Quiet presence can beat grand gestures when it comes to Earth Day
“The world is a wild wrestle under the grass; earth shall be moved,” a young writer named Annie Dillard wrote in her 1974 book, “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.” It’s a reminder of sorts about the brutality of nature underneath us at all times, the cicadas living on sap for years before busting wildly onto the scene for weeks, wreaking havoc before they die, and groundwater seeping and sliding and flinging and pulling our lands at all hours deep under our feet.
In the beginning of the book, Dillard wrote about a cat, an “old fighting tom” that used to crawl in her window at night and knead its bloody paws on her sleeping body, leaving marks that looked like roses. Later, when she had moved on and the cat was no longer in her life, she realized she missed the feeling of something powerful playing over her.
Dillard found the brutality of nature comforting and could look and find it anywhere.
Dillard was a young woman, fresh out of college, recently married, and living in the deep suburbs of Roanoke, Virginia, when she wrote “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.” She admitted she did not have much to do with her days while her husband was working, so she wandered down to the local creek to write poetry and journal.
What she found at Tinker Creek was simple in a lot of ways: red maple and white oak trees leaning over brown water as it flowed over weathered shale and sandstone, and bugs and dirt and animals. When studied closely, as Dillard discovered, it was immensely complicated.
She was mesmerized by what could be found by opening her back door and wandering a block or two away from her yard.
Dillard spent the next couple of years sitting by the creek watching bugs and jotting down thoughts. In 1975, her thoughts about Tinker Creek brought her the Pulitzer Prize.
On Earth Day, one can quote and write about many nature lovers – Emerson, Thoreau, Abbey, Muir, Frost, Wendell Berry, Wallace Stegner, among them.
What drew me to Dillard today was her constant and utter amazement at focusing on the nature that’s directly in front of you.
Here in Pierce County, we’re lucky to be spoiled with an abundance of obvious nature: Mount Rainier, Puget Sound, Point Defiance Park, Chambers Bay, Olympic Mountain views, islands and shorelines, and the smattering of urban and state parks we all enjoy so freely.
While Muir used Yosemite National Park as his muse, and Abbey the Southwest, Dillard only needed whatever the world offered her a few feet from her nose (and in some instances, what arrived while she was sleeping).
Her constant and dogged enthusiasm for the natural world and the beauty of its struggles perfectly typifies what Earth Day is about.
Of course, you can head down to a local clean-up or event today; those are wonderful things to do. But if you happen to be somebody who works during the day or has children and responsibilities, perhaps you can find a moment to open your backdoor and plop down on the sidewalk and look for a bug, the way we used to when we were little, when we thought mud puddles were better than clean shoes, sticks were better than smartphones, and apples were better than money because you could eat them.
To turn Scottish biologist and urban planner Patrick Geddes’ famous phrase, “Think globally, act locally,” around to suit Annie Dillard, I believe it could also be, “Think locally, act globally.” Or, “think locally, act locally.” Or, even “Think globally, act globally.”
Really, the important part of it is to think. Think about the natural world all around you, every time you step out your door. You don’t have to visit Mount Rainier National Park every weekend or hop into a kayak. Instead, plant a garden or find a bug.
Walk your dog in the park. It’s our day-to-day relationships with nature that allow our perspectives to change and help us observe any changes it might be showing us.
Last summer, my family took a southern road trip to spend time with family (my mother is from Roanoke). While driving along Route 11, I saw a sign for Tinker Creek. Rumors were that it was an underwhelming creek that ran behind suburban housing developments, and that it didn’t have much to offer in terms of literary majesty outside of Annie Dillard’s mind.
I made the call to stop anyway.
After skirting a few neighborhoods, we found a bend in the creek directly next to a construction site on a private block. We parked the car, and all skipped down to the creek. My daughter made little stick sailboats and sent them sailing down a cascade. My 5-year-old son found water bugs and threw rocks across the shore.
It was really quite beautiful, and as a Westerner, really unlike any of the creeks I grew up with — almost, dare I say, exactly how I imagined it. The more time I spent there, the more beautiful the surroundings became. I envisioned Dillard dipping her toes in the water and searching for egg sacks.
Once we got back in the car, I wondered why the creek wasn’t more popular. There were so many houses all around. Why wasn’t anybody else playing by the creek?
I found out why only moments later.
As we buckled up and headed down the road, I was about to turn back to Route 11 when my son alerted us to a “weird spider on his arm.”
My wife turned around and immediately said, “Ack! Stop the car, that’s a tick.”
We all learned how to check our bodies for ticks that day, standing by the side of the road. And, so far, my kids have never forgotten it.
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