Patterns all around

Looking upward, in the late afternoon heat, under my picnic table umbrella, I could see the UV heat of our home star, burning through 93 million miles of space, plus a slender cloak of atmosphere, which we humans are systematically destroying as if we could exist naked in this world. It was both a lovely and terrifying sight.



We cannot. Not white people, yellow people, brown people, red people, even black people. Not of us have skin tough enough to resist the power of the sun, once our vulnerable clothing of ozone has been stripped away by the greenhouse gases our immature technologies emit needlessly on our behalf.





It is bad enough knowing the the flatulence of our cattle is one of the major pollutants destroying our planetary cloak. After all, many of us love a good steak, and almost all of us drink or eat milk, cheese, yogurt, sour cream, buttermilk, cottage cheese, whipped cream, or ice cream -- all derived from the fluid that is squeezed out of a cow's generously long, supple, pink nipple.




Now I have gone and distracted myself, on a couple of counts. First, as to the degradation of milk products. I used to work summers in a milk plant (that's how I paid my way through college.) One of my jobs was to empty the "returns" our trucks brought back from the many grocery stores we served throughout the Saginaw Valley in Michigan.

The way we did this was to grasp a half-gallon milk carton, and smash it on the side of a metal cylinder, much the way you might crack an egg on the side of your frying pan. When our technique was perfect, the paper container's top blew open and the contents, often curdled and smelly, poured into the container.

(You do not even want to know what happened when we performed this odious task incorrectly.)








In the best of times, this was a truly yucky business. Yours truly has always had a weak stomach when it comes to things that remind one of vomit. And this stuff did, believe me. Ugh.





One of my working class colleagues, noticing how I gagged as I emptied the spoiled milk into its resting place, offered: "What bothers you so much, kid? It's just cottage cheese!" We sell it in a different container, that's all. Nobody likes it when it comes out of a milk carton."







Another way I have distracted myself is by using the word "nipple." But I am determined not to go there, not tonight and not in this post.







I love to eat seaweed and so does my youngest daughter. It's fair to say we are seaweed enthusiasts. We buy it in sheets and eat it raw, or sprinkle it on popcorn or in soups or on almost anything else in my refrigerator or cupboard.






Thanks to my lovely Japanese friend, I know that eating seaweed gives you silky hair and soft skin. She's got lots of credibility on these issues because she has the loveliest hair and the softest skin one could imagine.







All around us, the patterns present themselves, if only we open our eyes to see.







My eyes are always wide open. I cannot believe how lucky we still are to inhabit this planet.

Beauty is, after all, like love -- all around.

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