Oil and water
Ship Island is one of the barrier islands off the Mississippi Gulf Coast. There is a commercial ferry that brings tourists to and from the island twice daily to swim on its beaches, walk through its dunes, and explore historic Fort Massachusetts.
My parents took me to ride that ferry and visit Ship Island once, probably in the spring of either 1997 or 1998. I remember that trip because there was a girl on the ferry. I think that I heard her called Gina, and that she was wearing some kind of green top and denim shorts. I spent most of the ferry ride thinking about talking to her.
At one point, a school of dolphins was sighted alongside the ferry, and the tourists rushed to watch them. I remember standing right next to this girl on the prow of the boat, watching the dolphins swim. I think she was speculating about whether they were dolphins or porpoises.
I didn't directly interact with her at any point on the ferry, though. After we disembarked, my parents took me on a walk through the dunes and the fort; I think she went with her family to the beach. The whole time on the island, I was hoping that I would see her again on the return ferry, and swearing that this time, I wouldn't miss my chance to have a conversation with her. As it turned out, though, I didn't see her on the return trip. I took the 2:30 ferry with my parents; I can only assume she didn't leave the island until the 5:00 ferry.
I held onto the memory of that non-encounter for a long time afterwards. It was one of a few experiences at that age that set up the tension between the fear of missing a chance to meet someone and the fear of intruding in a stranger's social space that I still feel trapped between today. I had hope for a while of writing an epic poem about the experience, focusing on the image of the dolphins-I have no idea how that would have worked out if I'd ever gotten to it; in retrospect, the experience wasn't particularly epic in any way, except perhaps as an epic fail.
That was far from my only trip to Gulfport; the Gulf Coast was more or less the default tourist destination for the state of Mississippi. Most notably was that, apart from the various times my parents took me there when they didn't feel like driving all the way to the Florida panhandle for a vacation, I inevitably went to Gulfport once a year for the state Beta Club convention. The Beta Club itself and its scheduled activities were kind of a joke, but the opportunity to spend time with the more intelligent of my classmates and a bunch of intelligent strangers from all around the state in what passed, in Mississippi, for an exotic locale made the event worth anticipating. If I really think about it, I have a fair number of memories of walking on the beach and on the long pier near the convention center. That beach was my first place being nude in the ocean (surreptitiously and rapidly, of course; Goddess forbid there be officially sanctioned clothing-optional beaches in Mississippi). When I felt like taking a day trip on my own the summer before college, I almost automatically chose to drive to Gulfport.
In a way, I think, the Gulf Coast represented to me the possibility of escape from the tedium of life in suburban Mississippi; I imagined it to be the kind of cosmopolitan, liberal environment full of interesting people where I wanted my life to take place. (This apparently isn't actually true; Mississippi's coastal counties were pretty solidly red in 2008-although less so than Rankin County, where I actually lived.) The beaches were kind of like the interface where the oil of inland Mississippi met the water of the outside world-not fully out of the murk, but close enough to see out of the bubble and into the possibility of a better kind of life.
In a way, it's nice to think that the setting of those hopes and memories persists-that high schoolers still swarm out of the convention center and onto the beach, thinking of their futures-that the ferry still crosses the clear waters between Gulfport and Ship Island; that the dolphins still swim alongside it; that there are other attractive tourists who ride it. But there seems to be so much reason to doubt that to be the case right now, or that it ever will be again.
According to Google's compiled maps, the oil from Deepwater Horizon is mostly still south of the Mississippi coast for the moment, and is mostly affecting southeastern Louisiana. Given that the oil is coming from deep underwater, though, and given that even the true extent of the surface oil is being masked by dispersant, that may understate its impact. The Ship Island ferry's web site doesn't give any indication of disruptions to its service, but given that the entire Gulf Coast seems to be hurriedly preparing precautions to keep oil from washing ashore, it's hard to imagine that Ship Island is open right now or that the ferry is still carrying tourists.
I don't generally have particularly vivid memories of strictly natural splendor; nor do I attach much ethical meaning to the preservation of nature for its own sake. Even when I drove through the Great Smoky Mountains at sunset last year and saw a few scenic vistas that literally did bring me to tears, the experience had less meaning to me because I was driving on my own and there was no social context to it. I tend to think of nature as the backdrop against which the drama of human life occurs, and deriving its value from its social meaning to humanity.
So when I think about the scope of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and the worst-case possibility of the entire Gulf of Mexico becoming a post-apocalyptic dead zone for generations to come, I don't conceptualize it in terms of ecosystems spoiled or animals dying horribly or species driven extinct; those are measures too abstract, too far removed from the reality of human existence. I think instead about the sites of memories to which I may never be able to return, and in terms of the other human lives that will be impoverished by their disappearance. Will the Mississippi Gulf Coast still be worth visiting after this situation is resolved? Or will the beaches be closed, the water and sand too toxic for humans? Will there be any ferry to Ship Island, or will there no point, with nothing there except dead dunes and with no vibrant community of dolphins to swim alongside it, but only a few sickly fish? What will the youth of Mississippi have to replace the experience of the Gulf?
I'm planning to drive to Jackson at the end of July for my high school reunion, and from there to Arkansas to visit my parents and probably on to Tulsa to see noblexperiment. I think I need to add Gulfport to that plan. There's no way I can really conceptualize the immensity of Deepwater Horizon's aftermath, except to see how profoundly and permanently it may have affected the places I remember.
