The world is on fire: right now the Western U.S, Canada, Italy, Turkey, Greece. Where else? It’s possible that Finland is still burning, that the fires of Siberia continue to smother the North Pole with wildfire smoke not seen there, in recorded history, until now. While wildfires burn, ice and frozen ground melts. We cannot be sure, as temperatures continue to climb, that the Arctic tundra will remain permanently frozen year round. And now the air currents over the Atlantic Ocean, including the Gulf Stream, may be shutting down. As these events unfold, it is increasingly difficult to see them as isolated or to deny that we are experiencing their cascading, destabilizing effects in our own backyards.
It can feel almost unbearable to witness at times. Heavy.
So I take a deep breath, exhale, and do it again, each breath a form of resistance to the despair pushing to take residence in my heart. Breathing in: I am here. Breathing out: I am still here. Breathing in: The despair will not crush me. Breathing out: I will not abandon myself.
I take this resistance with me to the park where I find that you, my community, have brought me hope and joy. I see it in your children, smiles so radiant and pure they must contain the same powerful light that shines on us from even the most distant reaches of the universe. I see it in the way you kneel together under the low hanging branches of the cottonwood tree, tugging the blackberry canes nestled there as gently as your heads bow together in the task. I feel it when we gather to see the garter snake you found in the mulch pile and transported to our restoration area by wheel barrow, when we find our snake relation in your gentle pour of wood chips and watch their forked tongue slip from tiny mouth as they seek refuge in the small woody debris once again. I see hope and joy in the diligence with which you work: filling wheel barrel after wheel barrel of mulch with such good cheer and digging blackberry and knotweed with such forbearance, despite the heat, despite the pandemic, despite climate collapse, despite the challenges that surely touch your lives outside this space. Despite everything, you have shown up for me, for our community, for our watershed.
You are hope and joy. I am in awe of and inspired by you. I needed to be with you to see that I am hope and joy, too.
Thank you. For your gifts. For you.