Library Writing Group 4/2018

It was my turn to be in charge at library writing group this month which means I was the one who chose the topic.  Since in was April, in honor of Earth Day,  I chose "Something to do with water" as the theme and the group came up with great submissions to share.  I am amazed at the creativity and talent that sits around that table every month!  Below find what I wrote to read to the group.  And above is a picture of my new produce bags. 

Library Writing Group 4/2018

Something Related to Water

  There are times in life I call kaleidoscope moments.  That is when something you see or experience causes your perception to shift in much the same way that the colors rearrange when you turn the end of a hand held kaleidoscope.  Life can have a  different pattern to it after a particular  experience.  One such moment happened to me when I was nine or ten years old. My family had a large tent that we used on vacations.  We usually would camp at a state park and often there was a body of water near by.  The time frame for these trips would have been the late 1960s and the general geographical area would have been the Midwest.   One vacation was a trip where we stayed near one of the Great Lakes,  I am almost certain it was Lake Erie.   As my siblings and I  got ready for an afternoon at the beach I was excited for time to play in the sand and water.  I remember our station wagon pulling into the parking lot and getting out of the car and running toward the beach.  Suddenly my parents called us back.   The scene in front of my eyes that caused them to call out to us is forever embedded in my memory.  On top of the water were floating hundreds of dead fish.  Littered across and covering the beach were dead fish in varying stages of decay.  I got close enough to them before being called back to see that some of their eyes were coated with a white film.  My nostrils can still conjure up the stench they experienced that day.  My parents  forbade us to get in the water or be on the beach.  We were to return to  the car and go back to the camp ground and play there.  The kaleidoscope of my perception turned that afternoon and my future headed in a different direction than if I had not had the experience.    I wanted to know what happened to the fish and why they all died.  I was keenly aware from that moment on that mankind was at times selfish and put profits over being responsible citizens in our world.  Thankfully,  we have cleaned up many of our practices and now have beautiful waterways again in our country.  With increased education we are aware of the interconnectedness of water, wildlife and our behavior.  With new legislation we have protected our earth in ways that we did not back then.  Because of that afternoon my interest in doing my part has influenced my behavior choices.  I make an annual effort to improve my habits.  Each year in April,  because it is when earth day is,  I make a goal to add one new behavior related to being environmentally responsible to my routine.  For example, one year I added market bags.  One year I began to carry a waste free lunch to work,  adding re-usable sandwich bags and a “Klean Kanteen” to my lunch bag, along with other non throw away items.   Early on I added recycling of trash.   This year I have purchased some re-usable produce bags for storing produce in the refrigerator.  Up till now, after I cleaned the produce I had put it in a plastic zip lock bag.  Now I have mesh bags to put the washed and cleaned and chopped up celery, carrots and other produce in.  It is because of the dead fish experience described above that I am more motivated than some people to continually try to do my part.  I know first hand that clean water is necessary for life on our planet to survive.