thoughts that currently keep me up too late

The apartment is in disarray, as the husband's and my belongings migrate into boxes. The furniture that once contained them are being slowly auctioned off to friends, neighbors, or for storage consideration. I have a faint flashback to the days leading up to my leaving the U.S. after college graduation, when I ended my health insurance coverage and prepared myself for the possibility of never coming back to this country again. Because of a long-time boyfriend who had been open to the idea of going abroad (but eventually wanted to stay in the States), I returned just as I was finally making a life of my own. I wonder how things will play out this time.

So I went to bed too late, even by half an hour. And my son has taken to pooping at six a.m. these past few days, which means I must get up then. I need to do better about this.

I also need to practice at having a more grateful heart, instead of envying another friend who recently moved to Lancaster, PA and its bounty of CSAs and ethically-grown local produce and animals. Wistfully remembering Temple U.'s job offer to the husband for six times the salary he plans to receive in China. I just finished reading Sandra Steingraber's Raising Elijah: Protecting Our Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis, you see. This science writer's Having Faith: An Ecologist's Journey to Motherhood about her pregnancy with her daughter had been a real support and guide during my own pregnancy with my son. It was what clinched the case for me to have a completely natural birth, to avoid exposure to pollution and chemicals as much as possible. that avoidance was worth the trouble. Now, her most recent book opens my eyes to the poorly-regulated chemical practices all around us and how they impact our children--the demographic most vulnerable to toxins of every kind. But I am moving soon to the country that is currently No.1 in the amount of CO2 being dumped into the atmosphere. Just an example of how the land is being misused.

The fact that we're moving specifically to a city known for its environmental beauty doesn't abate my concerns much. It's the best case scenario, certainly, but any beginner in studying ecology and natural resources can tell you that the natural world is interconnected. Pollutants know no boundaries. What are we to do?

I will keep packing for now, and get good rest when I can. (I feel tired all the time...anemia again?) Another friend recently gifted me with a book by Ann Voskamp called One Thousand Gifts in which Voskamp seems to suffer bouts of depression as I do and practices eucharisteo (thanksgiving) by making a list of a thousand things in everyday life that she considers gift from God. Perhaps I will do the same.