribute instead to the notion that it is something worth treasuring.

A friend of mine traveled to the Pacific Northwest this year. She said that the land was incredibly lovely, and everyone knew it and treated it that way. They didn’t litter. They didn’t tear things up. They were proud of it. She described one instance where someone in a car threw trash out the window, and immediately received shocked glares from everyone who witnessed it. Imagine if that’s the response littering got at home. I’d probably have less trash blowing into my yard.

If there is one thing I do in life (aside from the obvious - being a good person), I’d like it to be this. I’d like to help people second-guess the value they place in their hometowns and home state. I’d like them to know it’s something worth being proud of; something worth taking care of; something worth showing off to visitors.

If we are all are proud of and value the land we travel through this is when we feel a sense of joy and wonder for being exactly where we are. This is when we stop throwing trash out the window. This is when we start considering the impact our actions have on the ecosystem. This is when we think investing in protecting our resources is a wise idea. This is when we realize that other species have an important role in the giant machine called earth, and we treat them with respect. This is when we learn about our home and share what we know with others; when we learn how to be better citizens.

This is how our ecosystem will be protected and improved.

This is when our natural environment becomes just as beautiful as it always was to begin with.

Confessions of a Grinch - the Battle Plan

Notice a difference in my December postings? There's a reason for that, and it's time I came clean.

Hi. I’m a Grinch.

 

I know, no one likes a Grinch (not even Grinches), but I’m being honest here.

I didn’t used to be this way. But lately, every year, I have become just a little bit more… and then a little bit more… well, Grinchy. Until this year I began to get my Grinch on in early October. That’s when I knew it was time to make a battle plan. So far the Battle Plan has been doing a passable job. I feel less stressed about the holidays now than I did a month ago (thank goodness!) This is the battle plan:

1.       Try new ways of thinking

 One of the first things I noticed is that if I make a negative comment about the holidays, even a positive-minded person will respond with their own negative comment! We’ll have a supportive, sympathetic, mini-gripe fest. In the end this is not helpful to me. I don’t want to re-enforce my negative thoughts! I have enough of them without trading them around like baseball cards. Besides, I feel guilty for giving them my crappy baseball card. So the first order of business became: Quit complaining!

The second order of business became seeking patience and gratitude… which is easier said than done when it comes to emotional responses and perceived-to-be-stressful situations.

Wikimedia Commons

So that led me to utilize some of my Paperback Swap credits to get books on meditation and anxiety reduction. I go through them slowly, doing every exercise on the way, whether or not I think it will work, and whether or not I’ve tried it before.  Because hey – you never know – this part of the battle plan is about the trying. One of the exercises even helped me refine my anti-Grinch battle plan.

I also found a free lunch-time class on meditation at the Downtown Library, graciously offered by Wayne McEvilly. I am trying out the tools he taught us on using mantras.

My husband casually reminded me a few weeks ago about the studies that suggest smiling makes you happy, even if you weren’t already. Something about smiling triggering your brain to make the happies. Well. I have tried – when no one is looking, say, in the car for example, just smiling for no reason at all. Like a crazy person. I keep practicing it. (Don’t tell my husband; he might think I pay attention to him!)

2.       Remember my yoga

One of the reasons for my Grinching is that I hold a long to-do list in my head at all times. If not careful, I lose track of my linear perception of time. I feel that everything on my to-do list has to be done NOW, that all the parties and events are happening tomorrow. In short, my brain will condense all the activity over the three-month holiday marathon into one finite perpetual moment. I forget to Be Present.  I forget to Be Now.

So I am making a more concerted effort to be fully in the moment – to remember that all I have to do right now – is what I am doing right now. And all I have to worry about right now – is what I am doing right now. Now. Now. Now. Be present now.

3.       If I don’t have to… I don’t have to!

I’m usually a “Git ‘er done” kind of gal, but in honor of the holidays I’ve given myself Permission to Slack. I’ve bowed down from most of my usual holiday cooking and I’ve pushed several tasks and decisions off until January. So if it doesn’t need to be done right away… it’s not gonna. Less to worry about. If I earn some free time through this process, I spend it on Yours Truly, lazily and selfishly.

