writing wednesdays: follow the butterfly
Not long ago as the little boys and I were making our way to the park, we stopped dead in our tracks at the sight of this creature that had fallen into our path. Butterflies are such beautiful creatures, aren't they? They are so symbolic of life and our ongoing struggle to find our wings.
I don't mention butterflies in today's writing post, but you'll see them scattered about in the photos I've shared of my "new and improved" office space. I certainly feel that this butterfly represents my ongoing, often exhilarating journey toward wing discovery.
Come "visit" Peace Garden Writer today if you have a moment to spare. Check out what I've done to create the right space for my new venture. And don't forget to look for the butterflies!
PGM
Posted by: Roxane B. Salonen on 7/27/2010 at 12:13 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Tags: butterflies, finding wings, office space, peace, room renovation
sunday-monday update: outings and radio show
The cousins meet up for a tennis duel
Well, July is slipping past at a mighty hurried rate, but summer hasn't gotten away completely just yet. Our oldest son remains at his paternal grandparents' lake town, and today, we brought our youngest daughter to Jamestown to drop her off with my parents, who brought her back to Bismarck with them. Tomorrow, she'll leave on her first plane ride, to the West Coast with my mother (Grandma Jane).
For the past days, we've been busy collecting everything she would need for her trip (including an umbrella -- it's Washington, after all). Among the most important items aside from the umbrella were a journal, her new digital camera and a Rosary. The latter is always helpful to have on plane rides; something tangible to grab during a moment of anxiety to offer up a quick prayer for safety and solace. I've always been offered reassurance by having Rosary beads in hand on flights, and I think the idea gave her some extra reassurance as well. I mentioned it last night and she came searching for it this morning.
I'm proud of her for packing everything herself (with help from me on the lists of items), and very excited for her. Wish I could be a mouse in her suitcase, but it's such a blessing that she has this opportunity, just as her older siblings have in years past and her younger brothers will in years to come, God willing. And part of the deal is that she'll be away from all of us, able to enjoy a new part of the world on her own, with her grandmother's gentle guidance.
I'm also popping on here during my "gone fishing" summertime break to offer the schedule for tomorrow's Real Presence Live radio show, which I'll be hosting from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Moorhead studio. For those interested in listening online, you can go here. Locals can catch it on 1280 AM Moorhead-Fargo or 1370 Grand Forks.
9 a.m., Sue Goehring on an upcoming Cursillo Campout event
9:15 a.m., Mary Olson, St. James Basilica, Communion of Saints event this weekend (Sunday, July 25) in Jamestown
9:30 a.m., freelance writer, editor and award-winning columnist Christina Capecchi on one of her latest projects, Tobias magazine, and her recent trip to the Holy Land
10 a.m., Paul Lier, Director of Stewardship and Development, Diocese of Fargo, on the Bishop's Charity Golf Tournament
10:30 a.m., Patti Maguire Armstrong, mother of ten, on her books/life as an author-mother in Bismarck
Perhaps if I'm lucky, I'll learn that you were among our morning listeners.
Peace to all in the week ahead!
Posted by: Roxane B. Salonen on 7/18/2010 at 7:03 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Tags: radio schedule, real presence live radio, summertime plane trip, tennis in the summertime
writing wednesdays: the lady who fell out of the sky
It feels strange posting two days in a row, especially since I'm still "gone fishing," but I promised Forum column updates and continued posts to my writing blog, so here's the latest, "Delila: The Lady Who Fell Out of the Sky."
And while I'm at it, it's only fair to post a collage of the latest grandkid-at-laketown excursion.
Enjoy!
PGM
Posted by: Roxane B. Salonen on 7/14/2010 at 12:28 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink
forum column july 2010: science educates 'the talk'
Parenting Perspectives: Science Educates 'The Talk'
By Roxane B. Salonen, The Forum
While at a family-friendly eatery with my preteen daughters recently, I was taken aback as two teen girls in a nearby booth began freely discussing intimate details of their dating lives.
Hoping my daughters wouldn’t hear, I watched in dismay as they began to tune in, eyes widening.
Let’s just say some of the appetizers went untouched.
My conflicted feelings were as much for the older girls, who I couldn’t help but feel have been unknowingly deceived by our culture’s “if it feels good, do it” mentality, a message set in motion 40 years ago that has wreaked havoc on our youth.
Back when I was learning about sexually transmitted diseases, it seemed like only a few existed. Now, despite “safer sex,” the list has grown to 25 different varieties. And it seems like the number of infected people is growing.
According to the American Social Health Association, 750,000 Americans carry human papillomavirus and 4 million people have contracted chlamydia. Two-thirds of all STDs occur in ages 25 or younger.
Girls under 20 have been hardest hit, due in large part to an immature cervix especially vulnerable to STDs because of its thinner transformation zone, an area that thickens and offers more protection against disease as a female matures.
