It’s Wednesday, 2:45 PM, and the eastern sun gleams through purple New England asters on Atwater Bluff, through fluffy grass-tips on the bluff-top. There’s always beauty around us for those with time to look, or for those who make time, which is what I’m doing.

And now it’s Thursday, I’m here again, drawing asters and wondering why more people don’t come to the bluff and the beach to balance out hectic lives. Tiny Shorewood has no shortage of parkland. It’s a village caught between a lake and a river, between At-water and Esta-brook.

And last week so was I, caught between river and lake bluffs that brim with native plants, and maybe a few invaders. But then, aren’t I an invader, too, as I walk through?

At the bluff near the waterfalls in Estabrook, bikers bike past, eyes on asphalt, fishermen watch the river flow. I hope they also notice that the plants deserve more than a casual look. A wide swath of gray, green, and purple cone flowers, liatris, coreopsis, sneezeweed, and Culver's root predominated last month, along with thistle, which I love though it’s invasive. Last Friday purple, violet, yellow, and white asters and goldenrod had taken their turn.

Of course I can’t fault those fishing for watching water. The reflections are as photogenic as the trees and plants they reflect. As I look around, think about the chaos of nature, how each bend of a branch, the intermixture of flowers on a bluff, the glow of sunshine on a petal, is unexpected, I wonder why anyone would poison the earth to have a million uninterrupted, predictable blades of grass in the front yard.

Three weeks ago Spence Tepper and I videotaped the magic of sun glowing through native plants on the bluff in Big Bay Park. And this morning I received an unbelievable message from Ney Collier:

Dear Suzanne,
For twenty years I have been working on Big Bay Park which is adjacent to Buckley Park. When I started it consisted of a forest of Burdock,  Garlic Mustard, Reed Canary Grass and Canada Thistle all of which are on the DNR's list of invasives.
   
Gradually I removed the invasives by hand, and the native plants such as Nodding Onions, Milkweed, Dwarf Sumac, Cup Plants, Woodland Sunflowers, Zig Zag Goldenrod, New England Asters and many others were able to flourish in all their glory.  With them came butterflies and bees.
   
On Wednesday 27th August and Thursday 28th August three large stands of native plants were mowed down.  The Cup Plants were in full bloom and were being visited by Monarchs and other insects.  People were horrified to see the plants chopped down. In addition pesticides were sprayed.  Spraying pesticides as well as chopping down plants not only removed nectar, but probably killed butterflies.
   
On the warning signs is written "For additional information on this application or any future applications call Village of Whitefish Bay 962 6690." I am trying to mobilize as many people as possible to call:
1.  Village of Whitefish Bay 962 6690 (Call after Labor Day, or you'll just get the police!)
2. Sue Black at 257 7275
3.  DNR at 1 800 847 9367 (This is the hot line number for reporting violations.  Cutting down stands of native sunflowers and spraying them with pesticides is a violation of Lake Michigan, the plants, and the children who play and swim in that area).
Regards,
Ney Collier  
 

We don’t have to travel between poles these days for polar extremes; we can just stay in one spot almost anywhere on Earth. Certainly this winter was a swinger, with thaws and freezes, and the spring keeps swinging, too. I keep thinking how hard it is to be a farmer. I can’t even get my garden planted.

We spent June 7 in Shorewood. In the morning we stood for an hour under skin-burning sun as we waited for our turn at the Police Department’s annual bike sale. Yet the day was no scorcher. After we bought bikes for two of our grandkids, I gardened, did chores, ran errands, then the phone rang.
“Grandma, are you still taking us to St. Roberts Fair?”
 “Well, there’s a tornado warning, severe storm warning, thunder, lightening, and it’s already raining. Are you sure you want to go?”
“Yes.”
It wasn't raining hard, and the tornado warning sirens were no longer wailing, so I grabbed a couple of ponchos and ran to visit the grandkids and try to change their minds.

At the fair the tents were closed, and fair-goers were gathered in the gym, several of them watching the weather report on TV. Inside the gym were cakes, candies, crafts, and used books, games, and videos; outside was the deluge.

We bought some books, then had a choice: waiting or wading. The children just wanted to get home, so we picked wading, and slogged through the streams on the sidewalks and in the streets. “Grandma, do you think there’ll be a flood?”

And that brings me to Noah. We can’t build arks and float our way out of this one. We may merely bail out our basements today. Bailing ourselves out of the mess humans have created on the planet will require drastic lifestyle changes. Worldwide. We’d better believe it.
 

