Good People
Last Friday, as I sat in a metered parking spot and was fumbling to download a parking app, the guy parked in front of me came back to his van. He checked his meter and then walked around to my window and offered me the remaining hour on his meter.
At a very unfancy Mexican restaurant near us, I joined a few favorite people of mine for dinner the other night. We stayed chatting for ages after we had finished our enchiladas. No-one hurried us or bothered us and our older gentleman server not only called me señorita (lol!), but was delightful in every way.
The vet keeps calling to check on little Betty Biscuit (who hurt her leg the other week) even when I forget to call them back.
Jimmy the roofing guy is doing his best to get us scheduled for our roof replacement during the window of time that works best for us, even though there are lots of storms and the roofers are super busy.
My neighbor saw me at the mailbox yesterday and brought me the prettiest collection of eggs from her chickens, in a Christmas-themed bowl.
Mud
Over the last month or so, I have spent two weekends getting very wet and dirty with a small group of other adults as we explore the reptiles, amphibians, fish, and aquatic ecology of the Great Smoky Mountains. I have identified salamanders (very tricky), handled snakes and toads, snorkeled (in very chilly rivers) with tons of fish, and waded in deep, muddy bogs. We have plopped a mind-blowing array of very tiny insect larva, tadpoles, crawfish, newts and more into little white plastic tubs, so we can figure out what they are and how they live. (And then we place them back exactly where we found them.)
What. A. Blast.
And what does each of these paragraphs have to do with each other?
Well, during a catastrophic summer of wildfires, heatwaves, and floods, and when all the climate records are crumbling, and the corals are bleaching, and the ocean is a hot tub, it’s essential to remember that each one of these mini stories of grace and fun and wild and decency is also reality.
This summer, I have been looking at lots of graphs and data that are not fun or pretty. They do not show the best the side of humanity. Sometimes, (and I know this is sometimes true for you too), it’s difficult to witness the ugly consequences of our collective actions without letting it own the day.
But then, in the middle of a bog, there is a green frog whose call sounds like a dull banjo string being plucked.
There are strangers who delight you with small acts of generosity, and friends who make you laugh.
There are warm, rainy evenings that invite you out to the covered porch to read by lamplight.
The beauty - in all its various human and wild forms - has to be our guide as we tackle the ugly. We have to start there. We have to keep going back to the well of wonder, even if that well looks more like a stagnant swamp.
Because swamps are FULL of amazing things.
So as you may have gathered, I’m back to writing - hurrah!
I have turned off paid subscriptions for now, (and paused payments for those of you who are already contributing) because I am going to be experimenting with different content and I’m not going to ask anyone to contribute to that. I’m so grateful for all the support so many of you have shown this year. It’s wonderful and humbling. Thank you.
The origin of the idea behind ‘Earth’s Next Chapter’ was to explore our next chapter together - recognizing that it’s a blend of human and natural, spirit and science, connection and chaos. But I have found myself, in these posts, falling into more of a descriptive space of who’s doing what and how we can fix things. That wasn’t really my intent.
So I want to go back to the beginning - to sharing more about Earth’s previous chapters and journeying into the next one, with all its complexity. I want to tell more stories. I want us to get to know this place better.
The very most important task for us, is to remember how the world is magical and amazing and how much we love it. It is the single most critical step we can take towards saving it.
So I hope we’ll have fun exploring together.
Unless it gets too rowdy, comments are now always open to everyone!
Thank you for these moments of grace. It was a delight to find you in the mail. Greetings from the meltdown state of Florida.
What a wonderful way to start my day—-reading your lovely piece! Thank you for making me smile!