Month: June 2012

Seashell Philosophy by She: Part 6 in a Series

/ RVSB / Leave a comment

Seashell Philosophy by She: Part 6 in a Series

I didn’t inquire with anyone when I decided yesterday to hit the beach with my sons early on a cloudless Friday morning.  It wasn’t until I was pulling into the parking lot at the Juno Beach Loggerhead beach park that I realized there was more commotion afoot besides the summer surf school for kids.  As we headed across the street to access the shoreline, we noticed the Loggerhead Marinelife Center’s van and a clear path marked by buckets filled with sand and poles strung together by white cords. By the way, if you’re local and interested: www.marinelife.org

The Sea Scene

This was a great morning for a homecoming as the ocean was beckoning with its waves crashing in a strong but gentle fashion during low tide. I set up camp with my boys and began to play in the sand with them in the shallows of the water that was coming out of a black pipe in the sand toward the ocean.  This is the water that is vacated from the Loggerhead Marinelife Center (LMC) as it exits from each of the tanks housing the injured or baby sea turtles in their care.  It always makes me chuckle when people come by and ask me or other parents there if I/we know from where is this water’s origin. It usually goes a little bit like this:

“Excuse me, do you know what that water is your children are playing in?”

“Yes, thanks…”

“…It’s from the turtle place up there, you know, their tanks with food and their refuse, just coming out there…”

“…Yes, thanks so much for your concern, I know and am fine with it…”

“You are? It’s full of…”

“And the ocean is also full of countless creatures and organisms, and there are fisherman right there a quarter mile away doing their raw business off the side of the boat and you know, honestly, I’m most comfortable with my children playing in this water as I am with them eating dirt from the garden…again, thanks so much for your concern…”

It’s usually at this point that I witness the kind nodding by the person’s head followed by a non-comprehensible mumble under their breath as they turn away with bewilderment.  Perhaps I am taking a risk by allowing my children in this water: but at the same time if I dissected our movements every hour of every day I’m certain I would give myself ulcers over worry because of the constant barrage of peril I assault my innocent boys with on a daily basis.

Life is moving quickly enough right now and although I’m not advocating we live recklessly I do believe that we must focus more on learning and experiencing with others rather than nit-picking and worrying about every little detail—especially those things that we have limited to limited control over.

The Crowd Accumulates

As it turned out, the sea turtle release would be occurring in just over an hour after we had arrived at the beach.  During one of our snack breaks, my boys and I enjoyed sitting in the shade of our pop-up beach tent and we watched as more people descended onto the gradual slope of the shoreline behind the lines put up by the LMC.

There were all sorts of folks: people like me with small children, teenagers by themselves or reluctantly accompanying their parents, seniors, couples, school groups, camp classes, a group of special needs adults brought in with their counselors and at the myriad of genres goes on.   Everyone was coming together in close proximity with each other in the heat of the baking sand by the ocean this morning to witness a sea creature return home.

HOME: Where Is Home?

Once the LMC crew carrying the Loggerhead sea turtle named Tilly came to the shore the crowd simultaneously hushed and all tried in their respective ways to get a better look.  It is customary during these releases for the LMC staff to carry the sea turtle to the end of the path where it opens up to the actually shoreline where the water is kissing the sand with consecutive wet laps.

I’ve had the honor of witnessing a few of these releases and it always chokes me up to see the turtles just sit there for a moment when they are left alone on the sand surrounded by their caretakers and the public.  They look ahead and around tentatively for what may seem like minutes and then they usually take their steps toward the water without delay.

The moment they hit the water and start to swim away is always an emotional event experienced in so many ways by the crowd.  Some of us are obsessed with taking photos, others with making sure the children can watch this happening and still others trying to push forward to see more if possible.  This time around I personally tried to get a couple of photos, make sure my sons have a good view and then just watch this simple, beautiful event of an animal returning home.

Please forgive my high-flying philosophical tone: I cannot help have tears burn my eyes in the salty air when I see these sea turtles enter the shore break and slip away.  What is it like to really return home? Many of us have a cozy place we can refer to as our home but I’m recollecting that ache we all feel for our Home.  That peace that we are seeking but have different names for it and vastly different ways of seeking it throughout our lives by means of people, careers, wealth, drugs and alcohol, et cetera.

Turtle Release Aftermath

Tilly returned home in a swift display and the crowd quickly dispersed afterwards.  What remained were the beach dwellers like me who were in for the long haul of the day.  In south Florida the beach is the coolest place to be when the summer heat and humidity strikes and this past Friday was no exception.

As my sons played once again in the “turtle pee”* water stream at the shoreline, I wandered a little bit to check out the seashell availability.  It was slim-pickings but my heart was delighted because the best find that day was coming to the beach and being surprised with the honor of witnessing someone returning home.