When I think of a pun, it’s so much fun, that I don’t let go. Following my last post, JUST SAY MOW, which seemed to me quite apropos, for mowing’s cheap to do. Or UWM could get a cow, then I’d call this JUST SAY MOO. Well, I know UWM can’t have a cow. A neighbor of mine once wanted a goat grazing on her grass, and the Village of Shorewood just said no.  

I sent an Email, UWM Sprayed Again, to my Grass Roots list, and poets Susan Firer (Milwaukee Poet Laureate) and Jim Hazard sent this letter to Kate Nelson at UWM. They also plan to edit it to distribute to their neighbors. If some of you have neighbors who spray, perhaps you, too, would like to edit and use it!

Dear Kate Nelson,
I heard on WUWM today UWM bragging about its Green Ethic.  However, the recent spraying of the campus by TruGreen has no place in anyone's Green Ethic. Reliable studies have linked pesticides to a six-fold increase in childhood leukemia (Journal of the National Cancer Institute and American Journal of Public Health), have shown that dogs exposed to lawn pesticides are 4 to 7 times more likely to be diagnosed with bladder cancer (Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association), and have demonstrated the link between long-term exposure to pesticides and neuron damage that triggers Parkinson's disease (UCLA study reported in Chicago Tribune).

This glaring contradiction between public relations statements and university actions is a very serious matter, affecting anyone who sets foot on the campus grounds and the surrounding community.  Its effects extend beyond the immediate locale since the run off of pesticides and fertilizers does great harm to Lake Michigan's water quality and contributed to the dangerous presence of E. coli on area beaches: a strange policy given the information to that effect UWM's Great Lakes Water Institute has researched and published.

I hope the university will reconsider this irresponsible social behavior, change its policy toward harmful lawn treatment chemicals, and assume community leadership in this serious public health matter.
Susan Firer and Jim Hazard
 

One of the advantages to living in Shorewood is our proximity to UWM. This is self-evident, so I won't try to elaborate! There's also a downside to living near the university: when UWM sprays, the whole neighborhood is forced to inhale!

Last Saturday the fumes were so strong I felt nauseous when I tried to bike past, yet people sat in the TruGreen grass right next to the little white signs. They clearly felt that the university sets an example and practices safe lawn care. I called John Krezoski in the Safety and Assurances Dept at UWM (414.229-5265) and left him a message expressing my disappointment.

I'd been told he's the person to call since this is a safety issue. It IS definitely a safety issue, especially when the fumes are sickening and the lawn care company is TruGreen. One place out of many to get additional info on TruGreen is on the Refuse To Use Chemlawn web site. 

The university is worried about people who don't like dandelions. This seems strange to me since Warren Porter, one of the country's top researchers into the effects of pesticides, works at UW-Madison. Here's a quote from his web site: "Subtle Biological Effects of Environmental Contaminants: We have serious concerns about children exposed to low level pesticide mixtures from lawns and in the food, water, and air that passes through their bodies.  Children do not have defensive enzymes at levels present in sexually mature adults. Our 2002 paper showed that a common lawn chemical pesticide mixture can induce abortions and resorptions of fetuses at very low parts per billion concentrations. The greatest effect was at the lowest dose.  Thanks to Richard Dwelle and Dr. James Jaeger, we have an extraordinarily sensitive new means of measuring mouse learning abilities at many levels.  We are currently conducting long term studies to explore the effects of subtle low level pesticide mixture exposures on learning abilities, immune function, hormone levels, and developmental disorders."

Perhaps UW-Milwaukee could use some of the research findings from UW-Madison to educate the public here in Milwaukee. 

Since I'm one of the original members of the Earth Poets, and our twentieth anniversary performances take place this Friday and Saturday, I thought I'd post our press release, and a poem.

Global warming was considered a fringe concept when Jeff Poniewaz founded the Earth Poets in 1988. Now it's 2008, and the fringe has become mainstream. "Green" is the latest buzz word, and it doesn't mean envy. It means harmony, living in harmony with nature. For their 20th Anniversary Performances, four of the original poets, Jeff Poniewaz, Louisa Loveridge-Gallas, Suzanne Rosenblatt, and Harvey Taylor, and the two musician members of the group, Jahmes Finlayson and Holly Haebig, will continue to transform inconvenient truths into conscientious action. The performances will also feature a special guest, activist and poet James Godsil. Scientists say it's not yet too late, so the Earth Poets and Musicians will contemplate how we can slow down the rush towards global warmth!

