Consider this:

Hey, Graduates! Smell Your Lunch Meat.

Chances are, by the time you read this, my son will have graduated from 8^th grade. Now, there will be some amongst you who say, meh, 8^th grade, no big deal. Part of me totally gets that. When I graduated about a hundred years ago from “intermediate school” in New Zealand, the only celebration I remember was destroying the red kilt I’d worn daily for two years as part of my school uniform. I know for some people, the idea of celebrating 8^th grade is just one more example of the “Show Up. Get A Medal” mentality ascribed to Millennials (and the subsequent “iGeneration” kids) these days.

Whatever.

Today, before I help transform the school gym from stinky to swank for tomorrow night’s dance, I’ve got other things to think about. Worry about, I mean. Confession: I’m terrified that today my son might die.

Why? Because he’s spending the day on a lovely, chaperoned, lunch-is-provided, all-day excursion with his classmates to a beautiful local beach.

I completely understand your terror, you’re thinking.

No. You’re not.

But oh, the places I go. In the dark of night. When everyone is asleep, except for me and a few ransacking raccoons. For me, nighttime is the right time to start obsessing about Mortal Threats and Dangers such as:

1. Buses. Exactly who is driving the busloads of teens to the beach today? Are they all seasoned, professional drivers with impeccable records? Will they mind the speed limit? Do they know the beach road has one S-turn after another? Plus, sheer cliff on one side. And seat belts. Why in God’s name are there no seat belts on buses, anywhere, ever?
2. Riptides. Who read the riptide report at 3am? I did. Well, I planned to read it, but instead Google provided me with more interesting food for thought: “Visitors Rescue Kids From Riptide Amid Risky Conditions,” reported one article. “Emergency Responders Describe Dangers Of Northern California Coastline,” explained another. When I did get to the riptide report, I learned today would be a great day for “head and high surf and better sets at well exposed spots” and that “beach breaks [will] see peaky shape.” I have no idea what any of that means, but at 3:45am, “peaky shapes” sure sounded ominous.
3. Sharks. Oh my god. Are “peaky shapes” fins?
4. Alligators. Okay, I admit I wasn’t really worried about alligators today. But this morning I woke up to the utterly awful news about the alligator attack at the Disney resort lagoon, so I’m just going to start assuming hungry alligators are e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. (Or, at least, everywhere my kids plan to be.)

After running through this very orderly list, my exhausted brain kicked into overdrive to make sure I was equally aware of bus-sickness, food poisoning from the lunch-is-provided deli meat, suffocation and death caused by middle school boys digging an enormous hole in the sand and being buried alive when it collapses (this is a real thing, people!) and… I don’t know what came next because sometime around 6:00am, I finally fell asleep.

When my alarm went off an hour later, I dragged myself to the kitchen. My almost graduate was calmly preparing a few snacks and packing his bag with his towel, bathing suit and a football.

“Did I tell you how to get out of a riptide?” I mumbled by way of a greeting.

He rolled his eyes at me and continued filling a snack bag with Goldfish.

“Sit near the front of the bus to avoid motion sickness,” I blathered on, pouring salt instead of sugar into my tea and stirring it with a fork. “Don’t distract the driver unless it’s an emergency. Do you have enough sunblock? Smell the lunch meat before you eat it, okay? And if you’re hot, you can cool down by getting your feet wet. Up to your ankles is perfect.”

Friends, in my defense, I’m not usually like this. (Also in my defense: I confessed my field trip fears to a few other moms, and I found one pal who could totally relate. She knows who she is. Solidarity, sister.) Yet something about this graduation is getting me but good. My first-born is on the brink of a huge milestone, and it’s not about graduating from middle school. It’s not even about starting high school.

I know I’m not alone in feeling like these first 14 years of parenthood have simply flown by. Like everyone else, we’ve counted off momentous milestones, unexpected challenges, incredible joys and incredible frustrations all along the way. As fast as these years as passed, I suspect we’re on the brink of shifting into warp speed. Like it or not, love, loss, failure, achievement, disappointment and surprise (not necessarily in this order) all lie in wait. I’ve learned first-hand the adage “Little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems” is absolutely true. So I’m pretty certain that life’s intensity is going to ratchet up right along with the pace of time passing. I know deep breaths will be in order.

Right now, as I wait for a phone call from my boy when he steps off the bus, safely back at the middle school with windswept hair, sun-reddened cheeks and grainy sand between his toes, I’m thinking about those crazy S-turns on the way to the beach. Blind corners like those may cause motion sickness. They might be dangerous. They can even be deadly. But today, all I can hope for is this: if we all proceed with a just a little caution – if we follow the speed limit, buckle our seat belts and smell the lunch meat before we eat it – then all of us, if we’re lucky, will make it safely around each crazy hairpin turn ahead.

Cook this:

Nut Seed Coconut Crunch

Here’s another quick, easy recipe for a yummy snack that’s not pretzels. (It’s gluten free, too, in case that’s important to you.) I’ve adapted it from this original recipe from the fantastic The Healthy Mind cookbook by Rebecca Katz.

Nut Seed Coconut Crunch

Note: I use whatever nuts or seeds I happen to have in the pantry. If you don’t have the exact ingredients on hand, experiment!

1 cup raw sunflower seeds (or pumpkin)

½ cup each pecans, almonds, cashews or pistachios, for one cup total (ie, ½ cup pecans and ½ cup cashews)

½ cup unsweetened coconut flakes

¼ cup sesame seeds

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

½ tsp ground allspice

½ tsp sea salt

1/3 cup Grade B maple syrup

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine nuts, seeds, coconut, spices and salt. Then add maple syrup and vanilla, and mix until everything is coated.

Spread the sticky mixture on the lined baking sheet, and use a spatula to pat and press it into a layer about 1/8 inch thick. Flatten the middle so it’s a little thinner than the middle, which will help with even cooking.

Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown. This crunch will get crunchier as it cools. When it’s completely cool, break into pieces and start popping ‘em in your mouth!

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Read this:

The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2012

I really don’t know how Adam Johnson wrote this mesmerizing book. Set in North Korea under the tyrannical control of the “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il, Johnson writes about one man’s struggle to not just stay alive, but to somehow live, in a country filled with propaganda, brutality and absurdity. When he visited North Korea for research, Johnson could get only a superficial glimpse of real life in the repressive culture. Here’s a quote from Johnson’s interview on Bookpage describing his five-day trip:

“You’d walk down the street in throngs of thousands and thousands of people. I’m six foot four and a half and 280 pounds. I’m a big guy. And these people weigh like 130 pounds. There are four shoe styles for men in North Korea; there’s one shade of lipstick for women; it’s so surreal to see the sameness of everyone. I would walk through these crowds of people and they wouldn’t dare to look at me. It was a risk. So it was really clear that not a single spontaneous thing could happen there. It was just too dangerous to look at the strangest human you’d ever seen.”

Despite having such limited access to the truth about his surroundings, the author manages to depict, often in terrifying, excruciating detail, daily life filled with government-sponsored broadcasts and regular sweeps of citizens for forced labor, not to mention prison camps built for unimaginable torture. The Orphan Master’s Son follows Pak Jun Do as he dutifully fulfills his government-determined role as tunnel soldier, kidnapper and translator. Later he serves time in a prison camp – an experience that changes him, and his fate, forever.

Award worthy: Yes, yes, yes – but be warned: some scenes are so graphic and intense I could barely read them.