It’s the light. It seems to be straining to reach us, and
you appreciate it all the more for its effort. It’s the clouds: yesterday, the fog
blanket stayed late into the afternoon. Today the clouds never did depart; on
the ride home I tasted the not-too-distant first storm of autumn. Mmmmm.
It’s the smell, the pungent sweet tarweed wind, crossing the
field that may soon be sealed with tar and gravel. It’s that good s**t the
farmers spray on their fields. Complain if you will about our dairy air, but I’ll
take manure over monoxide any day.
It’s a time for tears, for what we have and what we have
lost. Cry with joy as we reap the rewards of Sol’s summer job: the food
flooding from our gardens into our cells and freezers: beans, zukes, tomatoes, cukes. Mmmmm.
Cry with sorrow as a tropical storm, grown monstrous from
the heat of civilization’s ignorance, slams into our noisy, fragile encampment,
and floods the already-downtrodden with even greater misery. Cry tears of hope
as their suffering stirs the compassion of the global village, and we rise up
to fulfill our destiny as givers, not takers, of life. Ignorance still rules,
however, and we cry with fear for what it could take to remove him from the
throne. How much disaster and sorrow must we endure before our species wakes up
to the unity of life, to the brilliance of our true selves?
Bittersweet autumn, safe in sunny Petaluma, far enough from
the simmering ocean. But are we ready for the future? We’ve built a wall to check
the floodwaters, but as global warming lifts the tides and intensifies the
storms, what then? What about the inevitable 8+ quake? Let’s take a lesson from
our chlorophyllic friends. The tomato plant is bred
to invest most of its collected sunshine above ground in those exquisite edibles.
The oak, by contrast, sinks its solar income into a meaty tap root. When
calamity strips their leaves, the tomato dies, but the oak can repeatedly draw
on its root reservoir to grow a leafy new set of solar panels.
America, as rich as she is, will not be able to recover from
many more Iraqs and Katrinas.
What about Petaluma? How do we build oak-like resiliency into our ripe tomato
of a town? We need to aggressively invest in sustainable infrastructure,
emphasizing that which is locally produced, sun powered, bio-mimicking. Solar roof
tops, small windfarms, and new and remodeled homes
that are super-efficient with power and water. We need to encourage local food
production with gardening programs at every school, community gardens in every
neighborhood, and community supported agriculture (CSA) outside the UGB. Let’s put
a post-Katrina emphasis on the sustainability element of our General Plan.
We can continue to nurture and celebrate Petaluma’s institutions
and culture for community giving. Elected, business and volunteer leaders
(you!) can guide the creation of opportunities for people to get together. I
love the new public spaces downtown (especially the benches), but we should
create a large outdoor area for community gatherings like concerts (along the
Turning Basin at the renewed Golden Eagle?) Another good thing: the “Rotary
Walks” program, which brings people together to explore our new trails, starts
this Saturday (see RotaryWalks.org.)
I’m comforted by my conviction that the clouds of coming
shortages and disasters have silver linings. When crisis forces neighbors to
help neighbors, to share their diminished physical resources, they will lose the
mental illness and aberrant behavior that grew out personal isolation and
alienation. When gasoline grows scarce due to war, natural disaster, or the inevitable
consequences of peak oil, we’ll all experience the joy of walking and cycling
together (and with more room on the streets!) Growing and eating food together
will make us healthier in every way. We won’t be able to afford a four ton car
or a 4,000 square foot home, but we’ll regard them as senseless burdens, not
benefits.
It will soon be autumn, then winter. But if we prepare,
there will be a spring like we’ve never seen.