Normal is Over

I just watched the environmental documentary Normal Is Over, and am feeling raw and ashamed and pleading with myself to change. Wanting desperately to do something to make a difference, to turn the tide of planetary destruction we are bringing to the earth.

 

I want to help solve all of the problems – economic, social, environmental, they’re all connected – and at the same time feel so helpless because I feel there is nothing I could possibly do that would actually make a difference. I could stop eating meat, stop using plastic, give up my car and go live on a farm, but what difference would it make in the world? I’m not a changemaker, I’m not an influencer, I don’t have a platform or a presence on any kind of political scene. I could make those changes in my individual life, but I worry that I would do it in isolation – making it not only more difficult, but less effective.

 

How would I actually have to change – to change myself – in order to make a change in the larger picture? That’s a scary question. I want to hide behind not knowing the answer, but I’ve been doing that for years, and I’m ashamed of the consequences.

 

Who would I have to become in order to make a difference?

 

I would have to become passionate, to educate myself, to dive deeply into deeply uncomfortable questions, to form opinions and be willing to stand by my convictions and speak for them – loudly and unceasingly.

 

I would have to step into the larger picture, to be willing to admit to, expose and examine the ways in which I contribute to the problems that scare me, to acknowledge and own my past choices and decide to make new ones.

 

I would have to be vulnerable, to seek community more intentionally, to open my mind to other possibilities.

 

Vulnerable, visible, vocal. Be real, be willing, be strong.

 

Stop expecting “other people” to save this planet and its people, if I’m not willing to do it myself.

 

Teach my child by my choices and the way I live them out every day.

 

Become educated, connect with people, not just books, let myself be inspired all the way to action.

 

Create fearlessly and relentlessly, let it pour through me.

 

Decide what I believe, and live by it. If I’m not willing to save myself, how can I expect to help this planet I call home?

Oregon is Burning

The west coast is on fire right now. Amidst this destruction, I feel an aching urge to create – to write, to draw, to paint – and I feel stifled and disoriented and smothered at the same time. How to touch this heartache with words or colors on paper, when reality is so unreal? How to tune into the pain of the world without losing myself entirely within it? Or maybe that’s the point – to lose myself entirely, to surrender to the burning chaos and finally open my eyes to the heart of the flame.

 

Oh, my home, my beautiful Oregon, how can I hold you when you’re burning? How can I honor your losses when I have known so little of you, when places I’ve never seen exist for me now only in flames and ashes? I want to cherish their beauty but I have no memories to honor, and that is my loss to bear, to grieve and to honor. I ache for the memories I will never have, and for those I long to create.

And so I set out to create small things of beauty in whatever way I can, to bring some light and meaning to this nothingness that engulfs the land. Small things of beauty made up of words, of colors, of lines on paper, that in the end mean nothing but what they stir in the hearts of those who find solace in them. Words and colors on paper, braving the flames, willing to rise and fall as ashes when the burning ends.

 

Without Words

I want to be still, silent, wordless. For all the emotions in myself to become nameless so that, just for once, I can feel them, raw and ready and formless, without instantly trying to label them. To feel rather than to speak. I am too attached to my words sometimes; I strive to conform my life to fit within the vocabulary most familiar to me. I resist writing nonsense, can't make sense of the feelings I can't name, hide behind the ones I can, as if by naming them I am protected from their full intensity. I have been writing for days and I have not cried. Am I really present in this struggle? Or have my words gotten in the way?

Hatch

Moonglow Marsh, Moss Landing, CA.

April 14

11:00 a.m.

Jasmine and I are weeding around the bases of the trees in the marsh, in preparation for weed whacking later in the week. It’s mostly hemlock, much of which has grown taller than my head, tangled in the branches of the willows. Fortunately the ground is soft, and the plants come out of the ground “like butter,” in Jasmine’s words – it’s a rare luxury to weed without shovels for once. I am on my hands and knees, pulling the stalks out of the soft ground. They are the color of the rhubarb I grew in my garden in Portland – mostly green, but dappled all over with red, like they’ve been misted with spray-paint from a distance. (That’s the easiest way to tell young hemlock stalks from the native potentilla that it grows amongst – the stems of that plant have no red.)

