A year ago we were raising money for Haiti. This year we are gathering supplies for Japan.
I find it difficult to hold my heart still when confronted by devastation beyond my capacity to help or comprehend. Alongside the daily bump and hustle to get my family through our days more or less intact, my mind circles around to conflicts I cannot solve, to grandmothers and the too-many babies they are raising because AIDS stole a generation of parents, I find myself thinking our next vacation should be spent swabbing oil-soaked sea creatures, I pick up and then put down clothes or food because of the hidden costs of their production in places whose names I hardly know to speak. Half a world away, which is to say only one or two degrees of separation from our West Coast, families have been torn asunder, children ripped from their parents’ arms by an unstoppable tide and swallowed without a trace in the maw of an earthquake. Pregnant mothers are lying in makeshift beds offering up prayers for the protection of their unborn babies from the radiation that no one can stop. In the face of all this I barely know how to breathe let alone write a blog.
And yet. Despite everything, it is in our nature to carry on, to abide, to go to the marketplace in search of the next meal. In his article Why We Travel for the New York Times, Paul Theroux tellingly observes “the way in which, in the worst situations, life goes on.”
Because I cannot lay a bandage across the knee of a child half a world away, nor will that bandage bring back her village, but because I do believe there is great good in small gestures, here are a few things I have found which might help to heal the visible tears and tangible bruises we all encounter as we cope with the every day living of family life:
Calendula Gel: This homeopathic gel works wonders for all manner of heat rashes, cuts, scratches and skin irritations. It is particularly wonderful for burns. There are many small beige smiles on my arms, singed bits of flesh to remember that too-quickly snatched-from-the-heat dish. Ever since being told to go and find calendula gel (by another infinitely wise mother who saw a particularly nasty blistered gash on my wrist which I was busy ignoring) my burns do not scar. They vanish as if by magic.
Ozonol: Remember the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding with his Windex cure-alls? I feel a bit like that about Ozonol. Smells like medicine, soothes like a salve. It really does work like a charm for one thing every single time: chapped lips. The kind your kids get after a fever, a bad cold, or too long in the elements. Mine were recently ragged from a winter of wear (and if I am to be perfectly honest, from being shredded with worry and fret). I had smeared them with fancy lipstick and poncy lip balm to no avail. Then I remembered the battered tube on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet: after one full day of the Ozonol treatment, I woke up with healed, perfect “kiss-it-better”-able lips.
Witch Hazel: Especially soothing if kept in the fridge. Great for cooling after too much sun, minor irritations, bruises and skin problems of all kinds, including hormone inducted-break outs (cause of periodic teen hysteria). It is also a cure for the occasional invisible hurts incurred after a pillow fight or too much tussling. A perfect go-to for the sorts of head-throbbing which require tending and sympathy and a little white witchery on a cotton ball.
BooBoo Bunny*: This simple ice pack works wonders. Even older kids cannot fail to smile when the chilly bunny comes out of the freezer. Immediate icing of a nasty wasp sting this past summer resulted in an almost-pain free recovery with no soreness or swelling at the site of the sting. Particularly good for extra-itchy mosquito bites and the kind of head bumps that leave a nasty swelling ‘egg’ and teary eyes.
A small Swiss Army Knife: Make sure yours has scissors. This is one of the handiest pieces of mum-equipment I carry. Great for everything from impromptu picnics to splinters, freeing wrists from those impossible balloon strings, first aid, peeling apples. Like the remedies above, when you whisk it out with the correct air of mum-efficiency the problem feels just a little closer to all better.
* When I searched a link for BooBoo Bunny I found them for sale at Amazon and elsewhere online. I also found several links for how-to make your own BooBoo Bunny. If you want neither to buy one nor to make one, a small towel or sock (BooBoo Turtle? BooBoo Snake?) wrapped around an ice cube with a little creative soothing would just as well.
"
Printer-friendly version