Products are often designed to fail so we’ll buy more stuff. How a knock-down, drag-out battle over a button inspired me to dig a little deeper.
A button started the whole problem.
One day, the button just disappeared.
Not one of the pretty buttons in the picture but a little, spring-loaded silver one that allows me to easily vacuum. When pressed in, the button releases the handle so it can be used with the long wand to get those edges and crevices along the floor, or on its own to suck out crumbs and whatnot in those dark, scary places deep within the couch.
The handle then slides back onto the machine over the button, clicking into its proper position to hold all the parts together and steer the vacuum cleaner.
Then the button disappeared.
Nothing but my grip kept all the parts from shimmying around, as I held the machine awkwardly around the neck.
Kind of like vacuuming with a giant, wobbly rubber chicken.
While vacuuming is never my favorite thing, I like the result. Fighting with the vacuum cleaner is just plain frustrating.
The Good Fight
I was steamed. Plenty of people would have given up right here, tossed out the vacuum and bought a new one. But I’m not most people.
You see, this Hoover vacuum cleaner is maybe three years old. It was neither top-of-the-line, nor a cheapie. It should last more than a few years. It is, after all, a well-established brand.
Have you been there, too? Feeling forced to spend money to replace something that just should have lasted longer. Or something you would happily repair, if you could only find the parts.
Bet you have. Maybe you’ve even muttered to yourself “They just don’t make things like they used to” — which is true, not your imagination at all.
I do my best to avoid the throw-away society that hits our pocket-books and has damaged the natural world with an insatiable hunger for resources. We buy the best quality products we can afford, typically after researching reviews and testing in Consumer Reports.
We maintain, take care of and repair stuff. I am driven to recycle what cannot be fixed, re-purposed or sent to the thrift store. Yes, I can go a little overboard.
I strive for peace in my connection to the natural world, to fight the good fight and squeeze the last life out of an object before sending it to a landfill. Wear it out. Use it up. Make do or do without!
Drowning in a Sea of Plastic
One big reason: Plastic pollution.
Plastics break down into tiny pieces known as microplastics that kill wildlife and have worked their way into the food chain. Yes, plastics give us lots of benefits: food safety and medical equipment. I am writing on plastic keys and see the screen through plastic eyeglasses.
But the price.
Even the most remote islands have all manner of plastic washing up on their beaches. For magazine assignments, I’ve researched plastic pollution, interviewed experts and read a bunch of stories like this one.
My family has caught me pulling plastic water bottles out of the trash to at least recycle. I prefer to avoid the single-use plastics altogether. We use them for such a short time and they will be harmful waste and pollution for centuries.
So, we do the best we can to minimize our waste, and it’s far from perfect.
Products Designed to Fail
But many manufacturers and product designers have stacked the deck against us — and the planet.
“Planned Obsolescence” means designing a product not to last, or stand the test of time, but to fail so that consumers are forced to replace it and buy more and more stuff.
Nearly a century ago, in 1924, lightbulb manufacturers got together and decided to intentionally decrease the average light bulb’s lifespan from 2,500 hours to 1,000 so that people would buy more lightbulbs — one of the first known examples of planned obsolescence.
Soon, car manufacturers figured out how to make cars in different colors and fashion-features so that cars looked and felt old long before their engines and other mechanical systems actually wore out, known as “psychological obsolescence.”
Wasted Money and Strained Resources
Apple — a company I’m otherwise fond of — has admitted to introducing operating systems that slow down older iPhones, to push people toward purchasing new iPhones, and agreed to spend up to $500 million to settle a class action lawsuit accusing the company of intentionally doing so. Here’s the CNN story, and one from Forbes magazine.
This grinds my gears. It strains diminishing natural resources and wastes our money.
So I sing the praises of companies like KitchenAid that still make good-quality products like a virtually indestructible stand mixer, and appreciate this machine every time I pull it out to mix the batter for cake or cookies. (I’m also a big fan of TOYOTA.)
The ultimate peace of mind and product design nirvana is a product certified as “Cradle to Cradle,” meaning in its after-life it can be either returned to the soil as biological nutrients or re-used as a “technical nutrient” — meaning a high-quality material for a new product. Architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart co-authored the book “Cradle to Cradle” a hopeful, worthwhile read.
(You’ll find some familiar names like L’OREAL and Maybelline product lines, and some clothing.)
To really change any of this, we have to care and demand better design.
Determined to Find a Fix
So I fight the good fight, and refused to toss the vacuum cleaner over a little, broken button.
Instead, I used it with the wobbly, awkward handle, muttering and grumbling in frustration, sending my husband and our dogs into hiding.
Because, after all, the darn thing still worked.
Until it stopped working.
Nothing.
I dug out the manual, learned the problem was likely a clog somewhere in the machine overheating the motor, triggering the safety shut-off.
I unplugged it and took it apart — or so I thought — cleaned it out, put it back together, plugged it back in and turned it on.
For awhile, it was just fine. Then again shut off.
By this time, I’d pretty much given up and started telling my husband: “We’re going to need to buy a new vacuum.”
And he said: “No kidding, Hon.” (Except kidding was not the exact word.)
One More Shot
But — there was one more thing to try.
I went to Hoover’s website, read a lot of comments from people ranting about a broken little button that sent their otherwise working vacuums to the trash, and had an online chat with a real person, who said I needed to completely remove the hose and run a broom handle through it to clear it of any clogs.