I am in my own little world under this tree, happily weeding away, until I tear away a weed and find myself gazing down into a nest, barely bigger than my fist, holding four tiny eggs. It is stoutly constructed, lightly lined with cow hair from the neighboring dairy pasture, and carefully situated in the crook of a low-hanging branch, so that even on my hands and knees I am looking down into it. The eggs are each about the size of the end digit of my thumb, a light blue-grey speckled with brown.

My first reaction is relief, followed closely by self-reproach: why had I not been more careful? I could have knocked the nest over and destroyed those four precious eggs. Resolve to be more careful in the future is again replaced quickly by concern: where is the mother bird? Did I frighten her away? How long has she been gone, and will she return? I worry about the eggs, but there is nothing I can do for them at the moment, so I leave them as they are in the hopes that momma bird will come back.


11:30 a.m.

“Lacey, come over here!” Jasmine calls to me. “I’ve found a nest, and there are baby birds in it!”

It is a second nest, with two baby birds in it, not more than a few days old. They are delicate, fragile, with almost translucent orange-pink skin. Tufts of the most wonderful wispy grey feathers grow long and willy-nilly all over, reminiscent of Einstein, and sleeker black quills are just beginning to show on their tiny wings. They raise their beaks in a silent call for food, familiarity, and protection; it is a blustery day, and in pulling the surrounding hemlock we have removed what must have been an effective windbreak for the little nest. We do our best to nudge the nest more securely into position and to support the wildly bouncing branch with piles of weeds, but the nest looks about to slip from its precarious perch and we are hesitant to move it far lest the mother bird detect our interference and reject it.


2:30 p.m.

Returning to the marsh from lunch and various work-related errands, I check in on the first nest, to reassure myself that the eggs were still there, if nothing else. As I near the nest I sense that something is different, and sure enough, when I reach it I find inside not the four eggs that I had left in the morning, but only three. Three eggs and one tiny, wobbling, absolutely adorable baby chick, its wild wispy feathers already dried and vibrating electrically in the wind. Its eyes are still closed, dark grey domes of blindness far too large for the tiny head, instinctively seeking sunlight. It takes all the chick’s effort to raise its head and cry silently for its mother; the effort is exhausting, and the head flops back down onto the nearest unhatched egg. The chick is so precious and fragile, I wonder how it can ever survive. I wonder if the other eggs will hatch as well, and hope more fervently than ever that momma bird returns.




4:00 p.m.

On our way out for the day, Jasmine and I stop by the first nest one more time, to marvel at the baby chick. As we gaze down at it, it flops around a bit, and for a moment we can’t tell if its movement is jostling the other eggs or if the other eggs are beginning to move on their own. Jasmine is in favor of the first theory, but I am sure that I can see one of the eggs starting to rock independently. Sure enough, as we watch, the egg rocks back and forth a few times and a crack begins to appear on its surface. It widens as the tiny creature inside uses all its strength to push apart the halves of its confinement. It pauses for a rest, and the older chick begins to move toward it, crawling over the other eggs, coming to rest with its beak just at the inception point of the crack, as if to say hello, I’m here waiting for you, you can do it! After a few moments the crack begins to widen again, and we see an elbow, the tiny nubbin of a wing, thrust itself out into the air, and we can almost see its head, struggling to work its way out of the end. At this point we begin to hear frantic tweeting from the branches above us, so we crawl out from beneath the tree, reluctant and relieved at the same time, hoping that it is momma bird returning to care for her newborn chicks.




April 15, 8:45 a.m.

We’re not working in the marsh today, but I go there anyway before work, to check on the birds. As I approach the first nest I see a tuft of brown filling it up, and feel a wave of gratitude sweep over me. Momma bird is back, and that must mean that at least one of the babies must be alive. I don’t go any nearer because I don’t want to frighten her away.

The second nest holds a different story, a sorrowful story. Momma bird did not return to this nest, and the babies were not strong enough to withstand the cold and windy night. I find them pressed against each other haphazardly, their wings entangled, their tiny claws reminding me suddenly of human babies’ toenails, still young and soft and vulnerable. I gaze at them for a while, letting myself be a little sad, but also reminding myself that this is the risk of living in the wild. In an unexpected way, I feel privileged to have witnessed these events, both birth and death, within 20 hours and 20 meters of each other. It grounds me somehow, and humbles me.


3:30 p.m.

