Forward on Climate Change!

I went to the Forward on Climate Change rally Sunday in San Francisco.

I thought about all the things I should have done to promote my pet project, Idle Free Oakland, especially since the excitement these days comes from Idle No More, but with so much on my plate this spring, I couldn't get myself quite organized. But I'm so glad I went! It was the largest climate rally ever, and I'm hoping my presence might make a difference.

It was lovely. Well-organized, peaceful, fun, and short. Native Americans opened with prayers, the air smelled like sage, and there were cute dogs everywhere. We really have to stop Keystone XL, and here's why.

The rally was sponsored by 350.org, which is the organization that's giving us the best leadership on this terrible worldwide problem. It's about science, and it's about math, and they explain it so simply:

• Our climate is changing because of too much atmospheric CO2.
• The safe upper limit for atmospheric CO2 is 350 parts per million.
• We currently have 394 ppm (this changes; see the carbon calcuator in the column on the right>>>)
• We need to get BACK to 350. Like, asap!

Stuff I liked:

• A polar bear
• A "Leave it in the Ground" sign
• A high school senior who said, "You guys are always talking about a better future for your children and grandchildren. Well, I'm a kid... and I want a better future for myself!"
• These kids with their cool signs
• Speakers who really believe we can get back to 350 in our lifetime.
• San Francisco's upcoming resolution to divest and ballot option to go all green energy.
• A guy who is trying to educate folks about Thorium, which looks like the answer to nuclear energy.
• Another speaker recalled learning about climate change in school in the 1970s. "We've wasted 40 years of inaction in 'debate'." Idle no more, right?

This guy with the mask and the sign says it all.

Can you stand up with me and millions of others and and tell the guy "NO KXL?" Here's a petition. Here's another.

Caveman Fever

I've just had the most interesting conversation with my old roommate, Daniel Suelo, who is now very famous for giving up money. (No, that's not why we stopped living together.) I kidnapped him after his booksigning last night, so I could give him some free stuff and feel good about myself. (Actually, I wanted him to meet my family.) And now the time comes for him to get back to San Francisco so he can meet up with the author of his biography and get on to the next stop on their freakishly popular (thank you, the 99%) book tour.

Rockin' the new caveman fan fashion trend....

Daniel and I reminisced about living in a six-person household in Boulder, Colorado in the mid 1980s. We were a ragtag bunch of ungrounded youth, unsure of what to do with our lives, collected by my big brother Damian, who had met Daniel in a Religion course at CU. All we wanted to do was talk philosophy, listen to the new Sting solo album, and eat leftover rice from The Harvest, Boulder's most happening natural restaurant, where my little brother Felix was a busboy. We managed to get along okay with little to no money, not (of course) by choice, being resourceful and helping each other through our problems. We built important life skills together, like home dentistry. (Today's Obamacare kids have it so easy, enjoying dad's health insurance 'til age 26!)

Boulder has, or at least had, at the time, anti-commune laws leftover from the 1960s, so when the landlord found out there were six unrelated people living together in his suburban home, he evicted us. Before we moved, we contemplated easier solutions. For example, since three of us were related already, I could just marry Daniel, and then the household would be over 50% related. It was almost worth it to get married just so we could hyphenate our names: "Daniel and Kristen Shellabarger-Baumgardner." Even better: Shellabaum-Gardnerbarger.

Back to today. Since my almost-hubby doesn't use money, I'm planning to give him the gift of a BART ticket. But hmmm.... He has to make a Muni connection. How to deal with that? Daniel's choice to break up with money brings up so many curious and interesting questions. (FAQs are here.) Is it aesceticism or aestheticism? How do you live in a mindset of acceptance? What if you break your leg? How do you eat a thistle? We discussed the many options of him getting from BART to Muni. Would he hop the train? Could he stand around with the book in his hand and hope someone came up to offer him a ticket? Hold up a sign that says, "I don't use money. Help me get on this train."

I've been peppering him with questions all morning, (help him train for the Santa Cruz audience, of course,) but now I really want to know: "Do you EVER use money, if someone gives it to you?"

He replies, "sometimes people will give me money to buy something they need, but I don't use it to buy something for myself."

"So, If I gave you $2, could you buy a Muni ticket for my friend Daniel?" Ha HA! I trapped him with my clever logic! He grins and blushes, deeply.

But I don't want to be the one to come between a man and his art—and I do believe he is living his art. I'll just give him a ride and enjoy the adventure.

I didn't believe in cancer (for Michele)

Michele, I don’t want to say goodbye to you.  I don’t want this world to be without you — baby fanatic, mother motherer, visionary, compassionate soul. I’m very angry at this cancer thing! I never wanted to believe it was real. YOU, of all people, so passionate about creating a healthy life and healthy lives! But I am so grateful that you shared the adventure with me. I am so grateful to have had you as a mommy-mentor, client, partner, fan, friend, and inspiration.

