Getting Energy, by a 7-year-old

The outdoors is an incredible tonic for anyone. Most parents, who can, will send their kids outside when the kids get grumpy or lethargic or bored. Works like a charm.

We have sent our daughter outside to play, looking at each other and saying, "for energy." As in, to burn. As a small child's, though, it sounded different. I finally learned her perspective as the weather turned warmer here this very spring:

She says, "I want to go outside to get some energy." ("Yes, please!" says the harried parent.)

Now, though, I think she's really caught on to something. When you get more exercise, for instance, you have more energy. When you get fresh air (oxygen) you have more energy. When you get the sun's rays to produce Vitamin D that's a good thing, as Vitamin D helps boost the immune system and is seriously implicated as an anti-depressant. (For a lot of "anecdotal" evidence, all you really have to do is look at people's faces on a sunny day after a series of rainy days.)

She's on to even more: Imagine how many television sets would be off if we were outside. And how many computers would be in idle mode. And how much less we would be eating (the high-energy cost foods) out of boredom. And how we could tolerate more temperature extremes if we were out in them more often. We would use less of the planet's energy resources.

Maybe we should all be going outside more to "get some energy."

Consciousness, by a 3-year-old

When my nephew was 3 years old he did not like going to bed. Well, he probably still doesn't. His parents stopped fighting it, and just waited until he fell over and then put him to bed. I know this, because I was with him for about a week when he was 3 years old.

I became his very favorite person for a little while. One night, well after he had taken his bath and put on his pajamas and stayed up well past his bedtime, he tried to get me to move. Mind you, he was so tired that he was doing the drunken-sailor on a ship in a hurricane routine. He kept pulling on me to go play, instead of talking with the boring adults.

Finally, he crawled into my lap to whisper his secret to staying conscious:

"Ya gotta keep MOOOOvin' ! "

Perhaps that's the secret to being aware, to living consciously: Ya gotta keep MOOOvin' !

NaPoWriMo

It is National Poetry Month. It is also National Poetry Writing Month, abbreviated as in the title, and which will eventually be shortened to NPWM.

The goal of NMP is to promote poetry. You have enjoyed poetry, whether or not you realize it. For instance, think of any Dr. Seuss book. Tada! You remember it! Our brains remember rhythms and songs differently than we remember prose and conversation.

I digress here: That we remember rhythm and song differently makes me wonder if Alzheimer's patients could somehow remember what they loved better if we made those people, activities, memories, into song. I choose to give that a shot with a dear gentleman that I know.

The musical "Cats" is being performed here in Boise now. It's inspiration comes from t.s. eliot's "The Naming of Cats." See, sometimes poems are a lot of fun!

Enjoy.