Then after I went to bed, my objections started to gel. It seems that as our ecomomy expands and causes various kinds of social and ecological disruption, it simultanenously shrinks the number of people likely to see this or to care. The modern, post-Silent Spring environmental movement has talked continuously about "raising awareness," and has in fact made modest progress in that work. But during the same period, ways of living have taken shape among a lot of people that undermine the possibility of community or ecological awareness, and that place people's concerns at an ever-greater remove from the usual environmentalist sermons. Old "anthropocentric" habits of mind may be less the problem in the future than constantly shifting patterns of adaptation to economic trends, and overriding concern about what way to shift next.
Or maybe the concept of rootedness and all its Thoreauvian baggage need to be jettisoned from our thinking about an ecologically and psychically healthy way of life. There have been rumblings along these lines from the horizons of contemporary literature and philosophy. I guess I have more reason now to investigate those.
The relo story hits home for me because I might well have grown up in a downscale version of it. Due to my father's job transfers, my family moved three times by the time I was six. None of the children in my family were born in the same city. But when the boys upstairs called on my dad to move to yet another post (one involving a promotion, no less) after we'd settled in Kalamazoo, he declined. Of course, his career took a downspin from there, but in compensation, we found some continuities in life that we came to value greatly--friends, schools, church, and of course, that fine little trout stream across the road. I think I'd be a very different person today if we'd kept on roving. Who knows, maybe I'd have gotten an MBA, thrown myself into the relo lifestyle, and felt I was none the worse for it. Maybe I would have taken up golf (ugh!).
If you're a fisherperson, today's fishing report from Gates' Lodge in Grayling will have you drooling. All entomologicall hell is breaking loose up there, as it should in June. Odds are, barring adverse weather, any night on the stream this month could be the night of a lifetime...provided you can figure out what the trout are targeting. And get yourself in the right spot on the right night. Otherwise, you'll left fishless, stuck with starlight, the noisy night woods, and the inky river rushing past your waders. My fantasy is to spend every night of the month of June on some good trout stream. Maybe one of these years...
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