May 2008

I am the spirit of all that lives,
Labours, and loses, and forgives.
My breath's the wind among the reeds;
I'm wounded when a birch-tree bleeds.
--Irish poet Nora Chesson, 1871-1906

We’re a little heart-sick, up on the hill. Driving home on the country club road after work, I am greeted by sunshine and shadows in all the wrong places—acres of trees have been bulldozed between my morning and evening commutes, exposing views of ugly power lines and steel pylons set amidst a sea of equally-unlovely stumps, the ragged remains of hundreds (thousands?) of trees. The little mid-century ranch house that once sat at the edge of a small woods seems hopelessly adrift now, surrounded on three sides by a muddy, littered battlefield. The sign announcing the imminent construction of new homes has made good on its promise, and the trees have lost the battle.

And so it goes, battle after battle, until the war is won, and we’re all surrounded by cookie-cutter cul-de-sacs with names of natural features that no longer exist: Fox Den Acres, The Cottages at Reedy Creek, Beechnut Estates. Instead of the foxes and the reeds and the beech trees, we’ll have only vinyl siding and cinderblock and macadam. That 1950s ranch I’ve watched undergo a charming renovation over the past year will look sadly out of place now, once this new development is finished. It is as similar in quality and scale to a new-construction home as our noble chinquapin oak is to those spindly pin oaks plopped down in the postage-stamp front yards of all those new “estates”.

Not that there is a thing wrong with pin oaks—we have one—but what street needs forty? Is biodiversity, or any kind of diversity, not part of the jargon of construction today? Must each tree, each house, look just like its neighbor, jammed together, block after block, street after street, ad infinitum? Ad nauseum, for that is surely what I feel: sick. Sick to my stomach that, as a region, we continue to lose population, but manage to keep ripping apart huge swaths of forest and meadow for more housing, while perfectly serviceable homes sit vacant, waiting for new owners. Sickened that wild animals are forced to live in ever-decreasing spaces criss-crossed with dangerous man-made barriers, while we continue to dig up their habitats and divert streams to make way for yet another asphalt strip mall with the same shops as the strip mall right up the street. Heart-sick that Rosslyn Farms, with all its wildlife and woodland charm, is being swallowed whole by suburban sprawl.

I relate the news of the deforested acres to D, and we instinctively go out to look around and assure ourselves that the one small acre we control is still green. Our neighbor comes through the forsythia hedge with old photos in her hand, photos of her childhood spent in the house next door to ours. She tells us of playing as a child with the daughter of our home’s first owners under an esplanade of crab apple trees; of seeing pheasants and foxes run across the lawn; of sledding down the once-gentle slope behind our houses that is now a sheer drop-off overlooking the high school. Looking at those photos of rolling vistas, it’s almost more than I can bear and I go chasing after the dog as an excuse to walk away before my face belies the overwhelming sadness I feel at what we’re doing to the Earth.

I begrudge no one a home or a livelihood, but when will we learn that there is more intrinsic value to green space than another parking lot and one more pizza joint? When will we learn that a new 6,000 square foot home (with baseboards made from the same stuff as Tupperware) on an eighth of an acre is not wise—or necessary? When will we learn that old, existing houses with ample yards and mature landscaping are a better choice for human families as well as wildlife families? Room to move, bushes to hide under. Trees for shade, berries and nuts to eat. Quiet. Safety. Home. When will we learn? When it’s too late?