J.S. and son Monty

Intergenerational Description of Joint Project:

This project gave us some peaceful moments while waiting for Grandma to recover from pneumonia at a hospital that has poor infection control such that Clostridium difficile nearly took her life.  The images were a mini-vacation from the stress, mourning, and frustration of battling to keep our mom home and not forced into a nursing home (She was functioning well, climbing stairs and dressing herself, prior to submission to the hospital.  Two weeks in bed where they don't get you up and her teen-like legs atrophied into skin and bones.).  This project provided a needed respite.  Grandma is the one who instilled and instills in so many of us a, "sense of wonder."

Celebration of Rachel Carson’s Sense of Wonder:

We recalled our yearly excursions with the Botanical Society of America, and our frequent nature sojourns with family members.  We looked at the cycles of life.

Poem:

Gifts from Grandma, Grandpa, Dr. Dodd, Jane and Rachel

The crescent moon against a dark sky
Perfectly blended with the tropical air
That followed the morning's rain storms.

A grace of peace emanated
From the moon glow.
Then as morning came

The soft calls of the Mourning Dove
Drew me to the woods, too,
As it drew its mate.

"Find me, find me."  It seemed to coo.
And it drew me to other images
Of birds through time:

The Canada geese and goslings
In the wetland by the ice cream shop
Near my old school,

The wild turkey
Gobbling up the grasses
And insects,

The deep and swing nest
Of the Baltimore  Oriole.  Ask Rachel,
"Where did the bird go?" 

And the bobwhite in the field
Still there amid Jane's garden,
Our wetland woods?

"Oooh, oooh," 'dove calls again
To Iowa Lakeside Laboratory
And its bunnies in dew-filled grass,

And Dodd's algae…
Yes, those diatoms,
Like so many precious jewels

Adorn the lake to the trained eye.
From the huge distance to the moon,
To the tiny, microscopic 'toms,

The sights, scents, and sounds
Of nature bring grandma
Grandpa, you and me,

Generations four,
A sense of wonder
And of awe.