FRIDAY, APRIL 18,  2008
7 P.M. Interactive Poetry and Music for the Whole Family
8 PM Earth Poets and Musicians
Jahmes Finlayson, Louisa Loveridge-Gallas, Holly Haebig, Jeff Poniewaz, Suzanne Rosenblatt,
Harvey Taylor, and SPECIAL GUEST: James Godsil
URBAN ECOLOGY CENTER
1500 E. Park Place
$5.00 Per Person, $10.00 Per Family, UEC Members Free

SATURDAY, APRIL 19, 2008, 8 P.M.
Jahmes Finlayson, Louisa Loveridge-Gallas, Holly Haebig, Jeff Poniewaz, Suzanne Rosenblatt, Harvey Taylor, and SPECIAL GUEST: James Godsil
THE COFFEE HOUSE
631 N. 19th Street (Just South of Wisconsin Ave)
Donation: $5.00

MUCH OBLIGED
By Suzanne Rosenblatt

What's an artist to do?
He paints, dances, writes,
Maybe he recites,
Composes a sonata, deftly draws a flower
As the mad world succumbs_   
To those greedy for power
He may struggle to get others   
To listen or look
As he tries to make a living   
With his painting, song, or book
Yet he loves what he does   
In his cranny or nook

Should he reimburse the planet for his talents
And work to put the earth back into balance?
Pay rent for his creative space
By trying to make the world a better place?
I'd say yes, we have to do what we can
Have to set up our personal
Repayment plan
 

If the sixth sense is intuition, then the seventh must be the sense of adventure. After all, everything we do is one, if we choose to look at it that way. When I walk out of our front door, and I do it frequently, I don’t know what will happen next, even whether or not I’ll ever walk back through it again!

Well, that’s the way I was feeling most of this winter, due to the ice crisis. I walked several miles a day despite the fact that I was terrified of falling. Last week I thought it was spring and decided not to dwell on fallen fellow Midwesterners, but on the residents, incidents, surprises, I come upon as I meander, or rush (more likely rush), through the day.

When I started to blog in June, 2006, I figured I’d write about the many interesting people I run into on a daily basis, get the character of Shorewood by showing the characters in Shorewood. After all, that is an adventure! Then I modified the concept, not wanting to name names, and blogged more about incidents than about particular people. Last year I wrote LOCKED OUT AND LOCKED IN  when I found one of my grandsons locked out of his house early in the morning and later that same day had to call 911 for a lady who’d been trapped in her garage for an hour and a half. And I blogged about the speeding car that killed a dog last month, INCIDENT AT AN INTERSECTION. 

Several days after I posted that blog, someone asked me, as I walked along Maryland Avenue, “Are you the lady who wrote the article about the dog? I had the same thing happen to me. I saw a car hit a dog and speed away, except the dog was a puppy, and the dog-walker was a little boy!”

This past January as I walked along Oakland, a woman standing alone across the street shouted to no one in particular, “Doesn’t anyone have a cell phone?” Why did she want one? Then I saw a man peering under his car’s hood, smoke billowing into his face. He slammed the hood closed, screamed a stream of unbloggable words, and the woman yelled, “Someone call 911!” I did. And I moved as far as possible from that car. About thirty years ago, Connie Wypp, one of Adolph’s art students at UWM, parked her VW Beetle across the street from our house in Bill Nichols’ driveway, leapt out of the car, and within seconds the car was in flames.

That didn’t happen this time. Even before my 911 call went through, the rescue squad arrived. Two brave men lifted the hood and put out the fire, while the combustible VW Beetle burned in my mind.

Yesterday it occurred to me as I passed familiar faces along Oakland Avenue, that I've lived in Shorewood almost 39 years and have probably seen most of these people many, many times, and even if I've never had a conversation with someone, he or she seems familiar. Curious thought. But that's my point. Usually it’s the residents, not the incidents, it’s walking everywhere, or biking, being part of the environment and not enclosed in a car, interacting with whatever's happening, that makes each day an adventure.
 

