Hot and Dry

It's hot and dry in central PA this week.  Around here, there's been a lot of conversation about the weather, including the typical heat-related warnings: stay in air conditioning, drink water, avoid heavy activity outside, etc.  We're lucky.  For now, most of us have the luxury of "escaping" the weather's most severe impacts.

But in east Africa, where drought and famine are devastating millions, people aren't so lucky.  For the hungry and thirsty, escape involves leaving home and traveling long distances, sometimes to a new country, in search of some relief.  The pictures below depict some of this story.  See the rest of the Reuters slideshow here.

Newly-arrived refugees run away from a cloud of dust at the Dagahaley refugee camp in Dadaab, near Kenya's border with Somalia, July 16, 2011.
REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

People roll and drag water containers in Wajir in this recently taken handout photo released on July 21, 2011.
REUTERS/Jakob Dall/Danish Red Cross/Handout

Working Waste Into Water

We're living in a time when it's becoming more and more popular, even trendy, to live simply and waste less.  Technological advances encourage us to rethink some of our traditional ways of dealing with life's challenges, including how we get water and what we do with our human waste.


So how do you feel about drinking urine?


If you think about our modern-day water cycle, where pee is typically flushed down a toilet, transported through pipes to a wastewater treatment plant, treated, and discharged to a waterway; and this treated water evaporates, condenses, precipitates, and travels to another waterway, where it is pumped to a water treatment plant, purified, and used for drinking water, we are drinking recycled urine.  There's just a lot of time and space between flushing the toilet and turning the faucet.  This distance - this disconnection - helps us feel comfortable; we don't feel like we're drinking waste.


But how do you feel about using a toilet that treats urine and changes it into drinking water?  Would you be willing to drink it?  Frank Rijsberman, of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is dreaming of this and other out-of-the-box options to take care of the world's water supply and waste problems.  You can read more his ideas at Pee-Cycling: Bill Gates Is Getting Creative with Human Waste.


A related article, titled The Water Cycle (with a Decidedly Human Twist), describes the technology and advantages of the Orange Country Groundwater Replenishment System (OCGRS), a facility that creates drinking water using sewage.  OCGRS treats 70 million gallons of sewage every day, satisfying the needs of nearly 600,000 people in a water-strapped region.  Bernadette Clavier of the Stanford Center for Social Innovation writes that "the real genius of the project lies in the fact that it has convinced the residents of one of the country’s richest counties that the toilet is a viable source of drinking water (albeit one with a $500 million plant standing between their toilets and their faucets)."


Perhaps viewing water as a precious and limited resource will help us to take some steps towards its preservation.  Any of us can learn to turn off the water during showers and teeth brushing, flush the toilet less often, fix leaks or use collected rainwater for watering plants.  Maybe this changed thinking will even help us to get over the yuck factor that keeps us from supporting new technologies.  

It's Not What You Think

I just finished reading this post, where Outside blogger (and Runner's World editor) Peter Vigneron questions whether getting pregnant makes female runners get faster.  Vigneron admits that, after contemplating this question, his gut response is no - women will not return to their pre-pregnancy levels of competition.  However, after choosing ten female runners and studying their pre-pregnancy and post-pregnancy performances, he finds that several of these women have been able to better their race times after having a baby.

Obviously, there are other factors in the lives of these women that could result in faster running, including harder or different training and the increased confidence or experience that comes with age.  So the questions remain - is there something that happens in a woman's body when she gets pregnant that helps her with her running?  Or is it motherhood itself that promotes these changes?  How is it for women who adopt children?

While my race times are not quite what they were in college, they are pretty darn close.  It amazes me to think that my 35-year-old body can nearly replicate what it could do at 18.  Over the last several years, my fastest race times and marathon finishes all occurred AK ("after kids"), and not BK ("before kids").  All this despite the frustrated moments that occur frequently during life AK - those times when I feel restricted in what I can accomplish due to my role in caring for my kids.   Even as I attempt to complete this post, I'm interrupted by requests for food, attention, and potty help (hence the scattered thoughts here).  But I wonder...is it possible that my kids are helping me with my running, and lots of other things too, without me realizing it?

