Like Dropping a Stone in a Very Deep Well
A few days ago I woke with a vivid dream: I am watching someone skim the surface of the pool I swim in, running the big blue net back and forth across the calm water. Suddenly the net picks up something other than leaves and bugs: a big black tar ball appears in the net and is scooped out of the water. But how did it get there in the first place?
In the Gulf, tar balls appear on the beach sand in advance of the spreading crude. It is a gruesome, sickening sight from a disaster that continues to grow and spread and affect millions of lives both in the water and out. Not even a lap swimming pool on the opposite side of the continent is out of harm’s way.
Three weeks ago I was out enjoying our local Friday happy hour in Bodega Bay, and struck up a conversation with some weekend tourists from inland. One couple was nice and chatty, but another woman kept her sunglasses on and an aloof expression on her face, barely managing an occasional smile as she sipped her wine and looked out over the bay.
After a while the other couple left and she and I sat next to each other in silence. I was racking my brain for something to say to this obviously reserved, conservative person, when all of a sudden she spoke up. ”I keep imagining what this would look like if the oil spill was here,” she said.
What could I say to that? It sank into the heart of what every person there was thinking, what I myself had been thinking all day and was at the moment trying to forget. She didn’t want to talk about the politics of offshore drilling bans, she was in shock, and was sitting there trying to grasp the magnitude of what has happened to the ocean.
People come out here from all over the country to recharge. The ocean has a powerful psychic pull, along with the lure of physical beauty, recreation, great food, and fresh air. It exists in the collective imagination as our ancestral home, source of dreams, origin of all life.
This was not the first conversation I’ve had with a total stranger who is soul-stricken about what is happening to the Gulf of Mexico. It is not a laughing matter to anyone. People know how bad this is, and they are taking it very personally. This alone gives me hope.
Oil has already reached Barataria Bay, and is just a hurricane’s breath away from destroying New Orleans for good. The mighty Gulf fisheries are gone, as are the beaches, the nesting grounds, and all deep sea life, for the foreseeable future.
The news sinks like a stone to the depths of our psyches. What will we do when the tar balls stir the waters of our dreams as well?
June 14th, 2010 at 6:49 am
Not even a year ago, I had a conversation with a manager I work with about why he believed so firmly that “global warming isn’t real.” Just yesterday, reading the headlines of the local paper (three front-page stories about the oil spill and its consequences, financially and socially, though barely a whisper about the ecological damage), he looked up at me and said, “The whole thing is disgusting, they’re just destroying the ocean. I can’t believe BP would do this.”
I didn’t know what to say. I am heart-sick and grieving, but I also know what part we play in the tragedy. I know BP wouldn’t be out there drilling in the first place if we didn’t have an addiction to oil. I know that many of us wouldn’t even be able to go visit the ocean and experience that return to our spiritual and ancestral source, if we didn’t have cars and planes fueled by oil to get us there. So while I feel that grief, I also feel anger, at how tangled up we’ve managed to get ourselves and how sometimes there doesn’t seem to be any good solution. It’s hard to express this to people in shock and full of the pain and disgust; they don’t want to talk about the politics, and if you speak about your own anger all they hear is you being “political” about it, as if you’re enlisting the tragedy for your own pet cause.
But at the same time – we have to talk about the politics, don’t we? We have to talk about how our lifestyles have led us here, and how our communities and our politics affect the living earth around us. We can’t always be swinging from the shock of horror and grief, to the numbness of ignorance and denial. I feel the same way about this as I do about war – folks will tell you that in the midst of war is no time to “preach peace,” but when is a good time? We can talk about environmentalism and conservation until we’re blue in the face, or about peace and pacifism and diplomacy, and during times of relative comfort and stability no one bothers to listen. Yet when our hearts have been ripped open by something too huge for us to ignore, we are flinching and vulnerable, and those same words we were able to laugh off and ignore yesterday suddenly seem harsh and offensive and too much to bear.
So when is a good time to talk about ecology, and consequence, and peace, and a gentler way of living? And how do you ask people to make sacrifices that might mean that, even if the oceans are clean, they might not ever be able to visit them?
Anne Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 7:47 am
That is really well said, Ali. This woman at the wine shop brushed off my comment about the offshore drilling ban as though it were an annoyance, not a solution. The difference between this conversation and others I have had in the past, though, was that the devastation had clearly gotten through to her. It was not held at arm’s length at all, which is my usual experience of discussing the environment with very conservative people.
I wanted to sit with that reaction some because it is a difference in kind, not just in degree. I hope that this powerful emotional connection means a shift in outcome, too. I don’t know that it will, but it is worth paying attention to.
June 15th, 2010 at 11:51 am
I live in central Florida.
Your post touched a chord with me. The day after I heard/saw information about the oil spills I had a horrible fear of hurricane season and what that could mean. The very same ‘hot spot’ currents which sped Katrina up so drastically before slamming into shore are the very same areas where oil is now clogging up the works. It could be like adding gasoline to a hot fire if the oil isn’t cleaned up sufficiently. There’s no telling what could happen. I pray that we have a mild hurricane season.
I love Tampa Bay and St. Pete Beach. Oh and what about that magical little nook called Siesta Key?!! No more. It’ll be gone. Totally destroyed before this is all said and done.
When flying at night south toward Tampa Int. Airport, watch over the water and you’ll see a surreal web of squared and rounded lights strung all through the water. It’s the hatcheries and fisheries. They’ll all be gone, too. Those poor fish are doomed and they don’t even know it yet.
I saw an article on MSN the other day talking about how the people cleaning the birds covered with oil don’t know if they should be just killed outright or scrubbed clean and let go. WHAT?!! Some of those birds are endangered as it is! The brown pelican, for example. I think that this country’s southern zoos need to get in on the action and create sanctuaries for these birds. Why are we cleaning them and releasing them only to go out into their same contaminated environment once again? THAT is what doesn’t make any sense to me.
As a Floridian I am deeply grieved. I really have no words to even describe the anger I feel. How could BP let this go on for a month before even trying a contraption to capture the oil? How much oil did they think was in that tanker- a few measly gallons?!
Our fresh water supply will eventually be contaminated, too.
July 9th, 2010 at 7:24 pm
You can remove the tar balls from your skin with baby oil.