Bringing books into the light

While in the process of consolidating my too-many things, particularly books, I went down to the cellar today to assess the extent of disarray. I also wanted to see how much crap I needed to pack up and toss out, and how much should be moved to higher ground. The basement has become a sort of dank, damp sink lately and so this was also something of a necessary recovery effort. I have been keeping books down there because there was no room upstairs and, until a month or so ago, it had been constantly and adequately heated. The heat held off most of the mold and the damp, most not all, but enough to keep the books in a state of suspended animation. When the furnace was turned off, due to lack of use and money, the mold, feeding on the moisture, leapt ahead. So now I must harvest the results.

Many of the books reeked; a sooty, damp and mushroomy odor lifted and hovered around them in an almost palpable cloud. To my nose it felt tangible and thick enough to write on. Most of the books were boxed and though in far from perfect condition, they would recover without any special immediate attention. But one box in particular was clammy and so rimed with mold that it stuck to the floor. After I moved it upstairs I emptied out the books, took them outside and laid them in the sun on the overturned canoe in the backyard. The day was glorious, warm, but not hot, dry and with a fitful breeze. They got a pretty good dose of rays, but not enough. The sun, which not more a month ago would still clear the tree tops until nearly 7, is now hidden behind them by 4:45. It reminded me that seasonal time is galloping toward autumnal equinox and on to winter at a pell-mell pace; personal time also moves relentlessly and deliberately, though events are less predictable. To quote KV: “And so it goes.”

Despite everything, the book recovery turned out to be a propitious endeavor. It was a kind of ritual act, an airing out of old/new ideas and a refreshing of objects that have been part of my life. I wiped them, opened them, ruffled through their pages, and watched the wind thumb through them as they lay open on the red fiberglass. It was not nearly as important as saving the treasures damaged by the floods in Florence, but it was significant to me, especially at this particular time. I am glad to have saved this small part of my library even though my hands still reek as if I have been rooting around in the dirt looking for truffles.

Most of the books fished from the fungal pool are from the early 1990s and nearly all of them concern the ‘environment’. More specifically, they discuss human interaction and exchanges with the ‘natural world’. One or two I have read cover to cover; three or four I have read parts of; and several I have merely admired as they sat on a shelf. Here is the list: Spirit and Nature (1992), ed. by Steven Rockefeller and John Elder; It’s A Matter of Survival (1991), by Anita Gordon and David Suzuki; Talking On The Water (1994), by Jonathan White; Human Descent (1996), by Rick Potts; Wen-tzu, Understanding the Mysteries (1991), translated by Thomas Cleary; A Brief History of Everything (1996), by Ken Wilbur; The Power of Place (1991), by James Swan; Cultures of Habit (1997) and The Geography of Childhood (1994), both by Gary Paul Nabhan; Urbanization Without Cities (1992), by Murray Bookchin; Eccentric Spaces (1977), by Robert Harbison; Kitchen Confidential (2000), by Anthony Bourdain; How To Read Better and Faster (1944), by Norman Lewis; A is for Ox (1994), by Barry Sanders; The Next One Hundred Years (1990), by Jonathan Weiner; Ecology and Consciousness (1992), edited by Richard Grossinger; and Ecological Identity (1995), by Mitchell Thomashow. The last one was at the bottom of the box. It was also a book I had been thinking about and looking for over the last couple of weeks. Maybe now that I have re-earthed these volumes I will finish at least some of those I started and begin to explore those I once was moved to possess.

I want to feed my hobby horse: how to help make the ‘environment’ a real priority and how to encourage ecological thinking to become part of the common and ordinary way we look at the world. I intend to make this effort the priority for the rest of my life.

It is galling and perplexing to me that despite decades of research, countless new environmental studies programs in graduate schools, colleges and high schools, thousands of public forums, hundreds of active and effective national, regional, and local NGOs, and even an Academy Award-winning movie seen by millions, there is still no adequate language for talking about the ‘environment’. We need a nation=wide program to impart ecological knowledge and understanding, not just information. And we need a new vocabulary and language to impart these essential concepts; We need one that is strong, clear, satisfying, informative and poetic; one that engages, inspires, and even compels us to have the important and necessary conversations about our relationship with our planet that we must have. The need is more urgent than ever.

Fall Visitors

August and September are Ant Festival months, a much-anticipated annual event in this creaky old house. These pesky little insects just appear one day, and they seem to appear almost everywhere in the kitchen simultaneously. They’re skinny and small, about 3/8ths of an inch long, with rangy stilt-like legs. They’re not stubby and rounded like their outdoor cousins. Also they’re not deliberate and driven as though on a mission. While they can be very fast, most of the time they seem rather aimless. While they usually prowl around on the surfaces in the kitchen, I sometimes find one of them scaling the walls in the living room or wandering around among the flotsam on my desk. They don’t travel in packs or conga lines. They’re almost always alone, solitary and somewhat meandering in their leisurely pace, as though they were out for a stroll or on some ant version of a walkabout.

The only thing that draws a congregation is the maple syrup container. If I forget and leave it out too long in the morning, there are usually at least half a dozen ants, sometimes more, clustered around the cap or moving up and down the sides. Occasionally one makes it inside and I find him (I’m assuming it’s a him because they act so male-like.) breast-stroking in my tea after I’ve spooned in some syrup. Once, when I had failed to tighten the cap, I found a couple of dozen of them paddling around in the syrup inside as though it was some sort of community swimming pool. Their time in the pool seems to render them almost senseless or drunk; they slow way down and become easy to pluck out once you’ve emptied the syrup into a bowl. Then I always try to flush them down the drain; it’s a hopeless exercise and a great waste of water. Even in an inebriated condition their ability to resist a strong flow of water from the tap is astonishing. I don’t feel any compelling need to kill or eradicate them. I probably couldn’t accomplish the latter even if I wanted to. Anyway, my hands and fingernails carry around more possible toxins and diseases than their little feet possibly can.

There’s never enough of them to be really disturbing or worrisome. They’re not like a crowd of sumo wrestler-like carpenter ants, or even a mob of those really shiny black mustard-seed-like ants that accumulate in teeming masses looking as though they’re waiting for some rock concert to begin. These fall visitors are more like reedy hobos looking for the way to the Big Rock Candy Mountain. If I listen hard enough maybe I’ll hear one of them singing, “This Land Is Your Land, this Land Is My Land.”