Life is often full of unexpected events…we plan to do something and when we are trying to execute that plan we are met with a surprise twist that either modifies or completely nullifies those previous plans.  Either way, if we can accept the gift of that new circumstance then we will be well on our way to knowing what the peace feels like when we finally return Home ourselves.

Love Life,

R.V.S. Bean

Weeds, Women and Wisdom We Want…

/ RVSB / Leave a comment

Image

It’s hot and moist again here in South Florida…the kind of weather where the air permeates your body with inescapable heat: the sun, the high temperature, the humidity that fills your lungs with sticky warmth and you can smell everything in a 3-D sort of way if that were possible.

My outdoor garden is overrun now. Bugs are an afterthought, it’s the weeds that have run amuck and overwhelmed my spirit as I entered my humble garden today after being absent from it for only a couple of days. Whereas my kindred gardening souls in northern latitudes are starting to enjoy sweet harvests from their gardens, my plots are fighting to stay alive against the relentless sub-tropical waves of warmth–a haven breeding ground for countless weeds.

It’s easy to write off these invasive weeds as a waste of plant energies and yet the study of horticulture has found that some weeds are beneficial for our soil as they end up leaving things that weren’t there before. You can conduct an internet search on the subject to reach links like this: http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/organicweeds/weed_information/weedtype.php?id=-2

But we can’t easily do the same research when it comes to the weeds that creep in and threaten to choke our personal lives.  It’s mid-year already and where do we stand with what we set out to do in 2012?  Perhaps you had plans to tackle and it may seem that circumstances and relationships have taken you down in unexpected ways.  Hopefully there are many positive outcomes in some of these instances.

It’s overwhelming to know where to start weeding whether we’re speaking of your plants outside or your spirit inside.  Just start picking up the one closest to you, the one that is hurting you the most at this very moment. The important thing is to not run away and avoid it because that will only give the weeds more power over our plants, our life.

In my garden, my gated entrance has what my brother calls “torpedo grass” invading aggressively: I just put on my gloves and started grabbing at the grass with more gusto than calculated effort.  At my desk today I picked up the first clipped article on my massive pile of papers and wrote the letter that went with it to send to the appropriate family member in snail mail mode.  In my heart I focused on the refrain stuck on rewind and addressed that issue to the best of my ability.

The consistent thing about weeds is that although we may eradicate them for a time, they will pop up again.  They may be the same ones or different ones altogether–either way, each time we deal with them we learn and grow.  Our physical gardens also mature in that many secondary generations of plants will develop stronger strains to deal with the difficulties causes by the invasive species.  The goal for our personal weeds are also to be stronger the next time around and maybe learn what we didn’t see before.

Good luck weeding this summer!

R.V.S.Bean

Face It: Facebook is the New Sex Talk with Our Children

/ RVSB / Leave a comment

Face It: Facebook is the New Sex Talk with Our Children

In The Economist magazine’s June 9, 2012 issue there’s a short piece on page 18 entitled: “Facebook and children: Let the nippers network”. You should be able to read it at this link: http://www.economist.com/node/21556578  I will be quoting from this article in my blog post unless otherwise indicated.

The article can be boiled down to what it says at the start of the second paragraph: “There are two options. Facebook can either try harder to prevent children from joining, or it can let them in, but with safeguards.”  This is the new frontier for most of us parents, the age of social networking via cyberspace.  At a time when many of us are becoming parents for the first time and just barely catching our breath as we realized the responsibility of raising these boys and girls to be the adults of the future–we’re struck with a very real concern regarding what age is deemed appropriate for a child to begin interacting socially on the internet.

“Social networking does not cause cancer. There is no compelling reason why children should not socialise with each other online.  What is worrying is that those on Facebook  today are treated as if they were adults.”

While this statement has truth to it in its logical argument, I’m afraid it’s lacking the deeper problem that should be glaringly obvious.  Just because a child can use the technology and can respond/communicate on a social network online doesn’t mean it’s right for them to do unfettered or unsupervised.

This may seem like a leap of a correlation to make, however, this is eerily the same argument we face when discussing ad nauseam as to when is the right age for youngsters to engage in sexual activity.  So what if their bodies are physically able to engage starting from 10-14 years old, does that mean they should be allowed to carry on as if it’s their deserved rite of passage? Oh, but if we give them condoms and pills, that should take care of them just fine from preventing unwanted pregnancies–nevermind how this early sexual behavior may interfere with their physical, mental and emotional development.

“Far better to let children openly join Facebook and create a safer environment for them to socialise in.”