Not so simple, since this model has a plastic handle at one end with a wicked, 90-degree angle impossible for any broom handle to navigate.
Determined, I scoured the house for items that could turn the corner.
By now, in the grip of obsession, I was muttering to myself like Bill Murray’s golf course groundskeeper hunting woodchucks in the movie Caddyshack.
The dogs seemed nervous.
Eventually …
A long piece of twisted metal wire from an old fly-swatter snagged a clog.
And guess what was at the center of that mess?
That little metal button, attached to a metal ring with a broken seal.
I popped it back into place, put all the pieces back together, plugged the vacuum back in, turned it on — and enjoyed a monster, delightful, like-new level of suction.
Plus the satisfaction of a small victory.
We avoided wasting money and the machine.
And I spent a lot of time, way more than I’d care to admit.
Because, darn it, we can choose something better with our feet and wallets and voices. Tell manufacturers your experiences with their products. Buy the best quality you can afford. Demand better product design.
“Divorce is a sh*t pile. Every day, you take a little sh*t off the pile. Then one day, no more pile!”
Twice, he’d divorced and recovered, leaving him with lessons I’d hoped to never need.
But then, at 40, my reality was clear: My marriage had failed. I lived in a place chosen for an “us” that had disappeared, in a small town in central Pennsylvania, away from my family-of-origin in Ohio and far away from the Maine coast. My hopes of having children with a loving partner in a healthy relationship faded.
Divorce was imminent. A staggering weight of grief. I dog-paddled, gasping for air in the chaos and pain of it. Exhausted and weary, I was overwhelmed with the work ahead of sifting through the ruins and figuring out what was next.
For months, I was shell-shocked and could only talk to the most helpful, trusted people: My mom, a few of my very best friends — and my dad, who turned out to be surprisingly helpful.
Every day, he said, just take one piece of crap off the pile. I didn’t need to figure out the rest of my life, just hunker down and shrink the pile.
“How’s your pile today?” he’d ask on our daily phone call. I’d report how I had handled one piece of paperwork, or made one small decision, or met a deadline then took a nap. Maybe I picked a new paint color or got rid of some piece of left-behind furniture I’d never liked anyway.
And if I had nothing to report that day, I’d get a reminder about taking crap off the pile.
Compost Lessons
His advice resonated with me, and helped me stay afloat until I could feel the solid bottom under my feet again.
You see, I am a gardener who geeks out about my compost pile. Out back, in the habitat also known as my garden, there beside the woodpile, tiny miracles are unfolding every day — even in the winter.
All that ugly crud — the grass clippings and brown leaves, the banana peels and watermelon rind, green skins sliced off cucumber and carrot, shells from the mussels we ate last week — becomes rich, dark, nutritious soil to feed new growth. The compost pile needs some space, air, time and moisture.
On Autumn days, gardeners chit-chat about the little surprises that have grown from the forgotten seeds deep within our compost piles. The ones that did not get hot enough to fully die and instead sprouted from all that so-called ugly richness: the squash, the gourd, the cherry tomatoes, the funky small bumpy pumpkin.
Gifts that rose from decay, then flourished in the richness it became, to remind us of all the life churning on in a pile of dead stuff.
Quite amazing, really. Spectacular. All that grody dead stuff is, well, life-affirming.
The trash becomes treasure. The old life breaks down to feed the new.
In that way, nothing is ever really wasted, just fuel for new, beautiful growth.
This is how it works: Bacteria and other micro-organisms feed on the old leaves, grass clippings and food scraps, releasing heat as they work. These creatures are so tiny, yet do a tremendous, transformative job. (Dig into that science with a fantastic YouTube video posted at the bottom of this story.)
Those little bugs and critters are mighty super-heroes.
Hope is found even in a single, small tulip
For the Love of Tulips
And so, all that late fall into winter of my divorce year, when my Dad hammered on about the pile, I thought of all my Mom had taught me about “compost.”
Trust the compost process and something new and beautiful will emerge.
Sure, Dad said. Whatever. Just keep shoveling crap off your pile.
One step forward. Two back. A few forward. One back. The days lengthened again. Spring returned.
That April, I noticed a single tulip climb from the top of my dark, rain-soaked compost pile at the bottom of the steep hill behind the house I’d bought for us that was now all mine. Some bulb from a tossed-out grocery-store planter must have reached out of the shrinking pile and up toward the light.
Those leaves and stem were among the first green that year. Then, a small, oval, egg-shaped bud appeared on top and opened into a deep pink bloom like a luscious cherry atop a hot fudge sundae.
Hallelujah! Surely, I said it out loud and even danced on the garden path, as if no one was looking.
On a visit to Boston that May I showed my friends pictures of the pink tulip that grew out of the compost pile. Their kids thought it was weird. Apparently no other houseguests showed off pictures of their compost pile, but my friends knew that meant I was OK.
A New Life
There would be many more difficult days that year. But indeed it got better and a beautiful new life grew out of all that experience.
I am now living, you could say, inside that beautiful pink tulip. That mistake marriage taught me a lot. With one week left in the “hunker-down” year, I met the love of my life. Perhaps you know him as “the pear guy.” Read You Had Me at Pears. This year, we’ll celebrate seven years of marriage and 10 years since we met. I got lucky, and fell head over heels with him and his two sons. Together, we re-made family. Read a Stepmom’s Tale of Making Food & Family. My stepsons are now all grown up.