My parents took me to ride that ferry and visit Ship Island once, probably in the spring of either 1997 or 1998. I remember that trip because there was a girl on the ferry. I think that I heard her called Gina, and that she was wearing some kind of green top and denim shorts. I spent most of the ferry ride thinking about talking to her.
At one point, a school of dolphins was sighted alongside the ferry, and the tourists rushed to watch them. I remember standing right next to this girl on the prow of the boat, watching the dolphins swim. I think she was speculating about whether they were dolphins or porpoises.
I didn't directly interact with her at any point on the ferry, though. After we disembarked, my parents took me on a walk through the dunes and the fort; I think she went with her family to the beach. The whole time on the island, I was hoping that I would see her again on the return ferry, and swearing that this time, I wouldn't miss my chance to have a conversation with her. As it turned out, though, I didn't see her on the return trip. I took the 2:30 ferry with my parents; I can only assume she didn't leave the island until the 5:00 ferry.
I held onto the memory of that non-encounter for a long time afterwards. It was one of a few experiences at that age that set up the tension between the fear of missing a chance to meet someone and the fear of intruding in a stranger's social space that I still feel trapped between today. I had hope for a while of writing an epic poem about the experience, focusing on the image of the dolphins-I have no idea how that would have worked out if I'd ever gotten to it; in retrospect, the experience wasn't particularly epic in any way, except perhaps as an epic fail.
That was far from my only trip to Gulfport; the Gulf Coast was more or less the default tourist destination for the state of Mississippi. Most notably was that, apart from the various times my parents took me there when they didn't feel like driving all the way to the Florida panhandle for a vacation, I inevitably went to Gulfport once a year for the state Beta Club convention. The Beta Club itself and its scheduled activities were kind of a joke, but the opportunity to spend time with the more intelligent of my classmates and a bunch of intelligent strangers from all around the state in what passed, in Mississippi, for an exotic locale made the event worth anticipating. If I really think about it, I have a fair number of memories of walking on the beach and on the long pier near the convention center. That beach was my first place being nude in the ocean (surreptitiously and rapidly, of course; Goddess forbid there be officially sanctioned clothing-optional beaches in Mississippi). When I felt like taking a day trip on my own the summer before college, I almost automatically chose to drive to Gulfport.
In a way, I think, the Gulf Coast represented to me the possibility of escape from the tedium of life in suburban Mississippi; I imagined it to be the kind of cosmopolitan, liberal environment full of interesting people where I wanted my life to take place. (This apparently isn't actually true; Mississippi's coastal counties were pretty solidly red in 2008-although less so than Rankin County, where I actually lived.) The beaches were kind of like the interface where the oil of inland Mississippi met the water of the outside world-not fully out of the murk, but close enough to see out of the bubble and into the possibility of a better kind of life.
In a way, it's nice to think that the setting of those hopes and memories persists-that high schoolers still swarm out of the convention center and onto the beach, thinking of their futures-that the ferry still crosses the clear waters between Gulfport and Ship Island; that the dolphins still swim alongside it; that there are other attractive tourists who ride it. But there seems to be so much reason to doubt that to be the case right now, or that it ever will be again.
According to Google's compiled maps, the oil from Deepwater Horizon is mostly still south of the Mississippi coast for the moment, and is mostly affecting southeastern Louisiana. Given that the oil is coming from deep underwater, though, and given that even the true extent of the surface oil is being masked by dispersant, that may understate its impact. The Ship Island ferry's web site doesn't give any indication of disruptions to its service, but given that the entire Gulf Coast seems to be hurriedly preparing precautions to keep oil from washing ashore, it's hard to imagine that Ship Island is open right now or that the ferry is still carrying tourists.
I don't generally have particularly vivid memories of strictly natural splendor; nor do I attach much ethical meaning to the preservation of nature for its own sake. Even when I drove through the Great Smoky Mountains at sunset last year and saw a few scenic vistas that literally did bring me to tears, the experience had less meaning to me because I was driving on my own and there was no social context to it. I tend to think of nature as the backdrop against which the drama of human life occurs, and deriving its value from its social meaning to humanity.
So when I think about the scope of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and the worst-case possibility of the entire Gulf of Mexico becoming a post-apocalyptic dead zone for generations to come, I don't conceptualize it in terms of ecosystems spoiled or animals dying horribly or species driven extinct; those are measures too abstract, too far removed from the reality of human existence. I think instead about the sites of memories to which I may never be able to return, and in terms of the other human lives that will be impoverished by their disappearance. Will the Mississippi Gulf Coast still be worth visiting after this situation is resolved? Or will the beaches be closed, the water and sand too toxic for humans? Will there be any ferry to Ship Island, or will there no point, with nothing there except dead dunes and with no vibrant community of dolphins to swim alongside it, but only a few sickly fish? What will the youth of Mississippi have to replace the experience of the Gulf?
I'm planning to drive to Jackson at the end of July for my high school reunion, and from there to Arkansas to visit my parents and probably on to Tulsa to see noblexperiment. I think I need to add Gulfport to that plan. There's no way I can really conceptualize the immensity of Deepwater Horizon's aftermath, except to see how profoundly and permanently it may have affected the places I remember.