A bias for action...

Ruminate's co-hosts for their Midwest launch. Image thanks to Ruminate's Facebook page.

There is a new, national not-for-profit organization uniting diverse change makers and food-focused professionals to convene, discuss, and ideate change in our food system. They are launching their Midwest efforts in my backyard. Ruminate considers itself "part think tank, part innovation lab" and is hosting three, hands-on working sessions for food system professionals in Grand Rapids, starting in June. For people ready to put talk into action. 

These two-hour events are intentionally designed, solutions-oriented sessions. Attendees will tackle intractable food system issues. In these Ripe for Discussion sessions everyday leaders can roll up their sleeves, dig in and build immediately-actionable change. The will cover: 

• Building connections between producers and plates - June 23, 2019
• The true cost of food and consumer knowledge - August 18, 2019
• Who is responsible for balanced nutrition? - November 10, 2019

Talking is important for sure. But without action nothing changes.

Giving Thanks

 

This is exactly what I needed. I stumbled on this on the Internet as I tried to divert my mind from dwelling on sad things and be proactive. It's not that I want to be sad. It's just that sometimes it seems to be my default setting. I know that I have much to be thankful for. Yet I get lost in the past or the future rather than being - as they say - "here, now."

The sadness that had me in its grip was a jumble of things. Missing people who are no longer here, missing opportunities no longer available, questioning the twinges and whatnot that have inevitably settled in as time passes and my body ages. And more things dealing with the past. And to give the future its due, worry about what is in store as those twinges and whatnot may develop into full blown diagnosable things, anticipated sorrow at not being able to do things and progressive slowing, plus the relentless loss of my peers and friends. Yet today, I am in neither of those places so need to shake them off. 

What I'm feeling is the result of things I had no control over (like my genetic make up and where I grew up) plus the result of choices I've made (such as the jobs I've taken and the relationships I've avoided.) My sadness or dissatisfaction with those things is - at the core - sadness or dissatisfaction with myself.

My mother was a very wise women. One who lived with at least occasional depression I'm pretty sure, yet of a generation that didn't become obsessed with "feeling" it or allow it to debilitate her. She was of the school that if she was feeling down, she needed to get busy. I'm not sure  it mattered with what, but just busy - cleaning, cooking, sewing, doing laundry, visiting with her parents, writing a letter to an elderly aunt. All things that got her out of herself and were done with at least a partial if not full focus on others. At the time I saw her life as drudgery, lacking excitement and fulfillment. It wasn't flashy and she wasn't famous or doing "important" things. Now I know that she was doing the most important thing of all - doing what she could that was needed by others. Appreciated by them - too often silently. And she was living a good life. When I remember that I can snap to the present and leave the past and the future alone, at least for a while.  This Thanksgiving, my thanks are for her.

America's soil needs amending

Just like the soil in the garden requires attention to ensure that it maintains its proper balance and distribution of nutrients, it seems our country's culture requires some attention as well. Many people have written about the huge gap between the wealthiest individuals and the least well off. But like a garden requires weeding, watering, occasional soil amendment and crop rotation to do its best and be most productive, we all need to realize our dependence upon each other for success in this culture. There was a particularly good editorial today that addresses this in the New York Times. Read it here.

Included in that editorial was a quote from Elizabeth Warren, who is running for Senate in Massachusetts and who captured this sentiment exactly for me:

“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there, good for you. But, I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory and hire someone to protect against this because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea. God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”


Gardeners know that you can't just take and take and take from the garden. You have to invest in it as well. No one is entitled to a perfect garden. Or a perfect country. It takes work. 

Image from Rhinestone Armadillo blog

Getting involved

My involvement in organizations and issues seems to go in cycles. Not involved at all. Then up to my eyeballs in involvement. Then not involved again, either from burn out, disillusionment or other circumstance. Back and forth I go.

My involvement started out serving on the allocations committee of a United Way in a small town after college. After that, I had my foray into the arts, serving as a volunteer and a board member of Chicago's Business Volunteer's for the Arts. Then I left that and was uninvolved. During that time away, I concluded that I needed to be more serious, more socially conscious than just trying to have fun. So when I returned, it was to serve on the board of a nearly 100-year-old social service agency. After  nearly a decade there, I was on hiatus again, until, bored with nothing to do, I served on the board of a not-for-profit (that's important in my opinion!) hospice.

My move to Michigan has seen me involved with a start up not-for-profit to support local agriculture, a community arts council, a start up that seemed destined to promote local food in a hands-on way, and a little time spent helping a community garden get going. Now again, I am a bit at loose ends.

But my travels through these organizations and their issues have taught me several things. And admittedly, life experience has taught me too. I've learned:

• My interests are varied but in all cases there is an element of creativity that I need to be able to exercise in my involvement. Doing tasks is NOT beneath me and I have done them and will do more. Yet, I am at my best when I am creating.
• The issues that draw me and continue to hold me include an element of righting what I consider to be wrongs. Whether it is providing support for people to die with dignity rather than being poked, prodded and "treated" into the afterlife or moving dirt to fill garden beds to create a place where good, healthy food can be grown and children can learn what my parents knew about caring for the land. My activities include a thread of what might be called "social justice." 

So what to do with those loose ends. The answer has begun to present itself over the last several months. As I have changed how I think about things, the things I think about have changed. I have grown into the next morph of myself and this version has left behind (finally, whew!) the self-image of the corporate person I was "supposed to be" and is re-inhabiting the persona who waited patiently deep inside. That person grew up next to the dairy farm, warmed by the sun and simple pleasures. It is a life that may not be possible in the future, but one I think worthy of attempting to promote and save. Having the choice, not being forced into a life that doesn't fit is so important to me. It's my version of independence.  Thus the loose ends have begun to resolve by committing to continue writing. And voila...magically I find myself writing (at least occasionally) for a new publication, Edible Michiana. I've also committed over the past few years to fight for the right to grow/produce and have access to good, healthy food, not be limited to what a large multi-national corporation tells me is "good for me." Poof! Here I am in conversation with two organizations Slow Food and Slow Money about starting chapters right here where I live. 

If the ideas of Slow Money and/or Slow Food interest you and you are nearby, please let me know. The more the merrier - and potentially the more potent. Or if you aren't nearby, you may have (or could start) groups in your area. But even if these aren't things that quicken your heart, surely there is something that brings you joy and satisfaction beyond what you do for pay. Do it. Don't wait. And if you find it loses its appeal and it can't be regained, move on. Look around. I truly believe that is what life is for - to express who you are at your deepest core through what you do and to support the community you are part of.