Understandably, we all understand that as long as we have rules there are those who will break them.  The response to the age requirement for alcohol consumption is to have those who will attain illegal IDs.  The current trend for those under-13s on Facebook is that they can enroll anyway when they lie about their age in the form.  But the notion that we should just “let children” go ahead and do Facebook anyways as long as it’s “safe” is preposterous.

Q: What Is Safe About The Internet? A: NOTHING

Here’s the reality: you are the parent/guardian of your child(ren), therefore you are the most powerful gatekeeper when it comes to all the gateway rites of passage for your fledgling humans.  I don’t expect Zuckerburg and his people at Facebook to be the shepherd of the social pasture online for our kids.  That sentiment extends to any of these social networking sites.

The fact remains that we are still learning lessons today about what has happened to us since most of us came of age with integrating usage of the World Wide Web in our personal and professional lives.  It’s aggravating  to witness this hasty resignation attitude reflected in The Economist and other publications when it comes to the idea of children participating in social networking.

One more note on the internet: please keep in mind that no matter what your “settings” are, NOTHING is private when you post on the internet. Consider that when you put photos or written word onto the internet in any form, it’s as if you just submitted them to the marquee at Times Square in New York City. Please think about this seriously in regards to your children-whether it is you or them posting such things.

Nightmare Fodder: “Facebook and other social networks already have millions of vulnerable, clandestine underage users. It is time to bring them into the light.”

Why do we feel that we have no relationship with our children after they hit 5 years old?  Statements like the above disturb my heart’s fabric because I don’t understand how it is that there are 10 year olds who are participating in social networking unbeknownst to their parents/caregivers while they have hardly cut their physical teeth in face-to-face contact with their peers and others.

Again, I admit that I wrestle within over my love-hate relationship with the media technology that our global society has exploded with since I was born.  At the same time, I also recognize that there is not a quick and decisive answer to this social networking debate.  We are on the ground floor of learning about it ourselves and how it affects us all, including our children.  The question you and I must ask is what is best for our child(ren) as individuals and that will be the start of finding what “light” it is we want them to be in.

R.V.S.Bean

Seashell Philosophy by She: Part 5 in a Series

/ RVSB / Leave a comment

This morning in Palm Beach County, Florida most of us awoke to a heavy sky with warm rain drizzling throughout the morning, afternoon and evening.  As mother of two active little boys I immediately realized this was going to be a challenging day as I sought various indoor activities.

The local public library was a good start to the gray blanket of a day but it was short-lived as the new activity for the boys became racing through the stacks and taking out as many books as possible.  We tried to visit a few folks that we haven’t seen in nearly two decades since we were in the neighborhood by the library but they were still in bed around 10-11am (I will not deny I felt jealousy at that moment in time). I was heading for the local zoo when the youngest passed out so the trip became drive-thru subs for lunch while giving my older son a car tour of where mommy used to go to school and other highlights that he may or may not recall later.

Fast forward to the late afternoon where we’ve found ourselves back home and the cozy play inside has now escalated to dangerous trapeze tricks off cribs, beds and other not-so-safe heights.  Having recalled our car tour earlier in the day, there was a green flag on the beach when we made a hairpin trip to see the water.  So there we were at just past 2:30pm and I was changing everyone into their bathing suits and grabbing a light bag with towels, provisions and toys.

We arrived at one of our favorite beach parks and it was deserted with only 2 or 3 cars in a lot that usually was filled to capacity at any given day with sunshine–contrast that with the muddy sky that couldn’t commit to a steady rain like an emotional person that isn’t sure they need to cry or not.

Unfazed by this blatant not-beach-day, I got everyone out and across A1A to the shore.  We were pleasantly surprised by the other diehards present on the beach that truly did have a nice green flag flapping at the life guard tent.

We proceeded to enjoy the next few hours building in the sand and tearing down that magical section where the land and water kiss again and again.  Life is full of satisfying surprises like this if we can manage to look past what we think is the “normal” mode and just go for immersing ourselves in the moment even when it means getting caked with sand on a drizzle of an afternoon in Florida.

The shells and rocks were also lackluster in appearance and selection but that didn’t stop us from tossing them into the shore break and tearing apart the “shipping” canals we were building with these shards and coral bits.  We can’t allow ourselves to be so bound by what we think is the status quo or the right equation.

Today’s strangling conventional wisdom would say: no sun and gray, rainy day equals no beach time in south Florida.  I’m happy to have found out with my boys that this wisdom is unfound and there is a nice crowd of other fellow humans who were able to embrace the joy of the beach day out regardless of the messy precipitation.

R.V.S.Bean

Juno Beach: Pictured Above On Another Day Unlike Today’s Gray Weather!