I’d learned all this the same week of the aforementioned restaurant encounter through the work of Miriam Grossman, M.D.
In her two books, Unprotected (2007) and You’re Teaching My Child What? (2009), Grossman, a campus psychiatrist, offers strong scientific evidence against the ability of young people to make smart sexual choices without guidance.
Many have been prevented from hearing the evidence, Grossman says, because of a prevailing sex-education agenda that advocates sexual intimacy at whatever age the person (child) deems right.
Grossman cites Columbia University’s reputable “Go Ask Alice” website as one place that offers advice on sexuality that can put teens in harm’s way.
Sources like this, she says, fail to introduce facts about such things as oxytocin, a powerful hormone that stimulates mother-child bonding but also can be triggered by a kiss or even a hug just 20 seconds in duration.
Oxytocin acts on the brain’s reward center, she explains, sending the message, “Now I’m with someone special. I can relax and trust.”
Helpful as oxytocin is at the right moment, it can hamper judgment when ill-timed.
Add to that what we’ve discovered through neuroscience about the frontal lobe, the reasoning part of our brain, and its relative ineptness in adolescence. Teens are much more apt to act on emotion rather than sound judgment. Just ask your auto rental company.
Girls, who possess higher amounts of oxytocin, are especially vulnerable to being smitten by a testosterone-flooded young man who might be uninterested in sticking around when an STD or pregnancy occurs.
Though some might be tempted to view Grossman’s revelations as faith-based fear tactics, compelling biological facts cannot be ignored by anyone acting on behalf of our youth.
But facts aside, Grossman says organizations like the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States and Planned Parenthood consistently tell teens to listen to their own hearts on the matter.
Some good news comes from a poll Grossman cites that points to teens being highly influenced by parents in their decision to delay sexual activity.
Our children are listening to us, after all.
As luck would have it, I’d just shared some facts about oxytocin with my girls in the minivan before our arrival at the restaurant with the chatty teen girls. So instead of feeling powerless in that situation, I was able to give them a real-life example of why my daughters ought to be particularly mindful of their choices in this regard.
I’ll admit, a part of me wanted to gather up those girls in the next booth and share with them – in a gentle way – what I’ve learned, to help them feel cherished and empowered enough to reconsider their dangerous choices.
The best I can do is keep talking to my own kids and sharing information with other parents. Armed with scientific facts, fully developed frontal lobes and love, we can lead our children toward happiness and health.
Roxane B. Salonen works as a freelance writer and children’s author in Fargo, where she and her husband, Troy, are the parents of five children.
Posted by: Roxane B. Salonen on 7/13/2010 at 8:29 AM | Comments (4) | Permalink
Tags: oxytocin, parenting perspectives, sexual choices, stds
gone fishing
Yes, that's me fishing at age 6 in a little corner of the world called Crandle Lake in Northeast Montana. My father loved to fish, and I was generally the eager adventurer, so fishing it was. This is one of my favorite pictures of childhood. For one, in order for this photo to happen, my Dad had to have thought ahead to bring a camera. I'm wearing handmade clothes my grandmother made, and those soft hair ties we used to wear -- Mom put them in. It was a windy day so my father threw his sweater around my shoulders. He had such toasty sweaters! And there I was in the peace-filled outdoors, waiting for the fish to bite and hanging with Daddy.
Sometimes we need that, don't we? We just need to get away from it all -- the older sister who always seems ready to pick a fight, the messy room, the hum-drum of home. We just need to pack up a lunch, the tackle box and an ice-filled cooler and head out. Summer's as good a time as any to go looking for solitude.
I'm finding I need it too at this juncture in the summer. I need to remove myself for just a little while from the active, busy world of blogging, camp out somewhere cool, and do what needs being done. In particular, I have two projects that are calling to me, urgently. The summer has started off well, and now I feel ready to tackle those projects. But I can't do it if I am also thinking up the next blog post. So I'm going to pull back just long enough to get at those projects and feel like I've made progress on them.
As writers, we need to conserve our writing time. It's hard-won at times. Writing well requires a lot of mental energy. I'm setting out to do that. When I return, I expect to come back revived and readier than ever to engage with the blogging community I've come to adore.
I think this break will be good for all of us. I'll keep my comments open, and I might even come back now and again to post a photo or two. I'll definitely post things like upcoming newspaper columns -- need to keep the published material flowing along. But the regularly scheduled programming will change a bit, for a month or so, until I can't stand it any longer and feel the strong urge to rejoin you all again.
Thanks for understanding. I truly hope you all have a wonderful rest of the summer. I look forward to the end-of-summer reunion!
Hasta luego (until later),
PGM
P.S. I am going to keep posting weekly on Peace Garden Writer, so if you enjoy reading my rants about the writing life, they'll be available still on a regular basis, and I might even come back here with a little reminder each week if I think of it.
Posted by: Roxane B. Salonen on 7/08/2010 at 11:23 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
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