Life is a Pinball Machine and a Little Padding Helps

As many of you know, I am a an average middle-age chick who doesn't always exercise and eat right, and I have pillows for hips these days.  In order to combat said pillows and just to get feeling better in general, I have started running. Actually, I have restarted running. You know how it goes.

I usually run on a stretch of pavement that runs for a few miles along the shore of Puget Sound. It's lovely, and in the morning I am joined by dog walkers and other runners including a number of young, strong, fast, angular females. No pillows on those gals.

I was pretty athletic growing up, so at one time I was angular like them. As I ran and contemplated the softening of my angles into pillowy voluptuousness over the years, I realized that they represented experience and wisdom and confidence and finally enjoying the sound of my own laughter, even when directed at myself! They represented lessons learned, relationships come and gone, and everything else that made me me.

I continued to run, and my brain decided to give me a shot of my life as a pinball machine. Like a pinball machine, I was dropped into my life by my mother (that may explain a lot). Then, when young and angular and sleek and fast, I raced around trying to determine my path, racing on to the next big thing, bouncing hard off of the bumpers but not always having a say in which direction I ricocheted, picking up many bruises and dents, then getting whacked by a flipper and getting shot off in a different direction that I did not necessarily want to go, ricocheting off of more bumpers as I went. Ouch.

As I grew, my pace slowed a bit. I could see the upcoming bumpers and try to avoid them or at least try to determine which direction I would ricochet and what bumpers lay along that trajectory. I still ricocheted in unforeseen directions and still ended up with a few bruises here and there, but overall came through it all feeling a bit better.

Now, my path is even a bit slower and more deliberate. I saunter through the bumpers and choose to get whacked by the flippers far less often (but want to still get whacked to stay in the game). My pillows give me a very soft landing against the bumpers and the time it now takes to rebound from the impact gives me time to determine how I want to roll off of the bumper and which direction I want to go. Do I want to head for the flipper and get shot into another round? Do I want to find a place to rest for a bit? My mental pinball machine has a Hawaiian theme. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh . . .

So, ya, as I run along, no doubt there are moments when I envy the youth and strength and angles leaving me in the dust. But fleeting those moments are.

Contemplating a Coffee Cup

Okay, so everyone who read my last blog entry, all 12 of you, were so encouraging, I thought I would write another one. Being new to this blogging stuff, I get lots of great ideas throughout the week but I don't write them down because--silly me--I think I am somehow superwoman with a super memory and will of course remember all of them!

However, I received inspiration from a coffee cup this morning while I was working at my computer, so inspiration met opportunity. Not any coffee cup, but the Whale Trail's coffee cup. I love them because they have a nice mission and their leader, Donna, has her crap totally together and it is a joy to work with her.

But enough of my plug for Donna. So, I am staring at the Whale Trail logo on this cup and I begin to see into the cup. Not its molecules and atoms, but its origins. Its materials. Its people. I begin to see the places the materials have come from--mountainside mines, maybe big open holes in the ground. I see laborers who mine the materials the cup is made of. I see trucks that transport those materials somewhere, and a factory, with more workers who transform the materials into ceramic. Then maybe another factory where the ceramic is transformed into cups. I see tankers hauling crude petroleum to refineries (since most everything contains something from petroleum these days), probably to be made into the ink on the cup. I see more people packing the cups, each one into boxes, then the boxes into more trucks, and then onto ships, and then off of ships, back onto trucks, then to Donna's house, where I pick up my cup. I think about all of the materials being used in these processes, all of the time and energy others have invested to bring me this cup.

My mind is speechless for once, instead swimming with a thousand rotating pictures of all of this activity, all vying for space, all constantly in motion. The complexity of this activity increases as I stare at the cup. What about the cup's designer? Its engineer? The logo's designer? What about all the materials and machines they use, and then the story behind those materials and machines? And then I get up and go get some cold pizza, because, like a cold shower, it redirects me, and it's tastier than a shower.

Now, nothing turns me off on Facebook faster than someone challenging me to share a post that is supposed to make us all better people. "I challenge you to share this post if you are really, truly ______________." First of all, I have to think long and hard whether anyone in my friends list would really give a crap, and then I get depressed when the truth reveals itself.

Despite my Facebook attitude, however, I am going to challenge all 12 of you, my faithful, to spend a few minutes contemplating an object this week. A cup, a dog toy, a head of lettuce, a computer, anything at all, and think about all of the people and everything else it took to bring that object to you. What do you think about all of that? Leave comments if you feel so inclined. 

And if you are at all interested in reading further about this topic, I have been an inactive fan of Annie Leonard and The Story of Stuff Project for years. She is my favorite environmental person most people have never heard of, except she recently became the Executive Director of Greenpeace USA, so now I guess people will hear of her more. Annie has followed stuff around the globe for years, and I highly recommend her website if you are at all interested in the topic.

Once again, I thank you all for sharing a few minutes of your time with my blog!