The older I get, the smaller my artwork. Some reasons: I can carry a tiny drawing pad without needing a big purse.  I can capture fleeting passers-by more quickly and unobtrusively. Anyway, less is often more. Here's another advantage: In the Roberta Avonn Fiskum Art Gallery at UW-Whitewater I can fit several small works into my quarter of the "Phenomenal Women" show. The opening reception is Wednesday, February 27, 4:30-6:00. Marie Mellott and I will perform at 5:00, "Three Ladies in Their Eighties" plus some of our poems. Marie will become her 101-year-old grandmother, I'll do my global warming poem, which you can see on YouTube  if you won't be in the Whitewater area.

MORE DETAILS: The other three artists are Anne Kingsbury of Woodland Pattern, Flora Menager, and Caitlin Carroll.
The Roberta Avonn Fiskum Art Gallery is a newly-constructed gallery in the University Center Building in the heart of the UW-Whitewater campus. If you want more precise directions, please call Beth Wiza at 262-210-9491.

Last Monday the grass was green where snow had melted, and the streets looked clear, except for the cloud of fog that hugged the East Side. I figured I should bike to Trader Joe’s while the snow and ice were water. As I put on my helmet, I had to admit I was afraid, of ice patches, of drivers on cell phones, of predicted thunder storms, of being too old to bike.

I pedaled along Maryland Avenue, avoided a friend who stepped off the curb without looking, too busy listening to his iPod, he said. Despite my loud pink jacket, I felt invisible, mists never more than a few feet away. The fog wasn’t pea soup, wrong color, more like vichyssoise without the leeks. I started to think of new blogs, wished I had a little tape recorder. Passers-by would think I’m on my cell phone. I smiled, relaxed, soon was coasting down Hampton, and I knew why I was biking. It’s more than a matter of getting to Trader Joe’s; it’s being out in the world, not enclosed, cruising through outdoor air.

I walked down the aisle, skipped the bulky produce, zeroed in on cereal, tofu, polenta, thinking that’s what’s cheap at Trader Joe’s, most health food I get at Outpost, better to shop there, shop  local, calculating what would fit on my bike. Then a voice said, “Suzanne! How did you get here?”
“Oh, Ruth, hi! I biked.” “You certainly can’t carry everything on your bike. You’ll have to let me drive it back for you.”

I mention this not because Ruth drove my groceries home for me, though she did, but because she told me about her recent mammogram at Bayshore. She had asked her technician about the incidence of breast cancer in the area. The technician replied that it’s unusually high on the North Shore. I’ve heard that several times recently, haven’t read it anywhere.

The following day at the Fitness Center a friend told me that some of the young women who live near her have breast cancer, and one died, leaving behind two young children. Then she added, “So many of my neighbors use pesticides, I’m thinking of moving out of Shorewood.”

I guess some people are dying to have no dandelions.
 

When I got back from New York last week, I found a message in my inbox that made me muse on what qualities make a village a great place to live, at least for me. There’s location, of course: trees, flowers, gardens, parks, maybe even a lake or river, breathable air, livable homes, convenient shopping, nearby cultural events. Walkability. Bike-ability. Bus-ability.

Then there’s the people factor: diversity in every sense, ethnic, racial, economic, religious, age, a community of people who care about the arts, education, social justice, the environment, of people who are informed. I could continue, but I want to return to the inbox message, which concerned the possible development by Sunrise Senior Living of land along the river. So I googled Sunrise Senior Living and found articles in The New York Times, The Business Journal, and The Washington Post, just for starters.

After I wrote this, I saw that Dave Tatarowics had already posted the same message, from Tim Vargo, on December 17. But in case you haven’t read it, I’ll repost it so you can read it now and ask yourself: Is this really where we want to go? Will this improve the quality of life here? Will it help Shorewood become a prototype of a green community?

Dear Shorewood friends,
Some of you may have heard about a proposal to tear down the Riverbrook Restaurant and the Sherburn place apartments (where I live) to put in a senior living center.
 
As a resident of the apartments and a professional in the field of research and environmental education,  I find SO MANY problems with the development from just about every angle.
1) The developers are not considering any green design.  They are tearing down perfectly good buildings and bringing in all new materials.
2) The developer when asked about green building showed no interest and gave misinformation to the zoning committee. Specifically, she said LEED Certification, (the recognized standard for measuring building sustainability) meant nothing more than slapping a green roof on the building.
3) Green design is not only environmentally friendly, but it is functional and considers the use of the building and the residents that live there.
 4 ) The developer is advertising river views from the upper floors but assured me through some magic of landscaping that you won't see the building from the river
 5 ) It's a HUGE 4-story, cookie-cutter box  building from a national chain of senior living centers in which the owners are facing lawsuits for fraud and neglect  (Sunrise Senior Living) .   This is so against what I feel are the strengths of Shorewood - walkable neighborhoods with locally owned businesses.  If senior living is truly needed, it would be easier to swallow this change if this were the future of sustainable design in senior living, designed by Kubala-Washatko, something Shorewood could be proud of.  This is a valuable piece of real estate, and the change they create will be around for a long time.  (And I think the building is hideous)
 
