A Language older than Words Read online

  Nor did I bring up the present. These evasions of all that was important gave our conversations a surreal, ungrounded feeling that I still can't quite wrap my mind around. What did we talk about? I couldn't bring up the present because he hadn't changed at all—he was still attempting to control me—and I couldn't bring up the past because I hadn't changed enough—I wasn't strong enough to stand up to his denial. The smell of his abuse still clung to my skin and to my clothes. It hung in the air around me.

  He kept "spies" on me all through high school, college, and after. One morning in high school I nearly got in an automobile accident, and that night received a call from him asking if I was all right. Fellow students in high school—acquaintances, and even people I didn't know—upbraided me for mistreating my father. During college I was forced to ask many of my instructors not to reveal information about me to anyone without my written consent. I've since found they were bound by law to do this anyway, but the law never prevented my father from calling, nor did it prevent the instructors from talking to him.

  The last time I saw my father was on the night of my senior collegiate conference championship. I had attempted to prevent him from finding out I was a high jumper; my attempt was unsuccessful. Four weeks before my final meet he called and asked if he could fly down to attend. I said no. He asked again. I said no. He asked a third time. I told him that if he attended, I would leave.

  As I mentioned earlier, the only thing that got me through college was high jumping. I loved it as I had loved nothing before. Every waking, and even dreaming, moment during my senior year was focused on winning that meet. The meet came. Two of us were ranked even odds to win. My main competitor was from Pueblo, where the meet was held, and had a huge contingent to cheer him on. He was a flashy jumper, all movement and rotation and explosive energy, while I was faster, and more fluid. During warmups, each time he jumped, the crowd of maybe a thousand erupted. To silence the crowd, I made sure to begin my approach even before he cleared the pit.

  The competition was close, but, breaking my own school record, I won. I still remember my exhilaration as I began my descent on the winning jump without having felt the bar on the back of my legs, meaning I'd made it. We said good-bye after a good season, and I took a lap to cool down. A line of people streamed onto the field to congratulate me, and I began, still in something of a daze, to shake hand after hand. I heard someone say my name, and looked up to see my father.

  I walked away. I found out later he had tried to approach me before the competition, and had been prevented by security. I thought about this incident on the way home, and over the next days and weeks. Had he come to the meet, I thought, then sat in the back, leaving quietly after it was done, my frustration at having my desires trampled would have been mixed with a certain respect and understanding of his desire to silently be a part of my life. But that wasn't what was happening. I understood— knew in my heart and bones and muscles, and most especially in my anus and mouth and penis—that the primary reason he came was because I asked him not to. There could be no area in my life, whether high jumping, school, automobile accidents, my body, my emotions—or even, had he known, the stars—that he would leave alone.

  Violence, and evil, doesn't always come dressed in black, and it doesn't always look like Charles Manson. Nor does it always come to us as obviously and arrogantly as the breaking of my sister's hymen, the blackening of my brothers eye or the discoloration of my mother's back. Often it comes to us with a simple plea to be reasonable. Why can't I come to your track meet?

  Just this week, steelhead—oceangoing rainbow trout—were listed as an endangered species in the region. Once, they swarmed the rivers thick as the now-extirpated salmon. They are now following their larger cousins to extinction, to the final and perhaps only refuge from our culture.

  The Spokesman-Review predictably wrote an editorial stating that we all need to approach this reasonably, emphasizing that no one wins if recalcitrant parties dig in their heels. The author mentioned Indians in particular, and made a sidelong reference to the "crazy ideas" of environmentalists and scientists whose plans for saving steelhead impede the commercial activities that are driving them to extinction.

  What if we said No? What if we were to be unreasonable? What if we forbade those who will destroy from determining for us what is and what is not within the bounds of acceptable behavior. Within Nazi Germany, the reasonable thing to do, of course, was to go along. Even within the ghettos, the reasonable action was to obey and cling to daily existence. But you know what? The percentage of people who survived the clearing of the Warsaw Ghetto was higher for those who took up arms in resistance than it was for those who, reasonably, went along.

  I've not seen my father since the night of the track meet, and with one exception, I have not spoken to him since. But still, many years later and many states away, he knows who my friends are, he knows the names of people I've dated, often knows what I am doing: I checked one day into a hospital, and received a call from him the first night. After I checked out a nurse told me that through my stay he had regularly spoken with both nurses and doctors.

  I'm not suggesting my father is the culture. He clearly is not. He is one sad, pathetic, fearful, controlling, violent person. He was merely my own personal catalyst for the life of activism I've chosen. But he is not alone.

  I open my window, and the sounds of bulldozers treble in volume. I think about the coyote tree, dying steelhead, being reasonable, and what it will take for us to survive. I don't know how much longer I can take this sound, nor especially the knowledge of what it means, but I don't know where to go.

