Windows closed for the first time since June in response to the biting cold. Air from the first high country snow settled into our valley. I slid into the refuge of my down jacket to indiscriminately harvest tomatos. I've ditched my meticulous search for the ripest, most promising colors with the coming frost looming around us like a a wild cat ready to pounce. We're a week past our first frost date. Vine ripe tomatoes that make it into October are a gift from the gods.
I'm struggling right now to find ways to support the kids I mentor in making healthy choices--vegetables are obscure, extra pounds pile on, sugary drinks are consumed daily, family members struggle with diabetes... it's a complicated want to help others if they aren't asking for it. Any time I try to broach these subjects I'm weighted by self-righteousness and judgment--an equally unhealthy lifestyle choice.
I invited one kid to my house for a lunch full of garden veggies. Another one went for a walk with me up my favorite ass-whooping hill. After divesting myself from the weighty layers of wanting to change them I saw the obvious...that having fun doing these healthy things together seems way more effective than any didactic rant. Yet judgement uncomfortably hangs around me like an oversized costume.
In the mean time, I've been thinking about the future a lot in a I need to run away from my problems kind of way.
Note to self: this doesn't work. Deal with your shit. (Gently. Softly. Compassionately...of course)
I'm struggling right now to find ways to support the kids I mentor in making healthy choices--vegetables are obscure, extra pounds pile on, sugary drinks are consumed daily, family members struggle with diabetes... it's a complicated want to help others if they aren't asking for it. Any time I try to broach these subjects I'm weighted by self-righteousness and judgment--an equally unhealthy lifestyle choice.
I invited one kid to my house for a lunch full of garden veggies. Another one went for a walk with me up my favorite ass-whooping hill. After divesting myself from the weighty layers of wanting to change them I saw the obvious...that having fun doing these healthy things together seems way more effective than any didactic rant. Yet judgement uncomfortably hangs around me like an oversized costume.
In the mean time, I've been thinking about the future a lot in a I need to run away from my problems kind of way.
Note to self: this doesn't work. Deal with your shit. (Gently. Softly. Compassionately...of course)
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| The color of my evening's bounty mirrors the morphing aspens and scrub oak. Burning reds and bursting golds scatter the mountains. |
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