These days, in these times with a heap of serious crises — let’s remember that new, beautiful growth emerges from the messiest, ugliest things and times. Magic is among the mess. New life somehow grows out of loss, grief and wrecked lives.
No one has all the answers. The grief of divorce is different than the grief of losing a parent. In my world, “We’re all healthy and that’s what matters the most” has never carried so much truth and gratitude.
But I know this: The reach toward the light of all living things is a fierce, awesome force. Finding grace on the other side of grief is a process that takes time, light and breath.
Grab a Shovel
Whether small or gigantic: A sh*t pile is still a sh*t pile.
Many of us learned things in 2020 that we can’t un-see. This is a time of reckoning. Since then, even more crises: Jan. 6, Russia’s war in Ukraine.
We’ve been through a lot. Some friendships and family ties will take work to reconcile while others will fade.
Think of it like my Dad would: Grab a shovel and work that pile a little bit every day. Or my way: Moment by moment, with an open heart and small acts of peace and kindness, be the small, and mighty micro-organisms that transform the old jack-o-lantern and brittle leaves into rich earth.
Same difference.
We would be wise to do whatever we can to NOT add any ugliness to the pile. Grab your shovel to dig out of the mess. What does that mean?
It’s time to work together on the most important stuff. To talk and solve problems. And let’s be real. This is hard work and a lot of us are tired. There may be an ugly pile of crap standing in the way of working together — painful comments, different ways of seeing, a loss of trust and respect.
Solve problems. Question. Hash it out. Consider the common good. I’m seeing so many leaders put their power over country, their greed over common good.
Do what you do best, what you were born to do.
Say your peace, or not. Apologize. Forgive. Or let it go. Maybe you can be friends again, or not. You’ll know. Just don’t let poison keep causing pain. Heal and work toward peace as best you can. Resolve it. Shrink the pile.
Stand up and speak out. We’ve got to keep talking — even when we don’t agree.
Write a personal love note to someone you are missing. Make a pie for someone dear. Better yet, give a pie to someone you don’t agree with. Just ideas …
From this mess each of us can make something better, richer, healthier and more fulfilling. This fills me with hope. And hope is always worth sharing.
P.S.
Do you see magic in the mess of these times?! I’d be thrilled to hear about it. Leave a comment below!
Learn the science of how a compost pile works. Here is one of the best, most engaging explanations of the compost process I’ve encountered in my decades of being a compost geek. Here’s the link.
The most cherished family recipes help us turn longing for loved ones into comfort. My grandmother’s Slovak Easter bread we call “pascha” has been my go-to since 2020.
The heels of my hands push the sweet, yeasty dough away against the kitchen counter. Then fold it back over toward me. Pushing and pulling, pressing and gathering. Over and over. With every motion, tension leaves my body for the mixture — making both better.
Kneading the bread dough hooked me on making my grandmother’s recipe for the Slovak Easter bread we call “pascha.” Bronzed, plump loaves embracing golden raisins emerge from the oven. A warm slice slathered with butter is heaven.
But the kneading, and what happens as I knead, is why I make this bread, even when time is short.
In those five minutes, the shaggy, sloppy mess of flour and butter, milk and yeast, vanilla, eggs and golden raisins becomes a smooth, elastic dough, ready to rise. The alchemy of kneading transforms the flour’s gluten into a structure for those lovely pockets and bubbles produced by the yeast. That’s the chemistry.
And I feel better and stronger. That’s the magic.
A few minutes of kneading soothes the soul, and transforms a shaggy mess of ingredients into a smooth dough, ready to rise.
Spring 2020: Isolation and Anger
Truth be told, when I first made this bread in the spring of 2020, I was angry.
I’m not much of a bread-baker. In the early weeks of the pandemic, that bread-baking trend swept past me like a parade. Charming and sweet — just not something I jumped into.
But then, a few days before Easter, I thought making it might help. I felt isolated and angry over all the disruption, sad over the mounting death toll, afraid of losing people close to me. Weary of trying to make the best of it.
And overwhelmed with empathy for our kids. A lost baseball season. Our daughter-in-law’s meticulous wedding planning thrown into shambles.
When families should have come together, they could not. We could not have our typical big family dinner for Easter. My mom was buttoned up in her house, and I in mine. Church was closed and so many of us struggled without our typical connections. Without hugs.
Needing the strength and comfort of my mom, grandmother and our family, I attempted the pascha bread that Easter. My mom makes this traditional Easter bread on Good Friday whether she is visiting me in central Pennsylvania or, when I was a kid, at home in Cleveland or visiting her sister in upstate New York.
When separated from loved ones, perhaps the best way to cope is to make a cherished family recipe. Even better: One with the power to turn anguish into comfort and connection.
When you are separated from loved ones, perhaps the best way to cope is to make a cherished family recipe. Even better: One with the power to turn anguish into comfort and connection.
My pascha loaves, fresh from the oven.
Plump “Pascha”
So in 2020 I pounded the hell out of that bread dough and sent baked loaves out in Easter baskets to my in-laws and local family who would normally be at our holiday table.
“Scrumptious,” was my niece’s review and that pleased me.
The bread is sweet, made with eggs and golden raisins and braided into five plump loaves. Its origins are in Eastern Europe, and it’s likely a relative of challah or brioche.
Our family calls this recipe “pascha,” the Greek word for Easter. My mom and uncle both make it that way, as close to how their mother — my grandmother — made it. So that’s how I make it.
