I've Got To Move It, Move it

Map My Run Route

Sometimes exercise is the only answer when those extra pounds begin to creep up faster than one would like.  During those times one must draw motivation to reverse the trend from any source available.  Sometimes it’s a friend. Sometimes it’s a quote. Sometimes it’s music.  DreamWorks chose well when they picked the single, "I Like to Move It, Move It," by Reel 2 Reel for an upbeat scene in the movie “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.”  The song has a beat that makes one want to get up and dance; in my case walk. 

I began a walking program about a couple of weeks ago.  I might not like to move it, but I've got to move it.  I weigh more than I should and carried it well for a long while. Lately I've noticed that its been getting a little harder to move in the morning. I’ll call it rusting.  No way do I want to rust before I have to.  So, with the beat of “I Like to Move It, Move It” churning in my head. I got off my butt and began to walk.  I now walk over two miles a day. 

Yes, I’m land bound for the summer; enjoying creature comforts such as television, air conditioning and showers that are actually hot.  The transition from Imagine to the house was way too easy.  I quickly became a couch potato. I surfed the net to my heart’s content, caught up on what was happening in the world and watched movies rented from Red Box.  A routine visit to the doctor’s office included the stepping on the scale ritual.  Of course I took off my shoes and peeked with one eye as the nurse adjusted the weights to balance the scale.  As she announced my weight, reality struck home.  I’ve got to move it!

I’m certainly not alone in my quest to improve my overall fitness.  Advertising proves that. Ads designed to capture American’s desires to become skinnier, stronger and healthier flashes on television, billboards, magazine pages, websites, and even on the side of public transportation.  Today’s technology offers a myriad of options to help one get fit.  There's one neat little app that can be downloaded onto the smart phone.  “Map My Run” not only logs one’s walk, it counts calories burned, tracks one’s pace and time and it maps your walk... or run via the GPS locater on the phone.  After walking one can even enter what one eats to track nutrition stats.

Before the walk begins, I turn the phone’s location services on, slip the phone in my pocket and get moving. At each mile increment the phone announces my pace and time. Since I'm a feedback junkie, I walk further than I would have.  Each day I try to decrease my time as I compete against myself. Whatever encourages me to move a little further is a plus.  Of course music helps one to quicken the pace.  Music travels from the smart phone, through the wires and into the ear buds attached to my head. Starting the walk with “I Like to Move It, Move It” sets the tone.   Isn’t technology amazing?

The first days of walking were tough.  Getting into the routine was easier once I learned to open my senses along the way.  I began to enjoy the warmth of the sun on my shoulders contrasting with the cool of the shade as I passed under a tree.  Mentally I measured the length of shadows as the sun rose higher and delighted in the discovery of wildflowers along the route.  Identifying the wildflowers I’d pass proved to be another trick that made the walk seem shorter. 

The imagination quickly travels into prose and trips down memory lane as a Trumpet Vine climbs skyward on a pole, tendrils reaching out in space with nowhere to grab.  Bacon and Eggs and bright yellow Buttercups grow in a ditch along the way. Does anyone remember holding a buttercup under someone’s chin to look for a yellow reflection?  If there was a reflection, your friend was supposed to like butter.  A fuzzy dandelion reminds me of the summer we picked peach baskets of the golden flowers for lady in Sharptown who made dandelion wine.  Purple Clover, pink Marsh Mallow, blue and white Chicory, orange-salmon Day Lilies and dainty white Asters catch my attention as I walk on.  Music and musings make for a delightful walk.

My goal is to do a 5K walk/run before summer ends.  Since 5K equals to 3.1 miles, the goal is within site.  The weight added prior to the doctor’s visit has been lost along with a couple of extra pounds.  My husband ever the jokester, suggested that we didn’t need a scale.  He said that all we had to do was to measure the waterline of the boat.  If the waterline is higher when we move back on in the fall then I obviously was successful in my quest.  Ha! Ha!

It’s nearing the end of year three of our two-year plan to live aboard Imagine.  It looks as if there will be a year four ahead.  Currently I am enjoying being land bound for a while.  I’ll keep on walking and enjoying each moment before land and floors once again give way to seas and decks.  

Landbound for a While

We're definitely not in Kansas anymore... nor are we at sea living on Imagine.  A weekend trip to visit daughter, Suzanne and husband Mike, on the farm in Telford, PA became a study in urban sprawl and traffic jams.  While they live secluded on the nine acre farm where they raise horses, goats and chickens, the trip there and back makes me want to head back to the sea.


Cars zoom down the windy road and blind curves that lead to the farm.   Getting out of the driveway calls for full attention.  Toll booths and traffic backups are to be expected on the trip that should only take about an hour and 15 minutes.  Today we spent nearly an hour in a traffic jam that turned the highways in to northbound and southbound parking lots.   After stop, go and rest for nearly an hour we discovered the cause.


