heap up your helpings
to inaugerate the blog addition, here’s the first thing i’ve written this semester for my environmental history course. boring, but this will mostly be used as a forum for writings other than personal ranting.
Around 10 miles outside of Tucson on Interstate-10, state highway 83 cuts south towards the border town of Nogales, Arizona, passing the towns of Sonoita and Patagonia along the way. It is the scenic route, winding through the Santa Rita mountain range, which along with the Tucson mountains to the west, the Santa Catalina range to the north, and the Rincolns to the east, form a purple lip around the desert metropolis. After the grime of interstate-10, state highway 83 truly cuts away the metal and concrete trappings of the city, the human-made environment called civilization. I have been going down through this highway for two years on my way to Patagonia. Living in the desert southwest, many of us come to take for granted the wide open-space, the warm blue skies, toasted earth, and mountains that loom large, embrace maternal ridges, and hide jagged crags in an incredible array of color. For many, the natural world is on the fringes. Driving down 83, the fringes become the focus. The pile of associations that I have about nature and the environment, often contradictory, come into sharp relief. Through the Santa Ritas, I come into contact not only with the idea of the environment as something remote and idyllic, devoid of humans, but also the reality that I as a human being, with my technology and creations, are part of it.
Throughout the drive, I am struck by the ineffable beauty and loneliness. A mixed bag of words comes to my mind when I look and see nature outside of my car window. Some adjectives that describe the human observers notion of the non-human world: grand, harsh, cruel, heartless, bloody, systematic, uncontrollable, peaceful- the antithesis of human conniving and control. It is a place to not be human. The grasslands that meet travelers after the most rigorous climbing are golden and dotted with trees, bordered by mountain tips. There is space all around and a chance for breathing. While this view of nature is admittedly a bit simple and idealistic, there is something to be said of the therapeutic value of nature as the non-human escape. A billboard for beer that I saw in the middle of dry, sprawling Tucson showed an untainted beach, drawing the connection between the affects of alcohol and the peace and contentedness of nature. Such a view has its element of truth and psychological benefits.
Yet the rumblings of my car remind me that I am within this landscape. Not only as a distant observer, but as an agent of change, potentially good and bad. Other people park alongside the road and eat lunch at roadside tables, admiring the same views that I do. Sometimes an empty chip bag gets blown away and stuck in the brush. Sometimes I forget that the grass is essentially a big tinderbox and throw my cigarette butt out of the window. Sometimes there are hunters skirting along the hills, and other times there is cattle. The environment limits and provides what humans are able to do. However distant and wild the natural world may seem, and may to some extent or another be, humans and their accomplishments are present either directly or indirectly. While thinking to myself that some day I would like a house stashed away in the cool mountainside or melting down into the fields, I cannot help but think of water, fossil fuel, and javelinas eating my trash. I think of other people feeling the same way that I do and the developers that make these sorts of dreams reality. I think of all of these people, myself included, who must interact with the environment, sometimes in a sustainable way, but more often not. Far from being inaccessible and static, the environment is a process that both affects and is affected by human processes.
I cherish the hour in which I am driving along highway 83 as a time for reflection. It is what I think about when imagining the desert southwest. There is the giddy sensation of being surrounded by something non-manmade. And there is also the stark realization that just because it was not created by humans does not mean that it cannot be altered by them. It elicits some of my most protective and appreciative emotions, and admittedly a sizeable sliver of hopelessness; there is little to celebrate in regard to conscientious human interaction with the environment. Yet, growing awareness of global environmental issues and the potential for them to discredit the drive for complete human omnipotence give me a little hope. Perhaps we can all keep a small patch of desert sun in the Santa Rita mountains to remind us that we are living on something, breathing in something, eating from something, drinking up something, and affecting it all.
