It can’t hurt to try to write a daily poem, right? Right? An acquaintance told me of an acquaintance of hers who was going to write a poem a day in an effort at self-improvement. I think a more realistic goal is to take a photo a day. Here’s one of a bird at the old Cedar Avenue bridge. It seems he has new epaulets coming in.
Dandelion stalks’ crisp snap,
And clumsy June bugs I’ve trapped.
I’m alive to a new soil and bug and catkin.
In early summer I feel a melting within.
A really nice trail run there on Sunday. I feel that the place is an all-seasons retreat. A gem. I go there in the summer for birding and hiking and trail runs. In the winter I ski the well-groomed trails. And helping the foundation there remove garlic mustard and buckthorn gives me a sense of ownership of the place.
Being alone on the trails also gives me a sense of ownership. On this Sunday morning there were few or no people around, probably because of the heavy rains the night before that had downed some trees, flooded segments of the trail and let loose waves of mosquitoes.
I also found a snapping turtle by the side of the road. She was relatively small and was trying to scrape a hole to lay eggs in. It didn’t seem like a great spot for eggs. It reminded me of the softshell turtle I witnessed laying eggs on Lake Calhoun’s most crowded beach. I guess they know what they’re doing.
Public health and traffic engineers
Mon 20 May 2013
Although I don’t want to work in the healthcare sector anymore, I feel rewarded when “tabling” for a sexual health clinic in the area. I like meeting adolescents/young people outside of my other job, which is also with young people but in a more formal environment.
Hearing about the latest in public health and the various sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy rates and so on is always interesting. I like talking with the staff and other volunteers about the latest news in the field. One thing that’s clear is that everyone wants young people to happy, healthy and safe. What they disagree about is what resources they need access to in order to attain that state. Many people believe that adolescents should not have easy access to high-quality, inexpensive or free condoms; or that parental consent should be required for pregnancy testing; or that any positive STI result should be reported to parents, and so on.
And sometimes a parent will stop by and share their opinion that young people shouldn’t be exposed to any sexual health information or resources at all if it is not directly through their parents. I often hear variations on the statement, “Well, if the parents would just get involved with their children, then pregnancies/infections wouldn’t happen.”
But I return again and again to an analogy with traffic engineers (bear with me here). When a traffic engineer gathers data indicating that a particular intersection or stretch of highway yields a lot of deadly crashes each year, they act on it. They do not simply shrug and say, “Well, people are just stupid and they need to learn to drive.” Instead they design and implement a new traffic system for that area so that people don’t have to die anymore just for trying to drive to work. The traffic engineer takes responsibility for reducing needless death and injury.
In the same way public health experts, nurses, doctors, volunteers and others see that young people are getting STIs and unintended pregnancies and other problems and they make the effort to help. There is no deferring to parents who either cannot or will not take the needed measures. If young people are contracting diseases as serious as HIV and hepatitis, then the responsibility to intervene rests with adults, all judgement aside.
Included: A Black Dog Lake (Burnsville, MN) photo I took in January. It will all be overgrown when I go back there later this week. Maybe that bald eagle pair will be back as well.
pseudoisaac 