Rubbernecking. Six cars were pulled to the side of the road while two Pennsylvannia State Troopers stood taking statements from some of the drivers of the the pile-up.  There were some bent fenders and frustrated looking motorists standing by their cars in the 95 plus degree weather.


Amazing... as soon as we passed, traffic sped up to above the speed limit.  On the northbound side cars remained parked in their two lane parking as we moved south.  Nearing Chester, traffic slowed again... no surprise there.  Inside the car the grandchildren napped.  We finally arrived home nearly two and a half hours after we left the farm.


I can describe many adventures about sailing.  We've yet to run into a traffic jam... unless one counts the backup at the drawbridges as boats line up in queue waiting for the bridge to open.

June Calls Us Home

It’s late June and the majestic Queen Anne’s Lace stands regally along the roadside.  It rises out of the ditches surrounded by soft light blue streams of chicory.  Orange day lilies bow and sway as a car zooms past.  Rows of bright green corn with newly emerged tassels stand sentry in the background.  If one looks closely one can spot nearly ripened wild blackberries growing in more tangled areas. The flora signals summertime has arrived. It signals the time of year that the Sparks clan to head towards Sharptown and to the home where they were raised. 

This year all have returned to the nest.  My sisters are here, all six of them and also my two brothers.  If one is counting, that makes nine.  The siblings have arrived from North Carolina, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Connecticut. Four siblings have remained in Salem County and didn't have far to go. The roomy Sharptown home where they were raised waits for them as does Mom and Dad. Michael, the youngest sibling, is now 45.  I tip out on the other end, the oldest, at 56.  Our children range from six to 36. There are 23 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren. The big house fills with laughter and noise. It is full again for a while.

Sparks Family 2012

The Sparks kids have not been children for a long time. But when we come together, we are children in spirit.   We laugh at the old times.   When grandson Ian, who is 29, catches a garter snake curled in the wheel well of sister Alice’s Indiana van, we share memories with the younger generation; of the time that Mom was driving down the road and a mouse crawled out of the fur collar of her coat.  Believe me there was a lot of screaming in the car that day and it wasn’t only Mom.

We share memories of pulling weeds in the garden and selling strawberries in front of the house.   We remember going muskrat trapping with Dad and helping him to skin and stretch the aquatic rats.  In the summer we would all jump into the back of Dad’s old pickup truck and head to Ocean City for the day.   The nine of us would ride in the back along with Judy Price, Susan, Bruce and Stephan Foster.   It was what people did back then.   There were no cars seats or seatbelt laws.  The wind would blow through our hair and flatten our cheeks as we excitedly anticipated eating the sand sprinkled bologna sandwiches and frolicking in the waves. Of course we came home sunburned and tired, it’s a lot of work “jumping those rollies,” as Dad would say.  Sometimes, Dad would stop on the way home and would buy ice-cream cones.  I bet they hated seeing us all line up at the window.  We were far from rich, but we never did without. 

Snake Handling

Dad was a pipefitter at DuPont.  Mom was a homemaker.  In the summer we ate food fresh from the garden where we helped dad plant the corn, tie up the limas and hoe between the rows. My sister Vivian summed it up when she told Dad and Mom, “While we didn’t have much like kids today, we had parents who disciplined us.  We had parents who taught us how to work hard and to give back.  They taught us right from wrong.  “I had a childhood that is rich in experience and memories. I have the best Mom and the best Dad in the world and I could never ask for more.”   The funny thing is that all nine of us have said the same thing over the years.

I know how lucky I am.  My entire family can still gather and enjoy each other’s company.   We weigh a little more; crow’s feet have formed at the corners of our eyes. There is sometimes a little stiffness as we get up in the morning. No matter what our physical bodies look like, when we are together we are children again.  And we have one thing in common.  It is our love for each other and for our parents.  Raising children of our own has taught us all something about the challenge of parenting and what our parents sacrificed for us.

Most importantly, we still have our parents with us.   Each year we watch our parents age a little more.  Dad’s dark brown hair that lasted through his seventies is finally giving way to gray.  Mom walks more slowly and seems quieter.  She worries about Dad and he about her.  Sister Peggy’s eyes flash concern as she watches Dad walk across the yard.  She comes home a couple of times the year and the change in our parents seems more dramatic to her.   Sisters Linda, Nancy and Vivian and brother Jimmy, live nearby and check in on our parents regularly.  Brother Michael from North Carolina understands the importance of his time together with our parents.

Our family has been blessed for many years.  We are intact.  As young children we would often fight and would gather the troops.  We would convince as many of our siblings as possible to be on “our side.”  (I’m surprised none of us ever entered politics.)  We may agree to disagree on many issues, but the well being of our parents is one area that will always bring us together.   For now it is the green of late June that brings us home.   For now we enjoy and appreciate the family we have around us.  For now we watch the Queen’s Anne’s Lace nodding ever so slightly in the breeze and remember childhood bouquets of wildflowers that we would pick and arrange.   This column is dedicated to my siblings… Peggy, Jimmy, Linda, Nancy, Carol, Vivian, Alice, and Michael. I love you all.  