  Last spring, at the workshop where I first read the opening pages of this book, and where a woman later approached to wish me healing, we all performed an exercise entitled "Peacemaking and Voluntary Simplicity." We sat in a large circle, candles burning in the center of the room, each person speaking in turn as a "talking stick"—a piece of wood with a feather on one end dangling from a leather thong—was passed hand to hand. As the stick made its way around, I considered what I was going to do or say. My first inclination was to not touch the stick: the person in charge of the exercise was not traditional Indian, and had the night before shown herself willing to exploit indigenous traditions. My second inclination was to simply tell the truth, that I was uncomfortable with our unauthorized use of a symbol belonging to a tradition that has explicitly declared itself off-limits to us.

  As the stick came closer, I found myself increasingly agitated, at least as much by what was being said as by the cultural appropriation. Person after person stepped close to the edge of outrage, then stopped to turn their anger and shame regarding our culture on themselves: "Sometimes I find myself getting angry at the heads of corporations or at politicians who design and implement murderous policies. But then I always have to realize that I am part of the problem, because I, too, drive a car. I realize that most of all I need to have compassion for politicians. They must suffer, simply being who they are."

  What about compassion for the murdered? The comments around the circle took me back a few years to a panel discussion I heard at an environmental law conference. The panelists were Buddhists, addressing much the same topic, and saying much the same thing. There was talk of compassion for wounded wretches who wound us all, of taking pleasure in the dailiness of our lives, of living simply, but not much talk about how to slow or stop the destruction. Afterwards, a woman from the audience stood to ask her question: "Everything you say makes perfect sense, but what do you do if you are standing in front of someone who is aiming a machine gun at a group of children, or is holding a chainsaw in front of a tree?"

  This is the point at which virtually all of our environmental philosophizing falls apart. It is the central question of our time: what are sane and appropriate responses to insanely destructive behavior? In many ways it is the only question of our time. Future generations will judge us according to our answers. So often, environmentalists and others worki
ng to slow the destruction are capable of plainly describing the problems (Who wouldn't be? The problems are neither subtle nor cognitively challenging), yet when faced with the emotionally daunting task of fashioning a response to these clear and clearly insoluble problems, we generally suffer a failure of nerve and imagination. Gandhi wrote a letter to Hitler asking him to stop committing atrocities, and was mystified that it didn't work. I continue to write letters to the editor pointing out untruths, and continue to be surprised each time the newspaper publishes its next absurdity. At least I've stopped writing to politicians.

  It is desperately true that we each need to look inside, to make ourselves right—as a poet friend of mine writes, "The Old One says you must put your house in order before you can have guests"—but it's also true that because we are embedded in and dependent upon this planet, and because we owe the planet our lives for having given us life, and because (one hopes) a deep spring of love lies hidden within us, this making ourselves right, this inner work, if it is to mean anything at all, must of necessity lead us to effective action, to actions arising from the love and responsibility we feel toward our neighbors.

  The members of the panel on Buddhism blew it. Each in turn stated that the most important thing is to have compassion for the killer, to try to see the Buddha-nature in each of us.

  That was a very fine, enlightened position, I thought, but one that helps neither the children nor the trees, nor for that matter the murderers. Nor, in fact, does it help the bystander. Enlightenment as rationalization for inaction. Pacifism as pathology. As Shakespeare so accurately put it, "Conscience doth make cowards of us all."

  I mentioned this to George, who has been a Buddhist since his early teens. George's response was even more direct than mine. "That's bullshit," he said. "There's a story that the Buddha killed someone who was going to later be a mass murderer. He did it so that he, instead of the murderer, could take on the bad karma caused by killing. And also, presumably, to save the innocent lives. The appropriate response is to stop the murderer by any means possible, as mindfully and compassionately as you can. If you must use force do so, and if you must kill, do that, too, the whole time being fully aware of the implications of what you're doing."

  I related to George a story I once heard of a samurai whose master had been killed, and so who was bound to track down the murderer. For years he followed him, until finally he cornered the man in a room. The samurai raised his sword, and from terror the other man spat in the samurai's face. The samurai held the sword poised, shaking now with anger. Finally he sheathed his sword, wiped his face, and walked away. He could not kill the man in that moment, because had he done so it would have been for the wrong reason.

  The stick was close now, only two people away. I didn't know what to do. I thought of a conversation I'd had with Jeannette and one of the Maoris. I said that I feel bad whenever I drive, because I'm adding to global warming. The Maori nodded agreement. So did Jeannette. Then she added fervently, "But you didn't set up the system. Do what you can, but don't identify with the problem. If you internalize what is not yours, you fight not only them but yourself as well. Take responsibility only for that which you're responsible—your own thoughts and actions. You didn't make the car culture, you didn't set up factory farming. Do what you can to shut those things down."

  The stick came to me. I took it, despite my earlier misgivings, and suddenly calm, said, "There can be no real peace when living with someone who has already declared war, no peace but capitulation. And even that, as we see around us, doesn't lead to further peace but to further degradation and exploitation. We're responsible not only for what we do, but also for what is in our power to stop. Before we can speak of peace, we have to speak honestly of the war already going on, and we have to speak honestly of stopping, by any and all means possible, those who have declared war on the world, and on all of us. Those who destroy won't stop because we live peacefully, and they won't stop because we ask nicely. There is one and only one language they understand, and everyone here knows what it is. Yet we don't speak of it openly."

