The first week on the road across this strange and stunningly beautiful country.
It is weird to travel some 2700 miles, hurtling along in our overloaded Rav 4 SUV. In my tradition, “rav” is rabbi so it is wonderful to experience the teachings of the road in Rav Ruby Pearl. Every single feeling arises through a journey like this: wonder, joy, fun, laughter, immense discomfort, incredible elation, occasionally terror when it’s raining and a huge truck sprays blinding water as you pass. My beloved and I are pretty copacetic so there’s not much irritation though nerves can get frayed around the 5:00 hour in hard rain and no clear place to sleep for the night.
We skimmed the surface most days, crossing state lines with a whoop and a holler and usually a high five. We stopped for brief encounters with a river, a canyon, a stretch of desert, camping and the occasional hotel.
I love this land. I can’t proclaim that I love this country because I am an idealist who believes in a global family living on a small planet without states and borders. As for being an American, I have been glad to live in a place where I have had immense freedoms, including the ability to be vocal about the need for change. As someone said, “It’s the worst government except for all the others.” However, despite all the mess, for most of my life, I felt like the US was moving towards a better place, even as I railed and rebelled against American BS. Then 2016 happened. And any pride or hope shifted to despair and disgust. People have said “This isn’t who we are,” but it is and has been forever. And that is the depressing part.
But the land has always had my heart and I have been fortunate to have crisscrossed the country numerous times. In fact, I’ve been to every state except for North Dakota and I will go there in just a few weeks!
We took the middle route: Georgia's forests giving way to the rolling hills of Tennessee, across the Ozarks of Missouri, into the endless - and I mean endless! - Great Plains of Kansas. The land slowly lifting toward the Front Range of Colorado, climbing through the Rocky Mountains, descending into Utah's high desert and the Basin and Range country of Nevada, before crossing California's vast Central Valley and rising again into coastal mountains. Crossing the Bay Bridge into my heart home of San Francisco - fog enshrouded glory.
We applauded sunsets, massive storm clouds, gorgeous flowers. “What a planet!” we exclaim. So much variety. The difference between an Atlanta sky and and an Eastern Colorado sky is vast. As vast as the open sky with 15 different colors and types of clouds, each doing something different. Watching a storm come in for over 30 minutes and clutching the steering wheel when the raging darkness and wind finally hit us then passed, each of us moving equally fast in different directions. Exhilarating.
We also too often shook our heads with sadness at windblown small towns, little vitality or hope evident within the empty shops and derelict buildings. I don’t know middle America. I won’t presume to judge. But it’s clear things aren’t working so great. I think perhaps we might come to different conclusions about solutions but I’m pretty sure the answer isn’t more extraction, mining, and grazing. Isn’t more agro-industry. I suspect it is in initiatives such as tall grass prairie restoration and bison renewal and small farms.
I have always carried an immense amount of climate grief. It’s an undercurrent running dully beneath the surface until the moments when it roars up like a geyser. I felt it in Tulum, Mexico, during what should have been a visit to paradise. Instead, I found endless trash, sacred cenotes littered with used diapers, fast food bags, plastic bottles. Seasonal seaweed made permanent by climate change, stinking up the beach. Endless construction. It was terrible. I think I cried for a week before the geysers of grief subsided back into the undercurrent.
I felt it this week at the Great Salt Lake, which I had never seen before. Because the lake is evaporating, the shore is huge. Perhaps it’s always been slightly stinky and perhaps there’s always been brine flies but it was not a pleasant place to be in late June. Whatever, not all places are pleasant even if they are magnificent. But learning more about it sent the grief geyser roaring. The ranger so very matter of factly explained how the rivers that have sustained it are increasingly diverted, much of the water flowing toward agriculture and livestock production. Scientists warn that without dramatic changes, the lake could reach ecological collapse within only a few years. Like five years. Five years. And with this administration destroying everything it touches, there’s no way that there is any will to save the lake. I know people are still trying though.
I stood there mourning a living place that is dying. And then left as soon as possible, brine flies smushed and smeared in my sandals.
Again and again I stand in disbelief that humans can alter to the point of destruction living landscapes. Ecosystems, geography, flora and fauna that are ancient. It is still hard to believe that a landscape can simply cease to be because we could not summon the collective will to protect it. And yet it may very well happen. The lake may disappear.
The grief is so deep. And of course, being on a road trips makes it all the more complicated. I am complicit in the destruction. Every mile I drive adds to the impact. Sure, I carry reusable containers, avoid single-use plastics when I can, refill water bottles, search for recycling bins, pack food instead of relying on convenience stores. Bleah bleah bleah. Painfully small actions against systems built for consumption.
But I am so deeply grateful to be here.
I fall in love again and again with the world. To be present in a canyon with at least 30 species of blooming wildflowers, the air scented with sage, yarrow, pinyon, the glacier creek spicy cold and the rocks warming in the morning sun is heaven. This is heaven. This planet that nourishes and sustains and provides for all our needs.
My solution for dictators, despots and people who hate is to send them all into a beautiful garden full of birdsong with a puppy and a baby and make them sit there until their hearts open and they recognize the Oneness of it all.
On the cusp of the travesty that is our 250th birthday as a nation, we’re not doing so great. I’ve been working and praying for a new future all my life. Here’s a story I wrote long ago about Interdependence Day instead of Independence Day.
But I also know there is still so much to protect, to cherish, to celebrate! My wish for you is not fireworks in the sky but to ooh and ahh over the the crepe myrtle, the hydrangea, the humble puff ball. To hear the trumpets of the swans and the drumbeat of the woodpecker. To gather in communities to take care of each other, feed each other with long spoons and be present on this glorious planet for the short amazing trip that is a human life. As the Grateful Dead sang, it’s “such a long, long time to be gone, and a short time to be there.”
May all beings be happy. May all being be free.
Ken yihiyeh / So may it be
Shine on, Blessed Beings! I look forward to your thoughts. I’ll be sharing more as our trip unfolds. we’re on the road for six weeks!
Beautifully written. Carry on!