#planetwalker

No one is able to forget seeing his or her life as a dull yellow line scratched across a green chalkboard. I know I cannot, and for a while all I have done and all I want to do seem to lose importance. Once again I am forced to face death, and it makes me feel very small and fragile. My head fills with images of oil-soaked seabirds, bodies rotting on a California shore, Jerry Tanner lost in Tomales Bay, and the crushed body of a small robin on a Philadelphia street. But in facing death we experience the whole of life, and in that experience we find meaning and are obligated to act, often under great difficulty.

It's good to see natural powers and processes greater than our own. The lessons of such experiences are precisely what are needed if the human-environment relations are to be harmonious and stable in the long run.

“We could live a simpler lifestyle and not need so many cars.” I hear myself say the words, and I think that I am repeating something I had read or that had been part of some past conversation. “We could stop driving cars. Stop riding in them,” I add. This idea surprises us both.

But sometimes the occupants of cars want more--some explanation other than my simple desire to walk. Then I talk about the oil spills and air pollution that I do not want to be a part of. It is the only explanation I can give, beside being able to enjoy where I live for the first time. It is, despite their blank expressions, what they seem to want to hear. Some nod their heads slightly while other voice their agreement, telling me how they wish they had the time to walk. Many of these very same people had helped with the bird rescue and cleanup during the San Francisco oil spill. There is often and uncomfortable silence before they drive off, leaving me to my thoughts.