The landscape that informs who I am…are the woods and quiet ponds of Southeastern Massachusetts. Several others come to mind, such as rocky beaches, colorful marshes, and hilly apple groves, but my place, the one that carries my history…is between the trees with my baby sister, and in shallow ponds watching tiny tadpoles grow, silent feet on a carpet of pine needles, and sledding on fresh fallen snow.
Elementary school field trips took place in a wilderness so close to home, you could have called it a collective backyard. Weekends were helping your dad clean up that pine needle carpet. Happiness was learning which sticks made the best kindling, and smelling the fire that you helped build, and mom telling you to wash those dirty hands before sitting down to eat, only to find that she made your favorite. Your biggest worry was which of the boys across the street had the best chance of beating you in the tricycle race down the big hill in your sleepy neighborhood.
Terry Tempest Williams introduced the bedrock of democracy: place + people = politics. All landscapes are threatened by people’s politics, including that of Southeastern, MA. The American West battles over something we do not own. There are notable areas of conservation throughout New England, but, as in most other places, not enough.
I live close enough to the coast to smell the sea air on the right wind, the beach is the summer gathering place for many around here. I can specifically recall the outrage and upset among many community members when marine wildlife conservation called for the protection of the at-risk-of endangerment piping plovers. People were upset that they had to slow down, or stop, while a volunteer stopped traffic in order to let mother and baby plovers cross the sandy roads. More area of beach was sectioned off to allow the successful mating and raising of plover offspring. I never understood how one could be annoyed by something that was hardly an inconvenience, and important to maintaining a balanced ecosystem.
Now, I understand.
Place + People = Politics.
William’s called this a simple equation, “the simplicity becomes complicated very quickly as abstractions of philosophy and rhetoric turn into ground scrimmages – whether it’s over cows grazing on public lands, water rights, nuclear waste dumps in the desert, the creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, or the designation of wilderness” (Williams, 2001.)
I agree with Barbara Kingsolver. We NEED wilderness.
It’s a privilege to live any part of one’s life in proximity of nature. It is a privilege, apparently, even to know nature is out there at all. In the summer of 1996, human life on Earth made a subtle, uncelebrated passage from mostly rural to mostly urban. More than half of all humans now live in cities. The natural habitat of our species, then, officially, is steel, pavement, streetlights, architecture and enterprise – the hominid agenda.
– Kingsolver
I want my daughter to experience the same grounding of damp grass beneath her feet, sand between her toes, the freshest breath of air mingling with the scents of moss and pine. I want her to have a place that she can hold close to her heart as I do.
Wilderness humbles us, or it most definitely should. Nature is balance, and serves as a reminder of just how small we humans are. Nature is something to marvel at. Nature is not ours to determine which resources go where, and who can buy what place. We need nature, and our place builds us, long before we create our “place” in this world.