6) We will lose one of the only pockets of diversity in Shorewood where there is relatively affordable living (Sherburn Apartments) and sit-down dining (Riverbrook).  I ate brunch at the Riverbrook on Saturday and was floored by how packed the place was and by the degree of diversity I observed.
 
7) There are currently 50 people at Sherburn apartments, including families, some elderly, and people that have lived there almost thirty years.  At any time these people could get 30 days notice to leave according to the owner who has had terrible communication (virtually none) with the residents or even the building manager.
 
The truth is, for me this will be an inconvenience - I've moved around a lot.  For others this will be a life upheaval.
 
The project is still in its preliminary stages, but if nothing is done, it will undoubtedly move forward.  Please forward this to friends or anyone else who you feel may have an interest in this project.  These are elected officials making this decision and it's up to us to make sure they represent their constituents over an outside developer.
Thank you for your support!
Tim Vargo

 

If intention were action, I’d post a blog every day. I always write one. In my head. Sometimes I write down the first paragraph, in fact don’t yet know whether this will be merely another first paragraph. I find almost everything interesting, but can’t find time to write about it. And if intention were action, I’d post a blog after every Second Sunday Soup and Salad Salon. First we share our food, after that our thoughts on a specific topic. We examine the issues that affect our lives, philosophical, environmental, cultural, political.

This month I resolved to write beyond paragraph one, maybe because our topic was voluntary simplicity, which covers every aspect of how we live. Simplicity enforced by poverty was not the topic, nor the simplicity that will be imposed on us as climate change progresses, but simplicity chosen by those who are lucky enough to have that choice. What is it, what does it require of the individual, where are each of us now? What is the media’s impact on this? Why do so many people buy into the importance of THINGS?

We touched on the range of complexity entailed in simplicity and how each of us deals with it. People mentioned personal quirks they were trying to work on, like the man with more shoes than Imelda, or the woman trying to get rid of her excess so her children won’t be stuck with it.

My view: to live simply we have to examine our lives, know our priorities, know what makes us content, recognize that things are merely things. Here are a few things I do, or avoid doing:
I don’t drive, but rather bike, walk, or bus
Grow my own vegetables, but what about all those trees that make the crop smaller each year?
Make sure my grandkids know how wonderful it is to eat food you yourself have grown
Use fresh produce, preferably organic, preferably local
Avoid processed foods, red meat, farmed salmon
Minimize eating out
Use organic products for cleaning and lawn care, avoiding pesticides and other poisons
Recycle, and that includes buying, when possible, at rummage sales
Keep the thermostat low and wear sweaters and long underwear in winter
Minimize water use, hard when I have a vegetable garden
Remind myself to let go, of things that don’t really matter, of the things I want to do and don’t have time for, of things I own but don’t need.
Use whatever talents I have to make people contemplate their own impact on their surroundings. That’s why I’m writing this!

There’s more I do, and much more I should do. One thing I want to say: every single item on my list enriches my life rather than depleting it.

Yvette wrote this to me after last Sunday’s salon: “I realized that my life has been simplified over the last 5 months due to a change in my eating.  I've become a vegan (by default) to help reduce the tinnitus (ringing in my ears).  I've reduced the amount of food I consume.  I cook more and eat out less.  I buy most of my veggies from local farmers markets and have taken the time to nurture myself in this way.  It has been a worthwhile journey.  Change your eating, change your world!...One point that we didn't discuss:  Rhythms can greatly simplify our life.  We create a harmonic rhythm to the day and it flows as we flow with it.  We can also create a beautiful rhythm to tasks that come on a routine basis.  It requires conscious thought and aware alignment, but ultimately as we align ourselves with the rhythm of the universe, we find flow and peace in voluntary simplicity.”

I wrote Glow Ball Worming for our Earth Poets and Musician performances last April. It plays around more poetically with my ideas on voluntary simplicity and ecological living, which are intertwined. I hope you’ll add any thoughts you might have.