Whether or not you're a "mom" in the traditional sense, I would love to hear your thoughts.  It would be great to hear from men too - how has fatherhood impacted your running?

R.I.P. Triscuit

The birth of Triscuit the dinosaur was a labor of love.  Andrew was just a little guy in preschool.  His teachers introduced a project where they would learn about recycling -- using old boxes, toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, scrap paper, and other "trash" to make something new.  No doubt this project required much planning and effort from the classroom teachers.  But the result was a marvelous creation: Andrew's very own dinosaur fashioned out of a Triscuit box.

Andrew and Triscuit were fast friends.  A T-rex, Triscuit was strong and fierce.  He had sharp teeth and a scary, screeching yell.  When we saw Andrew with Triscuit, we would hide, or dash out of the way to avoid biting or worse injury.  Creativity and imagination blossomed in the games that ensued with this paper and cardboard plaything.  

Andrew had a connection, a relationship, with Triscuit.  The problem with Triscuit is that, after a while, he aged.  The tacky glue and tape didn't hold as well as in the beginning.  His tail was torn off.  To Andrew, he was the same old Triscuit, up for adventure and fighting and eating.  But to me, he was looking more and more like a piece of trash.  Gone was the first love and initial pride that I have for most of Andrew's school artwork.  Triscuit was taking up prime living space in our house; something had to be done.  

Following a friend's parenting advice, I took a few pictures and some video of the falling-apart dino, and threw him in the kitchen trash, burying him under some soggy paper towels and other nasty objects requiring the same resting place.  As other new toys and artwork arrived at our home, Andrew quickly forgot about his toy, until one day several weeks later when he was looking at pictures on my ipod and spotted his beloved Triscuit.

I failed to realize how devastating my act would be to my son.  Even though most people would view the dinosaur as a piece of trash -- for truly, that's what he was -- it was as if he was alive to Andrew.  At one time, he has been a real friend.  Our descriptions of the pathway of trash from can to garbage truck to landfill only worsened Andrew's sorrow.  He was determined to find and rescue his friend.  He was grieving a loss.  Surprised by his sensitive response, I felt totally unequipped to comfort him.  I never meant to cause him pain.

Perhaps this loss mirrors that which I feel when I give away my kids' old clothes and toys.  Even if these items aren't of much value to others, to me, they hold meaning.  They mark a time in my life in relationship with my children, a time that I can't take back or do over again.  They remind me of ways that we've grown or changed.  Sometimes, a toy brings to mind a specific memory, a time of play that resulted in a significant teaching moment or full-belly laughter.  Learning to cling to the precious memories, while letting go of the stuff, creates room for new avenues for growth -- new play, new possibility, new change, new life -- and even additional shelf space for the next recycled trash creation.

Wounded

"Terrifying."

"It was really awful."

"I almost lost it."

These are my typical responses when asked about the events of a few days ago.  It was really hot this week, and the local pool was not yet open for the summer.  A friend of mine invited my kids and I over for the morning and offered to let the kids play with all of their backyard water toys, including a water table, pool, and sprinkler.  The kids were so excited and were playing really well.  What an ideal morning - the kids were using their imaginations, experimenting with water, working on social skills with friends!  My friend and I were getting some good time to catch up.  We were having a great time!  And then there was an accident.

I was in the kitchen when it happened.  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the two boys playing on the back porch, their arms reaching up high.  Next I heard the screaming.  Dashing outside, I found Andrew on the ground, covered in blood.  Thankfully, I remembered a warning about the profuse bleeding that typically accompanies a child's head wound.  And we were just blocks from the hospital.  It was only a short time until we arrived at the hospital, and the stitches were in, and the CT scan was clear, and the only evidence of Andrew's fall was his red hair.  But a few days later, the cut is deep and raw.  It still feels bloody and in need of some healing.

A few days later, I'm still having vivid memories of the first moments after the fall - the desperate cries, the blood, my holding Andrew's head together.  I know - it really could have been so much worse.  And I'm grateful to have the privilege of cleaning Andrew's wound, of watching him to confirm that everything seems normal, of having to ask him repeatedly to slow down and rest.  But I'm scared.  I was scared before this happened, the fear of something bad happening to my kids causing me some underlying anxiety that impacts my thinking and my relationships.

