Coming Back into Country

[abbzug]

I am back in Appalachia from a wonderful, whirlwind trip back to Pittsburgh. Got in very late Friday afternoon - SO much traffic in the city - and ended up missing dinner out with SSG and the two featured residency faculty. Well, I tried. Drove aimlessly around a part of town I'm not that familiar with anymore (Shadyside), looking for the

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[abbzug]

I have to say that she is definitely one of the very nicest people I have ever, ever in my life met. On Friday night, right before her reading, I saw her in the bathroom. She looked at me and said, with absolute sincerity, "I am so glad you are here." And then Saturday night, when she found out that I wasn't staying the whole residency, she said, "My only regret about this whole residency is that I didn't get to know you better." That sounds a little funny, for her to say to someone she doesn't really *know*, but I really believe she meant it.

That said, much as I adore her and her work, she gave a craft lecture on Saturday afternoon and some of her ideas about the environment feel a bit problematic to me. I LOVE her absolute conviction that environmental issues are the single most critical thing we humans are facing, and I agree with her. That sort of passion is really admirable. But she sometimes has what feels to me an overly romanticized view of "nature." It's kind of hard to explain. She definitely feels that our advancements, our technology, are the root causes of pretty much all our social problems, especially environmental. And while I don't disagree with that necessarily, she has an idealized view of life as it used to be, the agrarian, close-to-the-land lifestyle. She seems to believe that we all, unilaterally, need to to aspire to return to that, to heal ourselves and the planet. And honestly, while I think that is a lovely goal, it's not that realistic. And it idealizes a way of life that is impractical and perhaps impossible for a lot of people.

Sure, it would be nice to quit society and move to the country and live lightly, live off the grid. But unless everyone commits to that - which is unlikely - there are lots of people who can do really amazing environmental work within the society we've created, who can find ways to see, and help others see/find the "wildness" and "wilderness" (terms she uses frequently) in their own spaces and places, as they are now.

I'm rambling and I'm not sure that all makes sense! Perhaps tomorrow with more sleep I can clarify...