For those of you who prefer to listen instead of read - above is an audio version of the main body of the newsletter (you’ll still have to check out the actual newsletter for the links). You can listen directly above or choose to open in your favorite podcast app. Let me know what you think!
Hi friends! I accidentally took the month of July off from this space, but I’m back for now and, if not refreshed, at least full of words and feelings. As always, if you know someone who might like this sort of thing, forward it along, and thanks for reading!
Last year around this time, the developer across the street began cutting down a big patch of old forest that had divided the corn fields for at least many decades. Many of the trees were older than Indiana’s statehood. They had initially promised those of us who showed up at the city council meeting that they would keep that strip of forest, but a new developer came in and reneged on the original plan. There was this one silver maple that had to have been one of the oldest in central Indiana if its circumference was any indication.
I made a few phone calls and was told there was nothing we could do. Maeve made a sign for the silver maple, begging them to at least leave it. It was gone by the time we got home from school and work, already woodchipped and delivered off to who knows where. We ate dinner as a family that evening with barely a peep (which is really saying something if you’ve ever met Maeve).
I spent the next several days working outside (#becausecovid) on our porch, and you might accuse me of sentimentality or anthropomorphizing, but I know what I heard and felt: I’ve never heard so much bird noise at our house as I did those first several days after they cut down the forest. A hawk circled his presumably former home all day the first day. It felt like the birds were mourning. Their calls sounded sickly and confused. After several days, their sounds faded away. The birds and critters found new homes elsewhere. I’m sure some of them were killed in the destruction, along with their forest homes.
I wrote about this kind of solastagia last fall, and I fear I’m experiencing preemptive solastagia these days (like Brene’s anticipatory anxiety, but for the eminent destruction of a place you love) because we received notice that a developer plans to slam 330+ homes into the farm and woodlands surrounding the entire west and south boundaries of our property. We knew something like this could happen, but we had been assured by city counselors and mayoral staff that it was always the “worst case scenario” in terms of development options.
Despite this development being planned in conjunction with the city for at least a year, if not longer, we homeowners only found out about it with two weeks notice when we learned that it would be proposed to the upcoming Planning Committee hearing via a generic looking letter in the mail. So Grant and I rearranged our schedules to both make it to the meeting. We encouraged neighbors to go. We met with the developer. We contacted the city staff with our questions. All in the week’s time between returning from a restful vacation and the evening of the meeting.
I’ve only been to a few Planning Committee meetings, but this one seemed fuller than most. They saved our proposed development for last. A city planner described the developer’s plan, then the developer was given time to review their proposal for everyone (even though we all already had copies of it). The floor was then opened for questions and concerns. At least twenty-five people got up and shared their many and varied concerns with the density of the development. Some were soft spoken, others were vehement, most of were a little nervous.
When it was my turn, I spoke about how this property had a less dense development proposed on it five years ago, which was not approved because of traffic concerns. Why would they allow a more dense development into the area now, especially when we have an additional development today that we didn’t have when this project was originally turned down? Grant focused on the traffic and road conditions. We told ourselves: be practical, don’t get too emotional, speak to the stuff that will have the most impact.
Grant had to leave two hours into the meeting to pick Jasper up from basketball, but I stuck around. A quiet man that appeared to be about my age got up and softly asked the Planning Committee, “how many of you have ever seen a pileated woodpecker.”
No one on the panel raised their hand. No. One.
First of all, how is it that eleven people who live in Noblesville, Indiana have never seen one of the largest, most striking native birds in Indiana? I’d like to believe that they just weren’t feeling participatory, but honestly, that lack of hands caused my whole chest to squeeze in on itself.
But then I focused on the soft-spoken gentleman who asked the question because by now he was describing the bird in detail: its coloring, its habitat, what it likes to eat. They come to his suet feeder (they come to ours too) right by his back window, which he told the Committee, is pretty rare in suburbia. Pileated woodpeckers prefer older, large trees and established forests, like the old woods that lie behind his home that the development plans to butt right up to. His voice was filled with awe, affection, and love, asking the Committee members to realize what his family would lose if the pileated woodpeckers move elsewhere.
That’s when I realized two things: 1) Grant and I had possibly gone about it all wrong, focusing on the practical and politically-convincing instead of our deep love of our place, the surrounding forests, the more than human life that lives and thrives in this quieter, less populated place amidst development all around and 2) while the pileated woodpecker guy had it right to be talking about his deep love for this beautiful species, he still wasn’t talking for the woodpecker, so much as he was talking about his and his family’s appreciation of it, which is a beautiful thing of course, but my realization was: who is talking for that particular pileated woodpecker that comes to his feeder?
Who is talking for the trees, the thousands of black raspberry brambles on the edges of this property that will be destroyed, and trillium stands that permeate the old growth forests, many of which will be destroyed if the development goes through? Who is talking for other bird species that live in those forests? Who is talking for the deer whose trails wind through those forests? Who is talking for the foxes and coyotes that we often see and hear? Who is talking for the mitochondria and the soil that will be pushed, prodded, and displaced?
We humans act like we’re the only ones whose opinions, comfort, safety, lives matter. We’re so fucking arrogant. I am so fucking arrogant - only thinking of my own concerns really, missing the perspective of all of these other beings that cannot speak for themselves at the Planning Commission meeting.
Of course, this is not new. Many other, wiser people have been saying these things - and for centuries. It’s just that this conversation happening in and about my actual backyard brought these things home in a new and powerful way.
So I’ve been trying to rally the neighbors in any way that works. I figure some of them could care less about the pileated woodpecker, but they do care about the effect on their property values. I don’t care what gets them to care, to be honest, so long as they show up - loudly.
I’m wondering if I should perhaps work to adopt that attitude about more things: the climate emergency, loss of ecosystems and biodiversity, poverty, the pandemic. Maybe stop working so hard arguing with people about why they should care and spend more time imagining new ways that might inspire caring in them?
Quotable
“People who own the world outright for profit will have to be stopped.” Wendell Berry
Stuff worth sharing this week
I’ve sent this AHP piece to approximately 27 people in the last week to remind them that there is a reason we’re all exhausted, short tempered, ragey, anxious, fill-in-the-blank.
I love the questions Hawken poses in this interview as a way of thinking through the expected but still devastating IPCC report that came out this week.
My summer break version of what I’m learning and loving over at the blog.
Seasonal pic of the week
Maeve’s sign with the silver maple from last summer.
Cheers to speaking up for those who can’t speak up for themselves in the week ahead!
Sara
who speaks for them?