I return with a shovel to bury the nest with the two dead chicks. Checking in on the other nest I find that momma bird has flown off in search of food for the four beautiful healthy chicks that now occupy her nest. Wonder and gratitude fill my heart, just knowing that they have lived through one more day.

Sprung

Lower MacLeay trail, 10:00 a.m.

Everything has sprung.

The trail is no longer open and bare, but surrounded on both sides by salmonberries that seem to have sprung up overnight, now so tall that they begin to arch overhead, holding the trail almost as an embrace, cozy. The stream banks are sheltered from view by the small thicket of shrubs that has filled in, and the hillside is a riot of shapes and shades of green, yellow, brown. Green, so green. Who knew there could be so many shades of green?

I have a fleeting moment of hesitancy, thinking I must have gotten on the wrong trail somehow. No, I remind myself, there is only one trail, and you have walked it all winter. It is the same trail, but now it is springtime, and things are wonderfully, magically changed. And indeed, as I look, I recognize those stones, roots, logs, pools - familiar, but bathed in a new shade of spring.

A plump red robin hops skittishly from branch to branch just ahead of me, not quite afraid, clutching a bit of moss and a fat spring worm in his beak. A dainty Douglas squirrel, much less pretentious than its larger, invasive Northern Grey cousin, pauses in its climb up a gnarled root to cock its head curiously at me.

Even the stones in the path glisten, moist from the light rain that is falling, drips displacing the delicate leaves of the fringecup and the duck’s foot plant so that it looks as though there must be a herd of tiny animals moving about underneath them.

My eyes are wide, my head moving from stream to hillside, ground to sky, soaking up the new-yet-familiar beauty of springtime sounds and senses. I can’t suppress the child-like wonder and awe and delight I feel, nor do I want to – I let the smile play freely across my face, shining on everything I see.

Only the trilliums are fading, their petals crumbling from stark white to pink to deep magenta, until finally they shrivel and fall to the ground, signaling the end of the beginning of spring.

Missing

In the back of an Ecuadorian pickup truck taxi, Galápagos, Ecuador. March 20, 9:30 a.m.

It hit me when we hit the pavement:
I´m leaving the Galápagos
and I´m not done yet.
As we left the dirt road and Jatun Sacha behind
a wave of loss overtook me.
I wanted to cry, turn back, turn back,
I´ve left my heart behind
in the soil and the scalesia and the seeds that stick,
in the mora and the machetes,
in the water and the washing stone,
in the sweat and the strain and the siesta.
But we kept on driving
and I pretended that my tears came from the wind.

An Ordinary Evening Stroll

After sewing vests for three days straight (helping DeMara with costumes for the MHCC musical), I couldn't wait to get out of the house this evening. I seized the opportunity to walk to the library and return all of the books that I'm not going to be able to read before I leave for Ecuador. After having been shackled to my sewing machine for days (okay, not really), all my senses were alive and attentive to the myriad sights, smells, sounds and sensations of the utterly ordinary, made noticeable simply by being noticed. Here are some of my "noticings" of my 12-block stroll to and from the library:

~ The ever-so-slightly heavy, damp feeling of the air under a sky that's been thinking of rain. Each lungful a truly refreshing experience.

~ The sharp and insistent call of a bird hiding in a tangle of branches.

~ The heavenly jasmine-like scent of a plant with dark green leaves and clusters of small, purple and white star-shaped flowers. Partial redemption for the townhouse developer.

~ A small boy trotting to keep up with his father, asking him eagerly if he's looking forward to going to the sushi restaurant. The father, exhaling cigarette smoke away from the boy, responding enthusiastically, "yeah, that'll be great!"

~ A slightly larger small boy painstakingly dragging a large, flat box up the stairs to his house, followed by his patient mother who knows better than to offer to help.

~ A woman sitting in her yard filling a bucket with weeds, despite the fact that the sun set an hour ago, oblivious to the fact that she is weeding in the dark. Her door is open, as if she just stepped out for a moment, though it's clear she's been out for hours.

~ A teenage girl in a pink striped shirt practicing the piano by the bay window in her living room, the notes drifting gently into the evening.

~ A vibrant painting of a happy couple, proudly displayed in the living room, visible through the half-open front door.

~ Clouds dappling the sky, in the post-twilight mirage that tricks the eyes into thinking the clouds are sky and vice versa.