My grandmother “Sweetie” was kind and tough, a badass who wore combat boots. I remember this when needing strength.
Escaping a Tough Town
My grandmother, Magdalene — nicknamed “Sis” — grew up in a small, railroad town in the mountains of Northeast Pennsylvania. To shake free of the hard life in Mauch Chunk, she became a nurse, joined the Red Cross and served as an Army nurse in World War II.
My grandfather, Emil, grew up in Cleveland and served in World War II on an anti-aircraft unit, then worked on building bridges. He had lost his mother as a boy. They both had kid brothers.
They met in England. At a dance, I think. My grandmother told me once, long ago during an interview we did for a college class. She was just a touch wistful, but mostly matter-of-fact. Done deal. She quickly moved the conversation onto their children: My mother was their first-born, my older uncle, my aunt, and my younger uncle— the baby of the family who also makes the pascha bread at Easter.
By the time we had that talk, Emil and Sis, my grandparents, had been married 47 years and raised four children in a suburb east of Cleveland. I am the eldest of their 10 grandchildren, born into their love story.
Spring 2021: Miracles & Shared Connection
A year later, 2021, we had the medical miracle of vaccines. Hallelujah!
I’d had my first shot. But we held off from our typical big family gathering for Easter. Again, I made the pascha and shared the baked loaves.
When I posted some pictures on social media, my cousin remembered the bread from when we were both kids and my mom, his aunt, visited over Easter. Another comforting connection.
I dove into my stash of cookbooks and the web, searching for the recipe’s origins and found a lot of similar recipes — but not yet one that exactly matches our family recipe. You’re likely to find versions of this bread wherever Eastern European immigrants settled in the US.
Perhaps that is part of our life’s mission, to find what helps us turn life’s darkness and raw ingredients into something that is beautiful and useful.
Symbolism and Ritual
This baker makes her “Paska,” Slovak Easter bread, in a round pan with the braids on top. The braids are said to symbolize the holy Trinity. In the “New York Times Heritage Cookbook” by Jean Hewitt (Random House, 1972) the recipe for Ukrainian Easter bread is a pretty close match, but adds lemon, cherries and walnuts.
This one, called “Vánocka”from the Czech Republic is for a braided brioche flavored with rum and lemon zest, raisins and almonds.
We keep it simple — golden raisins only.
Vánocka is the Czech word for Christmas. The braids are said to symbolize baby Jesus snugly wrapped in cloth strips.
Apparently, according to Taste Atlas, when you’re making Vanocka, it’s customary to jump up and down and think of dear friends and family while the dough is rising.
Maybe I’ll add that to my ritual. For me, the bread is more closely related to the darkness of Good Friday, and the coming transformation into the joy of Easter.
I pour my heartache into the bread dough and am rewarded by sweet, share-able loaves and the satisfaction of making order out of the mess of real life. Perhaps that is part of our life’s mission, to find what helps us turn life’s darkness and raw ingredients into something that is beautiful and useful.
Pascha dough rising in a warm spot.
Spring 2022: Renewal and New Loss
This year was supposed to be our return to “normal” — whatever that means. My mom and stepfather had planned for many months to visit for Easter to meet our new, baby grandson.
Then —
The Tuesday before Easter, my cousin suddenly died at 44, plunging a branch of our family into grief. I don’t know what happened, and it’s not my story to tell. Our mothers are close sisters, and he is like a little brother to me. We connected over life and growing gardens and shared memories, and I am heartbroken.
And a tiny thread: He is my cousin who last Easter asked for the family pascha recipe.
On Thursday, my mom called to say she had immobilizing pain in her leg and could not make the trip for Easter.
By Good Friday, I was again pounding the hell out of the bread dough, pouring my grief and disappointment into it. (For some thoughts on grief, read: Take Good Care of You.)
Anguish Transformed
The loaves emerged golden and delicious. I felt better after the kneading, a little lighter and satisfied. A new connection brought comfort: Raw milk and fresh eggs from a new friend and the owner/farmer at Hameau Farm, in Big Valley, a connection to the land here in Big Valley — and because they are simply delicious ingredients.
My purpose when I started writing this was to learn the origin of this bread, its context, so I could pass on more than “just” the recipe to my cousin and his uncle, a dear relative who had also asked for the recipe.
Then I realized what making this bread has meant to me: Following the instructions of this cherished family recipe, working the dough as my mom, uncle, grandmother and unknown ancestors have all done before holds the power to turn my anguish into comfort and connection.
For me, that recipe is the pascha bread. In your family, it may not be bread at all — or perhaps a butter tart.
One Butter Tart at a Time
Late on the night of my cousin’s wake, I found myself in the unfamiliar kitchen of an Air BnB farmhouse near Poughkeepsie, New York, talking and baking with my cousin’s uncle, on his dad’s side.
He was determined to make his mother’s recipe for butter tarts. These are addictive, tiny pies made in muffin tins full of pecans and coconut baked within a sweet and sticky syrup.
No rolling pin to be found, he rolled out the pastry for each tart with a can of PAM and cut out each one with an upside-down teacup the same blue of a robin’s egg. He and his wife and I had the necessary hours to catch up and share stories about my cousin and all on our minds.
The kind of talking best done in person, with a shared task to keep your mind and hands busy and no deadline. Nana’s Butter Tarts offered comfort and connection at a painful time.