  I took a breath, then continued, "I have to be honest here. During the reading last night I told you of my childhood, but I didn't tell you this: If I were once again a child, with only the options open to me as a child—in other words no running away to fend for myself—but also knowing what I know now of the futility of trying to talk my father out of his violence, I know I would have killed him. How else do I protect the innocent, the little boy who was me? Pacifist as I am—I've never been in a fistfight, nor even shouted in anger—I still would have killed him. And I don't think that would have been wrong."

  I looked at the faces around the room: some people were stunned, some looked away, a few disappeared behind a mask of impassivity, many looked intrigued, and quite a few nodded, eyes fierce with solidarity of understanding. I continued, "The point is that we're all in a room with a cannibal, with a mass murderer, and we need to figure out what to do about it."

  It is night. I sit in front of the computer, typing. The lamp—a halogen bulb atop a long pole, with an inverted bowl beneath to reflect light toward the ceiling—is on. The center of the bowl is semi-clear plastic, through which I see the husks of moths fatally attracted by the bulb. I try to keep the lamp off when bugs are in the room, and if I see one spiral toward the light I extinguish it. But I'm usually too late, and I hear the flutter of wings until all is still. The smell of burnt moth floats down. No wings flutter against the plastic housing now. I look outside, to see a small moth beating itself against the window, trying to get in. All night they try to fly in one direction, and during the day they try to fly out the other. It breaks my heart to see tiny wasps and black bees trying to find their way home, held back by a barrier they neither see nor understand. Plastic makes it worse. A few of my windows have clear plastic taped over them to decrease heat loss during the winter. Over the years the plastic has developed holes, too small for a finger but large enough for an insect. In they go, and it is nearly impossible for them to find their way out. I sometimes try to lead them, but that is maddening: they move toward the hole, then slip past the paper I'm using to guide them, and retreat back to the plastic, back to where they will soon die alone, of hunger, of thirst. Even to the end, I don't think they understand.

  Violence

  "We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, affliction, or infamy. We kill when, because it is easier, we countenance, or pretend to approve of atrophied social, political, educational, and religious institutions, instead of resolutely combating them." Hermann Hesse

  IT’S A BEAUTIFUL SPRING day, and the geese are sulking. Actually, only two of them are, two males. With the arrival of spring the birds have been especially amorous, with the geese seemingly interested in anything that moves. A third male goose is especially interested in one of the ducks (a large one, at least); she seems to return his affection, often sidling up to him and plopping down with a loud and presumably erotic (to him) quack. She lifts her tail invitingly, and he clambers up on her back.

  The two males have been upset with me lately, puffing themselves up and hissing whenever I approach, then braying excitedly when I'm done with my chores and leave. I know it's not just me they're upset at, because they've been chasing everyone except Amaru, the larger of the dogs. The other day they nailed (I believe goosed is the technical term) the largest of the roosters, and one of the geese has repeatedly gone after a sick hen with a bad leg.

  The hen spent most of the winter sitting atop the firewood piled inside the barn, venturing out only rarely. Early this spring she stopped going outside at all. I needed to leave for two weekends straight, and I told her that if she weren't better by the time I got back, that I would kill her. I got back, and still she sat in the barn, looking miserable.

  The next morning as I showered, I steeled myself to the notion that if she were still inside by the time I got dressed and went outside, that I would kill her. I went to the barn, and couldn't find her.
A search of the yard revealed her stretched out by the pumphouse, giving herself a dust bath. She has gone outside every day during the two weeks since, and seems to be walking better.

  The male geese don't like her. Thrice now I have gone outside and found them bullying her. Today was the worst. I was working, and heard an odd flapping outside. I looked out the window, and saw one of the males standing on her back, pulling at her head with his mouth. I've seen enough birds mating (or at-

  tempting to mate, when it comes to that form of interspecies communication) to know that though this resembled an attempted mounting, it was not. He was simply attacking her. His best buddy stood beside him. I ran outside, realized I wasn't wearing shoes (don't run around a chicken yard without shoes), ran back in, found only sandals, ran back out, grabbed a piece of wood, got the goose off her, and chased him around the yard, losing my sandals twice and using the long piece of wood as an extension of my arm to force him into a corner. Finally I caught him, held him, and told him that if I ever caught him doing that again, I would eat him for dinner.

  It is the next day, and I have been thinking more about the goose and hen. Two nights ago I dreamt of chickens, and was surprised to find none missing. Later in the day, though, one of the ducks disappeared. Obviously the Dreamgiver knew something I didn't. That makes me wonder if the goose, too, knows more than I. Perhaps he merely wants to put the hen out of her misery.

  If the goose attacks her again, and if I kill him, would I be killing for the wrong reason? Or am I, to ask the same old question, simply projecting my feelings onto the situation? Was the goose merely being a goose? Maybe. But there's a third male goose, not a member of this duo, who does none of these things. He usually hangs out with his duck-buddy, wandering about eating cantaloupe rinds and lettuce heads.