A few weeks ago I woke up with a lot of climate anxiety. I could hear rain on the roof of our house – rain that 50 years ago might have been snow or sleet. We had just returned from a trip to New York City where it had also rained on an unseasonably warm December evening. I had global temperature charts and thoughts about crazy weather stressing me out before I even got out of bed.
When I came downstairs, the first thing my kids wanted to do was play with toys that we brought back from the city. As a parent I’m used to suspending whatever anxiety or “grown up things” are on my mind to enjoy my kids in the moment. On this particular day I found myself playing with, of all things, Magic Snow. It really is pretty cool. You add water to this very fine powder and it grows into a fluffy snow that we played with for an hour or more before school. On the inside I was wondering if at some point magic snow would be the only snow left. On the outside I was laughing and enjoying myself and the simple joy of parenthood
Since that day, my five-year-old asked several times if we were going to have a white Christmas and whether it was going to snow at all this winter. My niece also recently asked her mom if it was going to snow this winter and when she heard it might not immediately said, “We have to compost!!” Sometimes parenting feels a little bit like the movie “Room” where you are creating a reality within the safety and coziness of your house, neighborhood, etc. On the other hand, while I do want to keep my anxiety to myself, I don’t want to try and keep reality out more than I have to. I want to start to bring in age-appropriate books and conversations about climate change just like I want to do with other complex topics. This experience also pushed me to focus on solutions rather than abstract fears and sadness for a lost planet that we haven’t even entirely lost. So, yes, I’m going to continue to compost and I want to start buying carbon offsets again. I’m probably going to buy a children’s book like Bright New World or one of these. While I read about a hopeful future to my kids I hope to start to believe it for myself.
Highways and Hallowed Halls 