The Green Siren: Inspiration

It’s 1:58p after a day of opening at work.  That means donning the green apron from 4am until 10am.  It also means I’m free the rest of the afternoon to wander this exciting and surprising city.  A smile breaks across my face as delight bubbles up in my belly, and “This Is How You Remind Me” has just come on.  I love me my reliable Nickelback.  I’ve just been battling with myself.  Now, or later?  I’m sitting out at my favorite spot at Red Rock Canyon, an overlook with a panoramic view of the canyon, with its purple mountains that look like they’ve been crashed into by pink and red striped mountains with completely different cleavage lines and sedimentary layers…trying to channel my Earth Science days of eight grade.  I suppose it’s now, then.  And, I did tell the mountains I’d tell them my story, as I listen to theirs, too. 

Seriously.  I read an incredible book by Derrick Jensen, Endgame, and towards the end when he’s discussing different courses of action to prevent our modern world from destroying much of our beloved biodiversity and wild nature.  One of the things he said that I think about on a regular basis was, go to your nearest (and now Nickelback on another station 9 minutes later…LOVE this collaboration with Santana; so sexy) river, field, mountain, and ask it what it needs; it will tell you, he said.  The voice I imagine is his, I hear him say this in my head with such assurance and an air of mystery; the voice that repeats this to me, it will tell you, it will tell you, is a wise one.  Listen to the nature.  Ever since reading that about four months ago, I’ve come out here on a regular basis, to sit with these mountains, watch the cacti bloom and the critters emerge with the spring. 

That’s why I’m keeping my track of myself on a daily basis, in a roundabout way.  I want to preserve this landscape.  And even though my trying to not use so many cups won’t keep this exact place clean, but it will keep somewhere like it cleaner and healthier than it would have been if I’d allowed ten more cups per week to accumulate.  I wonder what this place would look like if instead of the blooming desert landscape sweeping up the foothills, Starbucks cups covered the desert right up to the edge of the red mountains.  The chipmunks burrough in cups instead of into the dirt, the birds I’ve yet to identify would rest on heaps of cardboard sleeves instead of the boulder about fifty feet out from ledge of the wall I sit cross-legged on as I gaze out.  That image alone is enough to keep me focused on the fight. 

That helps me.  It doesn’t make it perfect; not even close.  But keeping an image of what I love in mind gives me something to hold onto as I’m struggling to protect it.   Sometimes the battles are physical, sometimes psychological, emotional and spiritual.  Change is tough, even when you’re working towards good change, and change you wish to see for yourself and those around you.  Today, even knowing I’d have to write it down, and I worked through the thought process of, ‘Is just a little taste of creamy caramel and coffee worth the cup I’d need to enjoy it?  Probably not.  How many miles are on that cup?  How about that frappuccino?  So, is it worse to pour this down the drain, or…and my head started spinning and the next thing I knew I’d poured the thing and had swirled caramel sauce on top. 

Then, of course, I had to drink it.  It was just a short cup, so I’m imagining tucking it inside bigger cup in the trash heap on the mountains…

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