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| Field Before Hurricane Sandy |
The first anniversary of Hurricane Sandy has just come and
gone. The wide open field next to our condo suffered. Over twenty 100 year old
trees came down. They flanked the field where I walked my dog each morning and
in an instant the field was naked, exposed, without them. I had secretly named them “sentries” because
they ringed an open field – as if guarding it from the wild brush and wetlands
that lay beyond.
Over the past year, my dog and I got used to the increased eastern
morning light that was left in the wake of Sandy. We adapted to the increased
noise from the nearby heavily trafficked road. The debris was cleared and new brush and grassy knolls remained.
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| In The Wake of Sandy |
At least until a week ago.
Then the surveyors and landscapers began walking the field, and taking
measurements. I saw some trees and evergreens and felt excited that there would
be replanted. Instead, two days ago, several
majestic oaks and maples and pines which had survived Sandy, met their next
predator. The Village of Briarcliff Manor which deemed a new soccer field more
important than several mighty old trees who’d survived Sandy. They were felled
in an afternoon – to make way for a “level field” for soccer.
Gone is the serenity of a natural state, replaced by some
village planner’s idea of natural landscape. A “level” field ringed by shrubs
and manicured plantings, instead of natural brush and gentle slopes and
knolls. Gone too is my cat Cody who
happened to wander out that day and must’ve encountered the earth moving and
the upheaval of it all. I could only
think of Eddie Murphy as Dr. Doolittle – trying to save the habitat for all the
animals who once called the trees and forest and brush their home. Only this is
no movie; this is my neighborhood.
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| The Latest Carnage |
In my youth Joni Mitchell sang of paving paradise to put up a parking lot. She was
ahead of her time. Only now it is more than parking lots that are assaulting our lives. We have
plenty of soccer fields, school fields and organized athletics. How much
natural land remains for us to traverse and feel at peace and at one with the
earth?
I miss my morning sentries –and with this latest assault, I
feel the pain of the land that we continue to distort for ends that I don't see as "improvements." To me, it only moves us further from nature, spirit and grace of God. And I'm not particularly religious.
With this latest upheaval I am determined to move away soon. I don’t want to live in a community where an administrative edict to
serve a few, trumps Mother Nature. I miss the land as it was and I miss my cat
who could no longer navigate the landscape he’d known for 5 years.
Some things we can’t help – like Hurricane Sandy. But some
things we can. Moving our kids into ever
constant sports, afterschool activities , celebrity acquisitive money grubbing
culture – well to me it makes no sense.
When I was a kid – we just played in the yard and it was lots of fun.
Not everything had to be organized, cultivated or manicured.
When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?