This incident confirms that, try as I may, I can not prevent bad things from happening to my children.  I can not control all of their life circumstances.  And now, how do I respond?  Can I place them in the loving arms of a Father who created them, knows every detail about them, has good plans for their lives, and is the One who can give them true security?  This is my hardest test as a mother.

I Run...

Today is National Running Day, a day when those of us running crazies celebrate the many reasons why we run!

Why do you run?  (Or why don't you run?)

I started this blog last summer, after I committed to running a marathon with Team World Vision to raise money for water projects in Africa.  This journey, complete with unexpected blessings along the way, has been one of the most enriching of my life.  Team World Vision created the short film below to remind us of many of the reasons we run and to invite us to join them in running to change lives.  Please take the time to check it out, even if you don't currently enjoy running or see yourself as a runner.  A small step today may be the first on a path to life change for you and for others.

More Lessons From My Son

My alarm rang out this morning - its sound, along with the noisy tapping of heavy rain on our window, coaxing me out of my slumber.  Stretching, I forced my legs out from under the covers and over the side of the bed.  It's Andrew's birthday, I remembered.  Early in the morning five years ago, Andrew made his way into the world, a loud cry announcing his arrival.  That day marked a significant turning point for me; life has not been the same since his coming.  Celebration, joy, stress, impatience, love, fear, uncertainty, protection, weariness, laughter - these feelings and others more intense than ever before.  Securing my heart with his smile, my little Andrew's vulnerability and innocence demanded that my well-being be intertwined with his, that his joy would be my joy and his suffering my suffering.  Our lives are braided, even knotted together.

(I'm sure that he won't want to be braided or knotted to me in a few short years from now, so I remind myself to enjoy the present.)

Andrew wanted to share soft pretzels with his school friends to celebrate his birthday, so I rose early both to celebrate the time of Andrew's birth and to make the pretzels.  Ten cups of flour were needed for the dough.  I counted...
one...
two...
three...
four...
five...
and then was distracted with another thought.  I'm still not sure exactly how much flour was in that dough.  Still waking up, I felt grumpy, frustrated with my inability to complete this simple task, and afraid that the pretzels would be a disaster.  I pictured a bunch of preschoolers vocalizing their disgust after tasting Andrew's "treats".

Then I remembered a story that I heard while touring the Sturgis Pretzel Factory a few months ago.  Our tour guide explained that hard pretzels came into being as the result of an error in making soft pretzels; legend has it that a baker left the soft pretzels in the oven too long.  He decided to try a burnt pretzel, and was surprised to find that it was actually quite good.  Coincidentally, CBS News was filming during our tour; you can hear the highlights from the story (and see us around 2 minutes into the video) here.

Andrew, Amelia, and Natalie, after touring the Sturgis Pretzel Factory

This memory provided some comfort.  A baking error can result in something just as good as the original.  In fact, something new can be birthed from a "mistake".  For a perfectionist like me, stories such as these, where deviation from rules or instructions have a positive outcome, are life-giving.  They're freeing.  It seems that missteps are often necessary for making the world creative and interesting.  The ability to make and recover from mistakes allows movement and progress without the fear of error.

As a mom, I've struggled to encourage my kids to be their true selves, and to allow mistakes for the value of the teaching and learning opportunities that result.  I have my own, often selfish, standards and ideas and goals for the ways that I'd like them to perform and the people I'd like them to become.  Andrew has his own, very unique, personality and humor seen as early as his ultrasound photos.  He's sensitive, helpful, and social.  He is not a perfect child; at times, he's disobedient, disrespectful, and even mean.  But to me, he is lovable and valuable despite moments of bad behavior or poor choices.  God has graciously given him to me as a gift, so that I may learn important lessons such as these: we're valuable because we exist, not because of what we do (or don't do), and being our true selves brings joy, blessing, and beauty to the world.  Happy birthday Andrew!