4.       Loads of extra exercise

Extra exercise not only reduces my concerns about becoming less healthy as a result of holiday temptations, it also naturally increases mood and energy levels.

...from my former life as a yoga teacher

I have been taking an exercise class almost every day. My goal is 5 days a week. I’ve also hit 6 days some weeks. I’m going to have to be gracious on other weeks and accept less-strenuous alternatives or breaks as the holidays make more time demands. During Thanksgiving, for example, I had to count walks around the neighborhood as my daily exercise.

I’m taking classes from three different exercise businesses – a yoga studio, a dance studio, and a pilates studio. The constant changes in how I move my body on a daily basis is helping minimize muscle fatigue and it’s keeping me interested and motivated. 

I’m going to be honest here – I can’t afford to live like this. I calculated that, full price, taking so many classes from so many facilities would cost me something like $3000 a year to maintain. I am doing it now through a combination of regular cash, trade, and Living Social vouchers. But I like it so much I think I’ll treat myself like this every November and December.  I feel like this is helping me behave like a sane person more than any of my other devised Grinch medicines.

Climate Change as an Animal Behavior Experiment

I find climate change endlessly fascinating. It precipitates a speeding up of so many fundamental processes – meteorology, evolution, geology, and ecosystem progression, to name the first few that come to mind. It’s also a huge-scale experiment on animal behavior, and I’m not just talking about polar bears here, people. I’m talking about homo sapiens: you and me. Questions that are normally philosophical, such as whether or not we as a species are truly as adaptable and intelligent as we suppose we are, are about to be measured quantitatively in upcoming decades and generations.

If you’ve never taken a basic animal behavior course, I highly recommend it as one of the most interesting classes I’ve ever had. It explains many simple things such as why one may have an uncontrollable urge for spices, sugar or alcohol, why one may not ever want to eat chicken again after a bad night at KFC, and why one may lean towards altruism. It draws so many parallels between the behavior of humans and the behavior of birds and toads and monkeys that you may not feel so species-superior at the end of it, because we are all subject to the same processes. Bottom line, we evolved to do what we do for a reason, and that reason is somewhere in history this habit was vital for either the survival of ourselves, our offspring, or our community.

To supplement this, there is a basic concept in ecosystem studies called the Tragedy of the Commons. This is not a concept that lends itself to quick explanations, but the crux of it is that people have no meaningful incentive to use less resources now in order to ensure that those resources will be around later. Survival and social mechanisms kick in, and people will over consume, even knowing the consequences. You can Google it for details.

Basically, there are very sound psychological and biological mechanisms hard-wired into humans as a species that has led us to over-consume our planet.   Burning fossil fuels, over-producing agricultural lands, and having multiple babies does not make us evil. Our oft-times destructive and selfish lifestyles aren’t a symptom of stupidity. They’re a symptom of being alive, of being one more creature on the planet competing to survive. We have become like this because it has allowed us to prosper more easily as a species.  You can only accept so much guilt for being a “victim” of nature. The catch is that we are a species like no other... a highly creative, highly intelligent species that finds it easier to adapt the world to itself rather than adapt itself to the world; a species with no boundaries across the globe. Our food, our products, our people, our pollution – we share with all the world in a big way.

So now that we know that our actions are unsustainable stressors on our environment and lifestyles, the question that really matters is: Are we strong enough as a species to make major changes that go against our evolution? Can we fundamentally change our nature to care for the Commons together? It’s the brain versus evolution. Collective will power versus science.

The processes of nature will go on, with or without us. “Without us” is a point in the distant future, but we are intelligent enough to look that far ahead, find potential threats to our species, and act to postpone extinction. The scenario of climate change gives us few possible outcomes. We can keep going as we are until we are no longer able, then adapt quickly enough to survive in a changed world. We can keep going as we are without adaptation, and possibly lose our foothold in the ecosystem altogether (that’s death, folks). We can make a half hearted effort, slow down the change, and still find ourselves faced with adaptation or extinction on some future date. Or we can all act together as one to make a change large enough to repair the damage and maintain our lifestyles indefinitely. Whatever the outcome, it will be an interesting road. My inquiring mind is a bit sad that I may be dead of old age before the answer becomes evident, but only time will tell.