We will never be free from loss, or heartbreak. We work through our grief and go on and do our best. We control so little, only where we focus our energy and what we do with our pain. How we connect.
Life insists we move forward. There will be more sweetness. There will be more anguish and heartache, the comfort of connection, a return to sweetness through bread or butter tarts or something else entirely. There will be more life.
Does your family have a cherished recipe? I’d love to hear about it. Please leave a comment below.
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Pascha
(Christmas and Easter Raisin Bread)
Mix 1 quart whole milk and 6T sugar and microwave for about 3 minutes.
Check temperature. At <120o add 1 large cake yeast.
Let sit for 10 minutes, allowing yeast to work.
Mix the following like a pie:
1 cup unsalted butter (room temperature)
1 T salt
6 cups flour
Add yeast mixture to flour mixture.
Add 1 T vanilla
Add 3 egg yolks (save whites)
Add 1 box white raisins
Mix well. Add additional flour until soft dough forms that can be turned out on floured surface. (In all, recipe may take almost a bag of flour!)
Knead dough until smooth. Raise in a warm place until doubled. Punch down and let rise again until doubled.
Divide dough into five parts. Divide each part into three. Roll each piece into long shape and braid. Put in greased loaf pan.
Cover with towel and allow dough to rise again.
Beat reserved egg whites and brush on top of each loaf.
Seeing families out on the first day of fishing season left me hopeful about our relationship as humans to the natural world — despite a very challenging reality. There is still so much beauty and love to be found in our relationship to nature.
The boy turned and smiled as he told me about the fish he’d just caught. A cute kid, about seven, with a wide, toothy grin, freckles and ears he’ll grow into. He and a woman, presumably his mom, wore rubber boots and had just loaded fishing poles and a net into their car. I passed them near the lake at Pennsylvania’s Greenwood Furnace State Park.
Celebration was in the air. Parents brought their children to the lake that morning on the first Saturday of April to fish on Opening Day of Trout Season. Just after 10 a.m., two hours in, I asked him if he caught a fish.
Yes, he answered, beaming.
A salmon, I think? he said.
No, said his mom, a trout! You caught a TROUT!
She chuckled and tousled his hair with her hand. Get in the car, she nudged.
It’s OK, I called out, smiling, as we walked on. You’ll learn the names!
Off they went. On I walked with our dogs past the picnic pavilions and toward the campground, feeling lighter and more hopeful after sharing that thrill of reeling in a fish.
A beautiful moment of a child enjoying an exciting connection with the natural world.
A reminder that despite the challenging reality, an urgent need for humans to find balance with nature, there is still so much beauty, love and comfort to be found in our relationship to nature.
‘Guiding Lights’
Maybe this little boy will always remember catching that trout, the way I remember exploring the woods as a kid or turning over rocks near Tinker’s Creek. No single moment like this saves the world — and yet, they all matter because they can help us heal our collective relationship with nature.
These memories are “calling cards to the wholeness of a human lifetime, strongly rooted in your nature,” write social-psychologist Mary Clare and science writer Gary Ferguson in their new book “Full Ecology, Repairing Our Relationship with the Natural World.”
Their book begins with a photo of Mary Clare as a little girl, standing with her sister in a pond with water up to her shins, looking for tadpoles, then a picture of Gary Ferguson as a kid standing on the sandy shoreline of Lake Michigan feeding seagulls with his dad and brother as waves roll toward them.
“Guiding lights showing the way back to the landscape of your being. A homecoming, as uncomplicated and mysterious as tadpoles in an alpine pond or seagulls dancing above the dunes,” they write.
Everything is Better Outside
My love affair with the natural world began as a kid at the shallow Tinker’s Creek, near Cleveland, where I learned everything is better outside, among the trees and the sound of water moving over rock.
My mom would pack up eggs, milk, cinnamon and bread, and kitchen gear. We’d unpack at a picnic table between the creek and the woods in one of Cleveland’s Metroparks — an emerald network of wild places and natural gems that offer escapes from the housing developments and strip malls of suburbia.
She’d start a charcoal fire in the grill, then mix up the batter, soak the bread and cook a French toast breakfast for us on the griddle.
We’d pick our way along the creek, turning over rocks — even though I don’t remember much except feeling squeamish about what we might find. The joy was in the looking.
We’d walk the trail through the woods to climb a big boulder.
Later, when I was in college and it was time for me to figure out where to live next, we walked together in the forest in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. On that trip, I realized people could live within big, wild, natural places — where the forest or the mountain or the sea was a constant, dominating presence more powerful than freeways and parking lots and shopping malls. I wanted that life. An innkeeper in the mountains. A whitewater river guide. A farmer. A fisherman. A writer.
First Assignment: Heartbreaking Loss
I chose Maine for the water. Almost every turn on my first drive in Maine took me to a lake or river and eventually the ocean. Soon, I had my first pro-writer job.
The newspaper editor pointed to these squiggles on the map: crooked fingers of a peninsula and chain of islands and said: These are your new stomping grounds. These fishing villages. That’s your beat.
Maine fishermen are a skeptical bunch, and I was “from away.” So it took some time for my genuine curiosity to wear away our cultural gap.
But it did.
Telling their stories was an honor. The iconic cod stocks off the New England coast, so key to colonial America, were crashing and no one really fully understood why. The scientists said it was too much fishing. The fishermen said the scientists didn’t know where to look for fish.
