A taste of the everyday

It's a little late to be blogging about St. John's Day, but it's worth a mention since it's one of the few Christian holidays I want, and usually get, with my daughter. School was still going on this year, so what I did was take the entire day off, drop her off at school, wander around for a few hours, then pick her up again. It was actually the first time I got to drop her off in the regular way at the regular time. The auditorium was filled with the sound of chattering, excited children who couldn't keep still. At the end of the day I showed up at the wrong place, and nearly missed Samantha as they started escorting the children whose parents were late to a "latecomers" waiting spot. The kids were more subdued at the end of the day, maybe even a little overtired. I greeted Samantha, we went off to the playground so she could show me some new moves she's learned on the gym equipment, and, for the first time in a long time, something felt right.

Whose that straggler in the last boat?

The Downtown Boathouse is a great little nonprofit outfit that offers kayaking classes, demonstrations, and excursions on the Hudson River. I first saw them in action during a walk past the 79th Street Boat Basin, where they were offering free 20-minute trips out onto the river in their sit-on-top kayaks. These "walk-up" trips were great, and I'd done some other kayaking on the beach at my parents' old house, so I thought a three-hour paddling trip would be no problem. Best of all, the three-hour journeys are also free, and as my brother says, "If it's free, it's for me."

I can't say I wasn't warned. The trip leader said before we even got our feet wet that the excursion to the Statue of Liberty would be grueling, and it was. I held my own on the way out to the Statue, but on the way back my arms started talking back to me. By the time we got back to Pier 26 I was the milk-wagon of the group; though my arms were still working I was slogging along, unable to think of anything but a margarita and a burger at the 79th Street Boat Basin Cafe.

Harry Spitz, a volunteer at the Downtown Boathouse who helped me out on the return trip with paddling tips and who put up with a lot of my groaning and complaining, posted these pictures on his blog. In spite of all the pain and trouble I have to admit it was a great time. In the hard-headed manner of the men in my family, if I can prepare better next time I hope to do it again -- if they'll have me.

Another windfall for the lawyers

The child support industry in New York City is expecting a spike in their revenues starting July 1, when any single parent who wants to enroll their kids in public daycare has to show first that they've engaged the court system to sue non-custodial parents.

These ridiculous, draconian provisions are enforced even if a non-custodial parent is already paying child support in an informal arrangement. The rules promise to throw a monkey wrench into the lives of thousands of New York parents who are already happy with existing arrangements, and to flood an already overburdened and inept family court system with thousands of junk cases. Recent arrivals to this country are especially at risk, since many of them are bound to view going to court for any reason as an obstacle to obtaining work papers or citizenship.

Read about the whole rotten, corrupt scam here.

Yes, it's still tough

I was an ungenerous music snob in high school, and relegated the music of Bruce Springsteen to just above the lowest rung of overrated, overplayed, overproduced pop music. But this year a co-worker who left the job to move out West made me, as a parting gift, a custom music CD. It was all Springsteen, whom I confessed, as we were talking one quiet day at work, to having written off without a hearing. But I misplaced the CD until just this week, and finally sat down and spent an hour with the Boss and his music.

It's true there are some trivial things we don't have in common. The Boss is mostly all heart, I'm mostly all head (with a bit of left atrium thrown in).

But what heart. His music speaks to life's deepest joys and disappointments. He makes me realize that happiness and suffering are not incompatible. It's a simple message but an important, life-affirming one -- to find redemption in the wake of despair. It's the Christian story, really, though without the sectarianism.

I moved out of my daughter's mother's house several years ago in early June. JJ asked me to leave, but because she wouldn't communicate with me about a good date and time, I wound up having to leave with all my belongings while my daughter was at home. My friend P. was helping me haul the big boxes downstairs. It was a sunny Saturday, not too different from the one we had a few days ago. I said to JJ, "I'll be back for some towels." Samantha (then three) said, "No, I want the towels." Then she burst into tears.

On the anniversary of my move out, I uncover my co-worker's sweet gift.

Baby once I thought I knew
everything I needed to know about you.
Your sweet whisper, your tender touch;
I didn't really know that much.
Joke's on me, but it's gonna be OK,
if I can just get through this Lonesome Day.

Hell is brewing, dark sun's on the rise,
this storm'll blow through by and by.
House is on fire, vipers in the grass,
a little revenge and this too shall pass.
This too shall pass, darling, I'm gonna pray.
Right now, all I got's this Lonesome Day.

It's all right, it's all right, it's all right, yeah...

Better ask questions before you shoot.
Deceit and betrayal's bitter fruit.
It's hard to swallow, come time to pay,
that taste on your tongue don't easily slip away.
Let kingdom come, I'm gonna find my way,
after this Lonesome Day.

Last Child in the Woods

Richard Louv's latest book was featured in a fascinating interview last night on WBUR's show On Point. I tried calling in a comment, but called too late to get on the air -- so you guys win the prize instead.

The gist of the book is that children are being warned not to play in the great outdoors that much and are being encouraged instead to play at home -- with the result being that they spend way too much time on the Playstation and the Nintendo, and not enough time in the woods. A second result is that our kids are becoming strangers to Nature and suffering from what he calls "nature deficit disorder."

Good heavens, not another mental health disease. But the author, along with Jack Beatty and guest commentator David Sobel, made some interesting points that suggest we are alienating kids from nature at our own risk.

It's interesting that our kids are becoming more cut off from nature even as young adults are getting more into extreme and dangerous activities in the outdoors. (Witness last decade's trend in bungee-jumping, and spinnaker-flying and hang-gliding today, as well as the spate a few years ago of best-selling books about hiking and mountain-climbing disasters.)

My sense is that these two phenomena are related. Kids who grow up with nature-deficit disorder today might risk becoming tomorrow's bungee-jumpers. If the world is too contained and safe today, tomorrow they may be putting themselves into dangerous situations without knowing the risks. If you grow up not knowing the outdoors, then you also don't understand the reality. Nature is often beautiful, often peaceful, but it is always bigger than you, and it can kill if you don't respect its power.

As a child I grew up near water. My parents taught me a healthy respect for the harbor. They never discouraged me from swimming or boating, but they lectured me early on that it takes very little water to drown a person. They made sure I understood what I was doing before taking on any new activity on the water, and they always made me wear a personal flotation device (what we used to call a "life-preserver") whenever on a boat. While I doubt that the little suburban water community where I grew up would qualify in Louv's reckoning as "nature", it seems to me that my parents' cautious approach is being thrown out.

A further point, which Louv made, is that, somewhere among this generation of children is next generation's conservation leaders. In other words, the future president of the Sierra Club (to say nothing of the future head of the U.S. Forest Service) is out there somewhere as a child, and it would be pretty important for that person to have a close relationship with nature -- now.

Coming up for air

Work is busy again, which hasn't been true for quite some time, and Broken Bread has been getting neglected. I hope to blog more, but work doesn't look like it's going to get any less busy, and I'm also trying to find time to work on my other writing projects and on my New York blog. I'll try to keep checking in and bringing all six of you faithful readers the latest on faith, politics, and single parenting.