Health knowledge made personal
  I would have missed it, that first flower. I know this for sure because I looked out my office window earlier this week and saw a rotting magnolia flower hanging from my neighbor's branch over my compost pile. I realized then that I had not noticed the magnolias in bloom at all (and let me add that they are as big as melons here in the South). I realized then that something was just not right. That my life was not passing "the smell test" right now. That there were signs in nature that I was missing, and perhaps I was at my own crossroads and needed to pay better attention.Once you've read enough, and seen enough, and done enough, you start to recognize this "smell test" more. You start to trust your gut. You start to notice when things are just not right. * You start to see disposable water bottles in front of city leaders at City Hall meetings still, almost three years into cityhood in what is supposed to be a "green community" and you know it doesn't pass the smell test. * You see a neighboring city's ripped-up sidewalks for more than five months, with no alternative pedestrian access to safe travel, a quarter mile from two schools where many children used to walk (and some still do, despite dangerous conditions, and let's not even get into the days it rains), and you know it doesn't pass the smell test. * You hear about yet more genetically modified crop approvals, and you know it doesn't pass the smell test. * You see increased evidence that our children are being poisoned by everyday products (can you say triclosan ?) and the environment (can you say bus idling ?) and you know it doesn't pass the smell test. * And you follow the truly disturbing story about municipalities and private industry claiming sewage sludge, with all it pharmaceuticals, persistent herbicides, heavy metals, and other toxins, is safe to put on food gardens and farms. You know, beyond a doubt, that this doesn't pass the smell test, yet no labeling is required when sewage sludge is included in bagged compost, and pseudo-organic reference to these "bio-solids" just makes it more confusing as a consumer. You read everything Jill Richardson of La Vida Locavore has written about this, and you say, "Thank goodness for Jill in this world." ( I loved her book, Recipe for America, from a couple years ago, by the way.)  As for my life and its stop at the Smell Test Counter, the answer came to me by way of sweet potatoes. I was planting them with 5th graders in a garden they are leaving. The plants will grow all summer and will be ready for harvest just after the new school year starts. The potatoes are a gift to the kindergarteners who will be in that classroom, and the kids wrote messages on sticks to them about taking care of the garden. The kids and I talked about how we serve as stewards, and then we pass things on to others to be stewards. And that's how it goes. The 5th graders were members of E-Witness News, an environmental journalism blogging club that I started with my younger daughter's teachers, Diane Wilbur and Amanda McGehee , who is one of 85 teachers from across the United States you will see next week in media coverage at the White House. She will be the science teacher from the state of Georgia who receives the Presidential Honors for Outstanding Math and Science Teachers.And so I thought of the sweet potatoes as I left the school, and how I had served as a steward in my local community and metropolitan area, but that now I was feeling pulls elsewhere--inwardly (home) and outwardly (beyond my borders and around the world). I decided to stop my other blog, Sustainable Pattie , and to step back (or, rather, to encourage others to step forward more) in my leadership role with Team Food Pantry , in order to make more space in my life for whatever it was that was trying to bloom for me.  And as I was walking away, I came upon a magnolia tree, and tucked right there, on a branch within touching distance, was this. In full bloom. And it smelled beautiful.No, I hadn't missed it. I hadn't missed it at all. |
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