Crayons, the color of life

Melted Crayon Art by Nancy and Sarah

Recent graduates have one thing in common.  At one time, and not so many years ago, they knew that magic lives in a box of Crayons.  It doesn’t matter if one is eight or eighty; the tinted wax sticks bring smiles, brightness and color to the world.  Last week my granddaughter, a recent kindergarten graduate, and I carefully picked our favorite crayons to color a flower and a sky. Suddenly I remember the magic.

I realize how much the Crayons I have used from my earliest memories have painted my life, my thinking processes and who I am today. Modern writers have described how colors can impact self-image and direction in life.  Musician and author Shel Silverstein’s verse “Colors,” goes like this.  “My skin is kind of sort of brownish
pinkish yellowish white.  My eyes are greyish blueish green, But I'm told they look orange in the night. My hair is reddish blondish brown, 
But it's silver when it's wet. 
 And all the colors I am inside
have not been invented yet.   Louis L’Amour stated, “All education is self-education.  A teacher is only a guide, to point out the way, and no school, no matter how excellent, can give you education.  What you receive is like the outlines in a child's coloring book.  You must fill in the colors yourself." 

  

The kindegarten graduate

As I sail along in life, I invent my own unique names for colors as I try to describe the fleeting glimpses of nature’s beauty. The harbors, bays, sounds and oceans I’ve crossed are full of color.  The sunsets are phenomena of unparalleled beauty.   Each day brings colors of deep blues and greens to bright pinks, oranges and aquamarines.   Many of the colors are found in a box of Crayons.   Palms, sea grapes, orchids and causarina pines also reflect the spectrum of greens, silvers, and browns created by the Crayon LLC. 


Underway, I create colors to help describe the nuancs of ever-changing vistas. Imagine plows through the surf   and I invent Sea Foam White.  In my mind the color is a bubbly kind of white with tones of grey and green that ever so subtly give body to the color.   Sometimes when the sun shines bright, the ocean appears almost purple, not quite the Violet Blue once found in a box of crayons, but more of a Dark Royal Purple Blue.  I’ve yet to find the perfect color for the beautiful clear blue waters of the Bahamas. Perhaps Crayola could create a Bahamas Blue that would fit somewhere    between Aquamarine, Jungle Green and Pacific Blue.

Bahamas Blue

The magical world of Crayons began when cousins Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith founded a company to produce pigments for industrial use in New York City during 1885.  Early products used red iron oxide for barn paint and carbon black chemicals to make car tires black.  According to Wikipedia, the inexpensive black colorants earned the young company a gold medal at the 1900 Paris Exposition.    Slate school pencils were added to the line later that year and soon after experiments with slate waste, cement and talc led to the first dustless white chalk, earning the company another gold medal at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.

The first boxes of Crayons made a debut in 1903 with an eight-color pack.  Over time the variety of colors increased, reaching a high of 120 shades 95 years later in 1998.   Since that time, Wikipedia states that while new colors have been added, the new hues always replace existing colors.  Since 1958, 13 colors have been retired, (making a total of 133 colors over time) while others have been renamed.  Crayola retired Blue Gray, Lemon Yellow, Orange Red, Orange Yellow, Violet Blue, Maize, Green Blue, Raw Umber, Thistle, Blizzard Blue, Mulberry, Teal Blue and Magic Mint.  Blue Gray and Orange Yellow were two of my favorites.  As social awareness and sensitivity to cultural issues rose to the forefront, Crayola renamed several of their colors.

In 1962, Flesh became Peach for obvious reasons.  Mentalfloss.com suggests that perhaps the Civil Rights movement may have influenced that move.  Indian Red created in 1958 to help fill the new 64-count box was changed to Chestnut in 1999.   At the time the company warned children not to warm “this Chestnut over a fire,” as crayons melt at 105 degrees.  Earlier Prussian Blue became Midnight to avoid political associations.    Perhaps it was these changes that Robert Fulghum, author of “All I Really Needed to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten, thought of when he wrote, “We could learn a lot from crayons; some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names, but they all have learned to live together in the same box.” 

As adults many of us still love the smell and feel of Crayons.  Both take us back to a time when life was simpler.  My niece Sara, and her mother Nancy, recently used Crayons and a blow dryer to create melted Crayon posters.  I pick up each of my granddaughter’s crayons from the carrousel where they stand like soldiers.  I pull out the glasses to read the new colors, Jazzberry, Wild Blue Yonder and Dandelion.  Of course I have to try them out.  My granddaughter colors thoughtfully beside me.  I imagine the hues that she will chose to color within the outlines of her life.  I hope she colors herself with tints of Kindness, Curiosity, Loyalty and Love, Courage, Steadfastness, Patience, and Charity.  Thank you Smith and Binney.