Dreaming the World

“Not all that is imperilled is lost.” JRR Tolkien

Its afternoon on a Wednesday, a mid-week day that for whatever reason seems as though it should be Thursday. That has been so all week, so I wonder how tomorrow will feel when it is actually Thursday.

Here in New England the drought drags on, with no relief in sight. Today there is a semi-tropical low to our south, its rain bands slowly moving towards us; they have lingered offshore for most of the day, progressing with effort as they are held back by lingering high pressure just to our east. As a result the day has been a tapestry of sun and cloud, cool when there is more cloud, warm when the sun breaks through. The low is expected to just brush us, bringing little relief from the long dryness.

We “walked” down to the coffee shop in the village earlier; that is, Jennie walked and I rode the scooter. We passed small flocks of mixed songbirds twittering and scurrying through the trees. A squirrel played invisible on a fence rail until I greeted it, then jumped for cover. We saw autumn clematis, one of my favourite plants, everywhere, covering trees, verges, and hedgerows in a foam of brilliant white blossoms. Usually the autumn clematis plants in our yard are covered with pollinators; I have seen few insects on our vines but Jennie has seen many. Surely pollinator visits are timed in some way but I have no idea what that timing is.

I’ve been reading Margaret Renkl’s, The Comfort of Crows. It makes for remarkable, grim, bedtime reading. I swear, every night I wrestle with whether to pick it up! I recognize Renkl as kindred; we both see, acknowledge, and mourn the destruction of so much we care about. We both write about the beauty, magic, and terror of the world. We both struggle to face the losses, large and small around us. I imagine that you are like us as well.

We’ve been struggling this week with the sheer ugliness of the discourse around us. We ask so many big questions! How is it, we wonder, that with so much needing repair, so many voices appeal for more destruction? How can folks not connect the dots and realize that as violence spreads, it will eventually engulf everyone? As so many of us raise the alarm about the growing silence in the natural world, how can so many others shrug their shoulders and add to the carnage? How can people simply ignore the world around them, or worse, indifferently allow so much to perish that we leave our kids a vastly degraded heritage and future?

We see so much, yet much harm is essentially invisible. I grew up in a mid-west farming community and have always cared about the fate of such places. This week we are reminded that due to government policies, some recent, many long term, the ongoing crisis in farm country is threatening to upend agriculture, rupture our food supply, and destroy entire communities. The silence from across the political spectrum is near total. As we watch, a humanitarian and economic disaster unfolds before us.

Today, I am glad to be reminded that not all that is imperilled is lost. As we began our walk home from the coffee shop, Jennie put her sweater in the basket of my scooter. I looked at it, wondered whether I should put it under my bag and camera, then decided that it seemed secure. Somewhere on the trip home it went missing; I retraced our route twice but did not find it. The sweater holds many memories and connections and its loss would have been very painful for Jennie. Fortunately she drove the route on last time and found it; some kind soul had hung it on a fence. Not all this is imperilled is lost!