Turns out Atlantic cod is likely one of the early losses to climate change in the Gulf of Maine, which is warming faster than 99 percent of the global ocean. Those rising temperatures are pushing many species north and there is much concern about when the waters will become too warm for Maine lobster.
So began my three decades, and counting, of researching and telling stories about our human relationship to nature, often through the lens of fishing, gardening, farming, or eating.
A multi-generational fisherman who can no longer fish is a heart-breaking story. We’ll never be free of heartbreak. Yet we can, and must, figure out how to live in balance with nature.
Grinding Gears
That April morning on the first day of fishing season, I took my heavy heart and over-heating mind to the state park. March had brought reports of brutal war in Ukraine, on top of a climate crisis and the sad, troubling and deep political divisions in the U.S. that make it so difficult to come together to solve problems.
How can people treat each other this way? I think, every news cycle. What will it take to solve big, wicked problems? What will it take to reign in a madman? What will it take for us all to take care of each other and see each other as a beautiful human being? As a child of God? A part of me I do not yet know? as Valarie Kaur writes in “See No Stranger.”
The gears of my mind turn and question, thinking and thinking, grinding away.
Those late winter weeks also brought immense inspiration: The deep joy of holding our first grandson. Like his dad, my stepson, he melts my heart. Every time. I want a peaceful, healthy world for him, for the kid who caught the fish — and for all of our children.
Intimate Connection
Clare and Ferguson see many similarities in the way that natural and social systems work. We are not separate from nature, they argue, but intimately connected and governed by the same principles. Leaning into that connection and those principles can help us find solutions.
I have long believed that conservation isn’t so much about “saving the environment” — this other, separate thing — but to save our own life-support system, to save ourselves.
We eat. We breathe. We drink water. We cope with or bask in the weather. We fish. We garden. We walk in the woods. We go to the beach to have fun and relax. We are all intimately connected to nature every day, whether we think of ourselves as outdoorsy — or not.
So I came to the park to walk, to get out of my head and refresh my spirit among the woods and water.
To soak up the festive atmosphere of the first day of fishing season and the first open weekend of the campground. To share a collective sigh of relief upon spring’s arrival, and the return of families to the park, despite the chill.
We have waited a long time for spring’s renewal.
Clusters of lawn chairs re-appeared beside the lake for the first time since last fall. On the other end of the lake, a mom with two little kids settled in at a picnic table in the sunshine below the still-bare branches of sycamore trees as their dad unloaded and prepped fishing gear. Earlier, a pair of men in a pickup truck drove the loop, scouting for spots. Apparently not finding a suitable one, they drove on.
This place with its lake and meadow of wildflowers, trails through the woods, memories and old stone buildings has inspired me so many times before.
My husband and stepsons hunt the state forest north of the park office. Deer in the fall. Turkey in the spring. In-between hunting seasons, our family gathers at hunting camp and at the state park for graduation parties, summer parties and family dinners.
The dogs and I walked by the tall, old stone, former iron-making furnace where my husband and I had our pictures taken before our wedding, then walked over to the old, empty stone house where we said our wedding vows as the pastor stood on the well-worn steps of the front porch.
The house, the Ironmaster’s Mansion, is a remnant of the buildings and community that sprouted here to support the iron-making operation that peaked in the early 1880s. The stone furnaces blasted iron ore into pig iron ingots hauled away to become wrought iron. Charcoal made from the burned wood of cut trees fueled the furnaces. Read the history here.
By 1842, a dam and spillway was built to create the lake to supply water and power to a gristmill.
The same lake now stocked with trout.
Strong, Vibrant Connection
Our collective relationship to nature desperately needs healing. This has deeply troubled me for a long time.
And yet, our connection is still so strong and vibrant that it gives me the joy, perspective, beauty and strength to show up, tell the truth as best as I learn and understand it.
Nature recharges us and strengthens us for that work. Clare and Ferguson argue nature has already given us what we need to find solutions and find that balance.
That brief encounter, that moment sharing the boy’s thrill of catching a fish, gave me hope. You must first experience something to love and take care of it.
Hope is active. A conscious step out of fear and into love that we must keep taking. A practice that becomes “spiritual muscle memory,” in the words of journalist Krista Tippett.
I felt joy to be awash in spring light, seeing the forest floor wake up with green, and seeing so many little groups of families fishing and camping together.
When people experience delight in nature, the better our chances to heal our human relationship with nature, and heal ourselves, our world — and give this kid and all of our kids a better shot at a full, healthy and peaceful life.
So —
Take a kid fishing, or plant sunflowers with a child. Feed the birds, take a walk in the park or simply breathe in the fresh, spring air. All of it matters. Cherish and celebrate connection to nature, because it holds peace for us, and inspiration to find balance and make our necessary peace with nature.
When the reality of the world wears on me, I return to the simple joys like planting sunflowers with children to cultivate my own peace — and share it. “Kids love them” tops my list of 10 Reasons to Plant Sunflowers in 2022.
Blooming sunflowers in bright yellow and gold, burning oranges and rich, dark reds with their deep-brown centers fill my garden dreams — especially in these final days of March as high winds whip snow flurries outside my window.
Seeds in pretty paper packets await the coming, warm days in central Pennsylvania.
When the frosts have passed, I’ll plant tall, giant ‘Mammoth’ flowers in the back to grow beside the pile of firewood neatly stacked for next winter. There, when late summer’s heat arrives perhaps those blooming heads can help soothe visitors to the cemetary out behind our house and yard.