How do you say goodbye to someone who catalyzed so much? Child-Friendly Initiative—a group of incredibly capable mommies at a critical time—who made a noise that started a movement that led to the family bathrooms and airport nursing stations we now rely on - and even made an impression on the United Nations! Even the CFI fundraisers left a legacy, amazing events with amazing art. (Amazing - one of Michele's favorite words.) Those gorgeous Art of Life bellies are still a gift to the world. And we've still got a Chair-ity for Children chair my kid no longer fits!

You don’t say goodbye; you can’t. As we all learned in our time with Michele, babies grow up. Some day they'll have babies. Friends move away and make new friends. The mysteries – the things you don’t know - keep one step ahead of the accomplishments, the things you do know. Life comes and goes, but love, laughter, and amazing beauty are everywhere, ever-renewing.

Michele told me a secret, earlier this year; perhaps it’s no longer a secret. She had had a few glasses of wine after one of her amazing cancer healings, then went down to visit Hannah in college. Wandering around campus, she felt lightheaded, out-of-body. She had visions. She saw hands, everywhere hands. When I heard this, tears came to my eyes —what a beautiful vision for Michele, all the people she touched, who touched her. The babies she massaged. The mothers she reached out to. Look at the CFI logo. Look at the logo for Healthy Family Living. Michele ‘handed’ us a new, more compassionate way to see the world. (I’d love to see what she would do with a fundraiser about hands, to follow up on those bellies and chairs.)

I don’t worry about Michele. But I weep for her children, to have lost a mother whose love was so awesome it spilled out beyond them to change the world. I weep so hard for you guys, and for Dan, love of her life, who made it all possible. (There is something wrong with a world in which your grandkids don’t get to experience Michele!) But I don’t worry about Michele. I told her those visions of hands were the hands of everyone supporting her, which she really appreciated, since she was a little creeped out. Of course, since I was such a loyal cancer-denier, I kept my real thoughts to myself: that those were the hands of the ones who’d gone before, reaching back for her. "Come on, Michele! We need you on the other side!"

So Michele, I won't say goodbye. I know you'll be back. There is still work to be done. And I hope to meet you again, in the blink of an eye.

Too Much to Swallow

This is a reprint of Innocent Perspective: A Mother's Reflections on September 11, 2001, an essay I wrote for Child-Friendly Initiative.

On Tuesday, September 11th, my four-year old vehicle expert told people very importantly that "an airplane had crashed into a building." The next day he wanted to "watch New York" on TV - all the rescue and construction equipment was much more interesting than nap time. I took a deep comfort in his innocent perspective.

By the time the weekend rolled around, though, a loneliness hung around our small family, perhaps exacerbated by the fact that mom and dad were on the phone all the time, and friendly visitors also seemed to carry a cloud of debris in their hearts. On Sunday my son grew warm and listless, and that night began crying out every hour in a fever.

For the next few days the fever clung, and he clung to me. This time I took comfort in the small scale of a bad virus and willingly sat under him for a few days. I was grateful for the moments he was asleep, for then I could turn on the television and try to absorb it all, sort it all out. He was desperately afraid of being alone, and I would run to him each time he woke.

He complained of a sore throat and stopped eating. The doctor blamed a virus that had caused blisters in his mouth and prescribed tylenol, liquids and rest. After a few days I was exhausted. I didn't know what was worse - battling with him to get him to take medicine, or hearing him cry out in pain each time he swallowed. His mouth and throat were covered with white, oozing sores. Eventually we discovered a strep infection raging behind the blisters.

Today he is on the mend, thanks to an army of antibiotics and a new construction set to play “can we fix it” with. But he hasn't seemed himself. Every interaction is demanding and tense. I figure it's because he's cranky because he hasn't eaten in three days.

But finally, he opens up his feelings. “Mom, dad, I'm worried,” he tells us on the cranky edge of sleep, beginning to weep. He is worried about Oakland. About the buildings falling down. About car crashes. Suddenly I realized he has been there with us in our confusion and grief. He is not a baby anymore. Although it seemed important at the time, I wonder now if letting my vehicle-loving son (who wants to see every jack-knifed big-rig and derailed train) see those bulldozers was the right thing to do. Did he feel something was being forced down his throat? Was it too much for him to swallow? A part of him must have welcomed that virus and that bacteria. It gave him a time-out. He gave me the gift of a time-out, too.

Tonight after we fought about toothpaste (I let him win), we talked a long time. About bad guys. About sadness. About safety. I told him we were all sad but we were glad to be together. I told him our house wouldn't fall down. I told him this terrible thing that happened had never happened before. I told him all the presidents of every country in the world were going to work together to try to make sure this would never happen again. Because they all want to protect and take care of children. “And you'll take care of me, right?” he asked. Yes little one, I will, no matter what.

He went to sleep peacefully for the first time in days. He just grew up a lot, and as a mom, I did, too. I really want my words to be true. We will all work together to protect and take care of children.

New Beginnings Like Crazy

On 1/21, an important person sat down at an important desk for the first time: my new intern, Caitlin "I've always wanted to be a minion" Ayers. Welcome, Caitlin! Can you schedule me a neck massage? I've got whiplash from this sports-car of a new president. He went from zero to OH MY GOD, DOUBLING THE EDUCATION BUDGET? In just seven days!
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