Empty Pods and Pleasant Graveyards
Coyote Walking by Richard Spencer
Sometimes, to make a point, one must reveal an uncomfortable fact. Some years ago, when I thought I was going crazy, it took quite a bit of therapy for me to understand that the world I lived in was reasonably crazy. At the time, I lived in Northern California and worked for a very hip software company.
Behind the home I had lived in for ten years, a builder undertook what he proudly called the largest earthmoving project since the building of the Hoover Dam. The white-tailed kites, golden eagles, jackrabbits, pheasants, coyotes, and deer disappeared long before the earthmoving was complete. The housing developments were called Pheasant Run and Coyote Creek and Eagle’s Landing.
The company I worked for asked me to build an organization that showed how their products could be used in various markets. But they didn’t mean that. They meant, “make it look as though our products can be used in those markets.”
My family kept telling me that we were a normal American family, and that’s true if the average American family has two alcoholic parents (please know that either could stop drinking anytime they wanted to).
I felt as though I saw things one way and my family and my workplace was full of lies and denial. Having changed environments, I feel I’m in a more normal sort of place where Subarus outnumber German cars and middle class children are more likely to be raised by their parents than a Central American nanny. In Portland, there is a significant contingent that worries about what is in the water we drink.
I still feel that we human beings generally deny the obvious: that we are reproducing until there will be no room left for other species in the name of expanding our markets or because of our vanity about the quality of our particular genes. Why doesn’t it make sense that if we reduced the earth’s population, we would be better off as individuals and as a species. Why do we have reality shows about people with too many children? Why do we worry about fertility? These are indicate our lack of touch with reality.
Problems are that our water and air are dirty. Problems are that there will not be enough for everyone to eat by 2020. Problems are that we destroy whatever is in our way, as if nothing but our desires of the moment have merit. I’m telling you, there are no pheasants in Pheasant Run. Apparently, we cannot stop drinking and reproducing and polluting whenever we want.
(Response to David Oates’ Essays in What We Love Will Save Us)
Forgiving the Present (in Three Tries)
Poetry on the Elliptical
Empty Pods and Pleasant Graveyards
Six Good Places
On Pleasure
What We Love
Essays in Response to a Friend’s Writing