Smaller blooms on branched stems in lemon yellow and merlot red — old-fashioned ‘Lemon Queen’ and ‘Velvet Queen’ — will look best beside the rockers and porch swing, near the vegetable beds. And for the new beds on the west side of our house, I’m picturing Tithonia — known by its common name as Mexican sunflower — a variety full of bright orange flowers that attracts butterflies and bees.
The more I learn about sunflowers, the more I love them.
Large Seeds for Small Hands
My affection for sunflowers began with those happy, enchanting colors, then deepened as I began gardening with kids. Large, easy-to-handle seeds for small hands and fast-growing plants make sunflowers a garden favorite for kids.
Sunflowers feed birds and bees. They can heal the soil of toxins and have become a symbol of solidarity with the resilient people of Ukraine. (Read: Soniashnyk, the New Face of Flower Power.)
Until the end of March, the seed company Botanical Interests is donating 100 percent of proceeds from all of its online sunflower seed sales to Sunflower of Peace, a non-profit in Boston that provides resources and life-saving medical supplies to people affected by the crisis in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, caused by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Finding Common Ground in the Garden
Those blooms take me back to planting sunflowers with children in my first big garden, near Winnegance, a soul-nourishing spot on the Maine coast where the tidal Kennebec River meets the border of Bath and Phippsburg.
In my 20s, I’d rented a tiny, two-room, two-story apartment at one end of an old, handsome Greek Revival home of a carpenter and his wife, an artist, and their four children. Together, we designed, tilled and planted a garden in the full sun that was 60 feet long and 10 feet wide. One spring Saturday, Walter — a carpenter and my landlord — wore a broad-brimmed hat to shield the sun and built a long trellis about six feet tall by hand to bisect the garden along except for a tall, handsome arbor in the middle.
We planted vegetables on one side of the trellis and a perennial flower garden on the other. And, oh my, did it grow lush and produce gorgeous flowers and vegetables.
At one end, the garden dog-legged around a peach tree, where we planted sunflowers that soared 10 to 12 feet into the air.
The kids loved planting the sunflowers and watching as the tiny stem first pushed out of the ground and then grew into a thick, towering stalk to support a huge yellow head.
The towering sunflowers in the first year of a big garden planted with neighbors in a spot on the Maine coast known as Winnegance.
Mend & Strengthen Community
My landlord-neighbors and I did not agree on politics. But wow did we come together over common ground to grow a glorious flower garden and delicious food for all of us in the neighborhood to enjoy.
Ever since, I’ve been hooked on the power of gardening to mend and strengthen the stitching of community — and on the importance of sharing a garden with children. Soon after I moved to Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, a group of volunteer-gardeners and I created a garden for children in the community. There, children have their own garden to explore and nurture their sense of wonder in the natural world.
Thanks to a lot of hard work and passionate people, the garden continues to be a beautiful place for kids to learn cool things about plants and nature.
When concerns and the reality of the world wear me down — I go back to the basics and the simple joys of planting sunflowers with children, my favorite reason to plant sunflowers, as a small action that matters. Let’s remember what kind of world we want our children and grandchildren to live in.
Top 10 Reasons to Plant Sunflowers
1. Kids love sunflowers.
The seeds are big and easy to see and handle for little hands. Sunflowers are easy to grow, grow quickly and reward you with fun, sunny blooms. I’m so looking forward to growing sunflowers with our grandson — not that I want him to grow up that fast!
2. Happy, cheery blooms.
How can you go wrong with that? Did you know: A sunflower bloom is actually a group of more than 1,000 flowers. Ray flowers look like petals and make up the outer ring. Each one is actually a distinct flower. Each tiny flower in the center, inside that outer ring of ray flowers, contains five petals. Look up close at all the tiny flowers the next time you see a sunflower bloom.
3. Sunflowers are Native to North America.
That means the plant naturally occurred in a region, also known as indigenous or endemic, so it is well-suited to growing in that location and benefits the native bees, butterflies and birds. Those native plants have been bred with non-native plants to create new varieties. But the closer you can stick to the native plant, the greater the benefit to wildlife and the healthier your ecosystem.
4. Wide Variety of Colors, Bloom Size and Height
We have so many beautiful options of sunflowers to grow.
Sunflower varieties vary primarily by color, bloom size, height — and how much they benefit wildlife.
One big difference is whether the bloom contains pollen. Allergy issues are a good reason to grow pollen-less blooms. Children or adults may be allergic to pollen or the bees gathering pollen.
A pollen-free sunflower still allows you to enjoy growing pretty flowers.
Since none of my family members or neighbors have allergies or a bee allergy, and I prefer plants that benefit wildlife, I choose sunflowers that contain pollen to benefit pollinating insects like bees and butterflies.
Bees generally are quite busy searching and gathering food, so we just leave each other alone in the garden. No problem — even when I’m up close trying to get a good picture.
I also choose plant varieties as close to the native species as possible, so I’m looking for botanical names.
OK – this gets a little complicated, so bear with me. Think of this in shades of grey, or as “good,” “better” and “best.”
Growing your own flowers or buying from a local flower farm — especially if you share the experience with children — is GOOD, always better than life without flowers (gasp!) or plastic flowers or buying from the grocery store. (Full disclosure: I DO buy grocery store flowers very sparingly, maybe twice in winter, when I’ve just got to have some fresh flowers.)
