THE WORLD AT OUR DOORSTEPS

May Day, 2010

Gray's River Almanac, Number 3

 By Robert Michael Pyle - Lecturer

           Never and nowhere has the aphorism "April showers bring May flowers" been truer than in Gray's River in the year 2010.  We experienced precipitation twenty-seven days in April.  And now our May Day gardens are fairly bursting with blue in the form of  bluebells, forget-me-nots, and camas lilies, the pinks and mauves of lilacs and bleeding hearts, the yellow of poppies.  Thea managed to get her lettuce starts into the wet ground, almost big enough to harvest in their pots. The lettuce, the grass, the bluebells, and everything else green is perfectly happy in the continual drip, even if it tries the patience of cats, cattle, and people.

            It is easy sometimes in the small Edens of our own backyards, in our green and pleasant valleys, to imagine that we are somehow removed from the larger challenges the world serves up, and that abundant rain is the biggest challenge we face.  Blessed we are to be here, to be sure; but does that really render us immune to the big-picture woes of the world?

            Of course it doesn't, and I don't suppose anyone really thinks so.  Occasionally I like to listen to the traffic reports on Portland radio, just to make me feel good that we're not caught up in that insufferable gridlock.  When I do have to travel to or through the cities, I take Amtrak if possible, since the train has a way of preserving the peace and tranquility we enjoy in the country even as one skirts the mobile madhouse of I-5.  I limit my input of news outside the Wahkiakum County Eagle, haven't had TV since 1969, and much prefer a good book over endless internet babble.  We each have our ways of keeping the wider world at bay.  And yet, it is still out there, and it will have its bearing upon our lives, no matter how resolutely rural we try to live them.

            That is because the world is unavoidably interrelated.  In one way or another, we were affected by the Icelandic volcano, just as faraway folks were impacted by our volcano, thirty years ago this month.  Whether or not we can agree on the role of human agency in climate change, few anymore dispute the fact that big swings in the weather are taking place, and sea level is unquestionably rising.  As we know well, there is no hiding from the weather, nor from the sea, when they come to us.  Nor will there be any escape from the consequences of the giant earthquake that is overdue along the Cascadian Subduction Zone, and accompanying tsunamis.  Gray's River lies far enough from the coast that our direct trauma may be lighter than what outer Pacific County faces, with a 10-20% probability over the next fifty years.  But the impact on our own watershed, and on the region, will be such that we'll learn firsthand what it was like for the people of Chile, Haiti, and Tibet in the recent, distant earthquakes on the news.

            And now comes the trial-by-oil in the Gulf of Mexico.  Perhaps it will drive up prices for Willapa oysters and Oregon shrimp, drive tourists to our beaches instead of theirs, drive away anyone's whim for drilling off our coasts.  Maybe it will deprive us of migrating waterfowl and shorebirds we've come to expect each spring.  Or cause us to reconsider travel plans or vacation destinations.  I can't say just how, but I'll lay odds that one way or a million, this too shall come to touch us in our damp green backwater of Wahkiakum.  

            Whenever we abandon our easy chairs and go out in the evening to the Grange Hall or the Rosburg Hall or Johnson Park, to a candidates' forum, a public hearing, or a community meeting, we do so because we feel that the outcome might somehow touch us, our families, and our community.  Whether the discussion concerns the river and its flooding habit, our drinking water and electrical power, the condition of our fields and forests, fish and wildlife habitat and regulations, aspirants for public office,  or any other topic that stands to affect us all, our attendance signifies that we care about the world beyond our flowered gardens and flat-screens.

            People commonly misunderstand the term "ecology," thinking it conveys a political position or environmental attitude.  "Ecology" and "economy" both derive from the Greek oekos,   

meaning "household."  Economy is the management of the household, ecology is knowledge of the household.  One of the principles of ecology was well stated by the pioneer wildlife biologist and conservationist Aldo Leopold, when he said "you can't touch just one thing."  In other words, when we fiddle with one element in the environment (which means, "everything around us"), we can't help affecting other things, which in turn affects still others. The outward-spiraling results of our actions are seldom predictable, leading to all sorts of unintended consequences.  This is why it behooves us to take a cautious approach to actions that might come back to haunt us.

            The flip side of interaction is interdependence, which is another name for community.  When we support local institutions, from farmers' markets to village stores, co-ops and cafes to craft breweries and independent bookstores, not to forget our museums, non-profit shops like Redmen Hall, and main-street businesses in Longview and Astoria, we strengthen the bonds of community.  But when we introduce huge new variables into our little world--whether it be Wal-Mart or LNG, subdivisions instead of forestlands, or the nuclear plant once proposed on the Elochoman that voters wisely rejected decades ago, things can never be quite the same again.  Community may suffer from change when it is warmly embraced but poorly understood.  Traveling the back roads of Washington, you see many little towns that once thrived and have since died out, and others that have survived because of loyalty to the local. You cannot touch just one thing.

            And so we will make the best of the deluge and marvel at the May hail, as we hunker down, build our woodpiles still higher, and indulge a smug little smile over where we live.  We will cultivate a certain fortress mentality, vowing to keep the cities and their baleful influences at bay, not to mention the rest of the confusing and disquieting world.  But at the same time, we will sneak the occasional look outward, sending out our good will with the noblesse oblige that only those who truly love where they live can afford.  We will do all this in good heart, because we know we are part of it all, and it is part of us, if  at a safe and happy remove.  And we will thank the April rain, not only for May flowers, but for the soft, protective screen it gently draws across our valley hideaway.