July 30, 2006 - Day 5 - Week 17 - Cape Cod

Sixty four straight summers, a portion of each spent at the exact same location in Harwichport,  Massachusetts.  Or, as Laura Kreitler used to say as a small child, we go to Cape and Cod in the summer.  Named because of the abundance of cod fish in the waters surrounding Cape Cod, times are radically changing in many parts of the world we love, and sadly for us on the Cape as well.

Because of little heavy industry through the years the Cape has remained relatively pristine, though crowded and noisy in the summer, the quality of the air, water, and sandy soil is relatively good, but the baseline is rapidly shifting.  Each generation lowers expectations, while accepting the status quo as normal.  In other words, what my grandchildren see today is vastly different than what I experienced as a boy, but they see the natural world as still pretty spectacular.  We shift the baseline automatically and yet the changes are evident.

Gone are the delicate puffer fish, steamers and bay scallops, and lobsters from Nantucket Sound.  Where there was once a variety of plentiful fish today to be enjoyed by all, there are now Portuguese men of war to be avoided by all.  Yet, to the new visitor or next generation the abundance of seals, seagulls, and hot days signals a healthy environment.

We have a tendency to do the same thing with our own health and vitality.  How often I remember my father commenting that getting old is no fun.  Friends from all persuasions lament the aging process because capabilities diminish in many areas.  The baseline for what we expect from our health shifts.  We are willing to do with less energy, strength, and vitality, while accepting more illness, and today cancer as inevitable.  Recently a good buddy said that he was resigned to the fact that he will get cancer some day because everyone he knows is getting it.  The baseline is shifting rapidly and there is a resignation setting in with my generation.  The next generation is simply accepting the inevitability cancer as a part of their future.

Wow!  This is a staggering turn of events. If we keep shifting the environmental baseline we will be content to see animals in zoos and glaciers in documentaries.  Apply this same principle to our own health and we lament what our grandchildren face. There is no reason to accept that our bodies will deteriorate faster and faster.  In similar fashion, I will not acknowledge that cancer is inevitable, irrespective of what the statistics tell us. Resignation of what appears likely is not an option.

Restorative health mirrors the restoration of our fragile eco systems that are being compromised with the same ingredients.  Pollution degrades the breath of life without discrimination, yet each day we can make choices to restore the baseline to what once was.  The choice is very clear.