Growing your own is a wonderful way to connect to nature. Plus, you can avoid toxic chemicals like pesticides and the energy use often involved in global, commercial flower production. (Learn more about this in Amy Stewart’s book.)
BETTER: Pick varieties of sunflowers that help bees and butterflies. One simple rule: Pick varieties that produce pollen. Here’s a great write-up of pollen-rich, heirloom and classic favorites like ‘Lemon Queen,’ ‘Mammoth Russian’ and ‘Velvet Queen.’
My goal is to grow plants that benefit wildlife, so when I’m shopping for seeds and plants, I steer my purchases toward native plants, often searching using botanical names, and shopping at nurseries and seed suppliers that properly label their products.
The BEST for me: When I can grow a healthy, native plant with confidence.
5. Sunflowers (with pollen) are great for pollinators.
Remember: Pollination is essential for a lot of food plants. One-third of our food supply comes from pollinated crops like apples, melons, and almonds. Blueberries and cherries are 90 percent dependent on honey bee pollination.
The four species below — only four of 52 species in the genus Helianthus — are native and attract a tremendous diversity of insects including bees, wasps, flies, butterflies and pollen-eating beetles, according to the Xerces Society, a non-profit organization working to conserve North America’s native pollinators.
This is good! Without healthy pollinators, we risk our food supply.
The annual, common sunflower Helianthus annuus L., has yellow heads about four inches wide and is one of 52 species in genus Helianthus. This is often a wildflower found on prairies and grasslands, fields, roadsides and the edges of the forest. Learn more here.
The woodland sunflower, Helianthus divaricatus, a perennial sunflower suited to shady locations in the eastern United States; Learn more here.
Maximilian sunflower (Helianthus maximiliani) is a tall species suited to dry sunny spots. Learn more here.
Prairie sunflower, H. petiolaris, is a 3-5 foot annual sunflower with lots of branches and blooms. The outside petals are yellow and the centers are red-purple. Gorgeous! Learn more here.
Plus, there are many more species and among those many varieties that are cultivars or hybrids. A “cultivar” means selective breeding has created a cultivated variety that retains certain desirable characteristics — but may have lost the characteristics important to wildlife. A “hybrid” plant is a new plant created by cross-pollinating two genetically different parent plants.
Seed and plant shopping can get very complicated for some of us!
Remember: To keep it simple, select sunflowers with pollen to be sure your sunflowers feed pollinating insects like honeybees.
Male Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) eating sunflower seeds in a wildflower garden.
6. Sunflowers attract and feed birds.
One of the simplest ways to feed the birds is to leave the dried sunflower heads right on the stalk, or to place them around the garden in spots where the birds have some shelter from predators.
Sunflower seeds attract the widest variety of birds. Black oil sunflower seeds are considered the best all-around for feeding birds. So — naturally, when the flower heads have dried, birds can pick the seed straight from the dried flower heads.
You have many options here! The giants and mammoths, of course. And Tithonia, or Mexican sunflowers, with small orange flowers that attract hummingbirds and butterflies. Check them out.
7. Sunflower seeds are delicious for us, too.
Harvest the smaller seeds and add them to salads, muffins, breads — or just snack on them. My favorite salad: spinach greens, thin-sliced red onions, red grapes, and feta cheese. A combo I first enjoyed at (now-closed) Bluestone Bistro in Cleveland Circle, Boston.
8. Natural Healing.
Studies show that sunflowers can absorb toxic heavy metals and radiation from the soil. Radioisotopes in the soil mimic some of the nutrients the plant normally takes up like potassium and calcium. The plant then stores those toxins in its stems and leaves, where they can be harvested and disposed of — leaving cleaner soil in place.
To help absorb radiation after the Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear crises, big fields of sunflowers were planted, with mixed results.
Researchers are working to understand which species are best for this and which species resist this.
9. Sunflowers Follow the Sun.
Watch sunflowers throughout the day and you may notice that their blooms follow the sun. At dawn, sunflower plants face east, turn west through the day and return to face east at night.
Why?
Sunflowers use an internal circadian clock and act on growth hormones to follow the sun throughout the day, according to a study conducted and co-authored by plant biologists Stacey Harmer and Benjamin Blackman at the University of California-Davis.
Plants grow faster and larger when they follow the sun, according to the experiments. And, as the sunflowers mature and the bloom opens, it settles into facing east — apparently to be more attractive to pollinators.
In one experiment, researchers grew sunflowers in pots in a field, then turned some to the west. When they compared measurements with an infrared camera, they found the east-facing flowers warmed more quickly in the morning and attracted five times as many pollinating insects.
Bees apparently like warm flowers.
10. A Powerful Symbol of Peace.
Finally, sunflowers have long-symbolized peace and in the last few weeks have come to symbolize solidarity with the people of Ukraine. Ordinary people can do extraordinary things and we all have a role to play in bringing about peace in the world. Read Soniashnyk is the New Face of Flower Power.
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A little while ago, when I refreshed the house decor, I hung a beautiful, gold-framed summer scene of sunflowers growing against the pine green front porch of the Winnegance General Store .
An artist and neighbor from Maine gave me this print of her painting as a gift. Those bright and cheery blooms greet me a few times a day, as I head out to check on the spring weather, sustaining me until I can push my hands and fresh sunflower seeds into the rich, warm soil.
