Text: Excerpts from Bill McKibben's American Earth, an anthology of nature writing in said country.
From: The End of Nature
McKibben himself shares a story of a lake special to him and his wife. It's hidden in the Adirondacks, a favorite haunt of my Upstate New York hiking friends while I lived there. I remember father and son telling me of their March "man trip" amidst still snow-capped rugged mountains with that uniquely tough pride foreign to us more refined girls who preferred the meadows in spring. Bill, the father, had lamented that he saw someone's trash littered at the lower altitudes.
Now as I'm reading Bill, the writer, who tells of this small Adirondack lake, once peaceful but now invaded by someone's motorboat, finds himself not knowing even how to feel. Sure, the lake's for everyone to use, but it just bothers him--he can't even swim right. He explains it like this: "It's not so much the danger--few swimmers, I imagine, ever die by Evinrude. It's not even so much the blue smoke that hangs low over the water. It's that the motorboat gets in your mind."
I'm sitting here at Mira Lago overlooking Lake Bonny as evening falls upon the serene waters. And left of my vision, cars drive by on Longfellow. It seems wrong all of a sudden, and I feel an unexplainable anxiety creeping into my room. I tried shutting my left eye but found that I couldn't wink on that side. Then I shut both eyes but found that took the lake away too. Then I moved a few inches over and had only the lake in my window frame but found that, too, didn't work either. The cars stayed in the picture of my mind. I was bordering paranoia. It wasn't like the road wasn't meant for cars to drive on, it was; still, I desperately wanted something to be away.
Featured Author: Henry David Thoreau
In a short bio blurb, McKibben mentions that "according to some authorities, they [Thoreau and his brother John} invented the idea of the field trip" (lol). Those lucky kids who probably took for granted the fact that they were canoeing somewhere in Concord woods where oaks filtered out the first rays of spring's sun. And their parents who probably thought that was a crazy idea.
Well, I'm taking a few this week myself, let's see how that goes.
Featured Author: Susan Cooper
From: Rural Hours
Daughter of Fenimore Cooper, legendary writer who created myth-like American heroes, this woman can write (in style conforming to mid-1800s grammatical manners, aka elaborate structuring, reminiscent of Thoreau's). She talks about the pines in villages: "now tossing their arms in the stormy winds, now drawn in still and dark relief against the glowing evening sky. Their gaunt, upright forms standing about the hill-tops." Reminds me so much of Van Gogh's wild cypresses in Starry Night.
Another note on the felling of these ancient trees: "The preservation of those old pines must depend entirely upon the will of their owner; they are private property; we have no right to ask that they may be spared, but it is impossible to behold their hoary trunks and crested heads without feeling a hope that they may long continue unscathed [...]." Thoreau had his nostalgic recount of seeing trees with only their trunks, albeit with much more melodrama (or should I say mega ton of green crazed tree-hugging, wink).
Featured Author: Aldo Leopold
From: A Sand County Almanac
The book came in today in the mail! I've been waiting for several days.
While reading this particular excerpt, I was moved in a quiet, but also loud way, like a nudge of the heart--it wasn't much but ... it was. On the day he changed his mind about killing wolves, Aldo describes such a moment:
From: The End of Nature
McKibben himself shares a story of a lake special to him and his wife. It's hidden in the Adirondacks, a favorite haunt of my Upstate New York hiking friends while I lived there. I remember father and son telling me of their March "man trip" amidst still snow-capped rugged mountains with that uniquely tough pride foreign to us more refined girls who preferred the meadows in spring. Bill, the father, had lamented that he saw someone's trash littered at the lower altitudes.
Now as I'm reading Bill, the writer, who tells of this small Adirondack lake, once peaceful but now invaded by someone's motorboat, finds himself not knowing even how to feel. Sure, the lake's for everyone to use, but it just bothers him--he can't even swim right. He explains it like this: "It's not so much the danger--few swimmers, I imagine, ever die by Evinrude. It's not even so much the blue smoke that hangs low over the water. It's that the motorboat gets in your mind."
I'm sitting here at Mira Lago overlooking Lake Bonny as evening falls upon the serene waters. And left of my vision, cars drive by on Longfellow. It seems wrong all of a sudden, and I feel an unexplainable anxiety creeping into my room. I tried shutting my left eye but found that I couldn't wink on that side. Then I shut both eyes but found that took the lake away too. Then I moved a few inches over and had only the lake in my window frame but found that, too, didn't work either. The cars stayed in the picture of my mind. I was bordering paranoia. It wasn't like the road wasn't meant for cars to drive on, it was; still, I desperately wanted something to be away.
Featured Author: Henry David Thoreau
In a short bio blurb, McKibben mentions that "according to some authorities, they [Thoreau and his brother John} invented the idea of the field trip" (lol). Those lucky kids who probably took for granted the fact that they were canoeing somewhere in Concord woods where oaks filtered out the first rays of spring's sun. And their parents who probably thought that was a crazy idea.
Well, I'm taking a few this week myself, let's see how that goes.
Featured Author: Susan Cooper
From: Rural Hours
Daughter of Fenimore Cooper, legendary writer who created myth-like American heroes, this woman can write (in style conforming to mid-1800s grammatical manners, aka elaborate structuring, reminiscent of Thoreau's). She talks about the pines in villages: "now tossing their arms in the stormy winds, now drawn in still and dark relief against the glowing evening sky. Their gaunt, upright forms standing about the hill-tops." Reminds me so much of Van Gogh's wild cypresses in Starry Night.
Another note on the felling of these ancient trees: "The preservation of those old pines must depend entirely upon the will of their owner; they are private property; we have no right to ask that they may be spared, but it is impossible to behold their hoary trunks and crested heads without feeling a hope that they may long continue unscathed [...]." Thoreau had his nostalgic recount of seeing trees with only their trunks, albeit with much more melodrama (or should I say mega ton of green crazed tree-hugging, wink).
Featured Author: Aldo Leopold
From: A Sand County Almanac
The book came in today in the mail! I've been waiting for several days.
While reading this particular excerpt, I was moved in a quiet, but also loud way, like a nudge of the heart--it wasn't much but ... it was. On the day he changed his mind about killing wolves, Aldo describes such a moment:
"We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes--something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view."This moment stopped time for me, and once again reminded the young and full of ambition self in me to back off for the time. No amount of personal ecological awareness is going to change the planet earth for better. All those "environmental tasks" like recycling, or bike-riding, or taking trash off the grass are merely "poetic gestures", as Prof. Corrigan words it (in his article on The Dock at Lake Holloway), to make me feel better. That's not to discount the meaning in these small observances; they are, in their way, daily reminders of my role as a citizen of this world, no less but also no more.
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