Search for Balance

     

“It was the Equinox on Wednesday,” Mark commented this weekend. “And we didn’t even notice.”

“I did,” I pointed out. “I changed the mantel and table. We just didn’t do much because…” I sighed. Wednesday night was, after all, the night I came close to a full on panic attack.

This transition from summer to fall is always difficult. School begins. The harvest pours in. My work with City Council keeps on going for at least a few weeks at summer speed. OSU students are back, bringing increased traffic, parking problems, and loud party complaints. I am pulled between mountain hikes and papers to grade, the desire to sit still in the sun and the need to keep on working. Knowing this, we have created several rituals that require slowing down, watching the world change, and breathing. We climb to the top of Chip Ross Park to watch the harvest moon rise. We travel to the other side of the mountains to camp by the Metolius river for a few nights.  We have backyard fires and eat s’mores.  Without these pauses, I have a tendency to spin into chaos.

This year, smoke from wildfires hid the full moon for several nights; we drove through the results of the huge fires two years ago on our way east to the river. Even considering the amazing rejuvenation that we could see from the side of the road, we were stunned by the devastation—and the community’s desire to rebuild ever larger and more expensive houses. When I came home, I listened to Sunrise Corvallis students talk to City Council about the emotional toll Climate Change is having on them and their entire community.  Merged with our growing awareness of the intersections between climate change, homelessness and climate refugees, and growing inequality,  I feel the same deep and abiding dread of the future myself.

Where do we go from here? I know what I need to do to root myself in the earth, to feel grounded as I move forward in the fight. But, when our places to ground ourselves are destroyed, what do we do? How do we keep on? How do we work to heal the earth when we are losing the places where we heal ourselves? How do we engage more people so that so a few are not carrying the burden?

Rosh Hashanah is beginning tonight. I am not Jewish, but the rituals of the faith are lodged in me.  I will bake a round loaf of challah and toss the crumbs upon moving water, as I hope for a sweet year to come, for my sins to be forgiven, to see a way through.

 

Water Access

 The air is really dry and there is ash on the windowsill. It is nothing like 2020, when the sky was a lurid green, but it is dry enough to have me thinking about water…who has access to clean water and who does not.

Until this summer, I understood the lack of water in homeless camps in an abstract way. Unless you are camping in a park, water is a long way away, maybe  a couple of miles. Even in a park, you may have to haul it from the central bathroom (if there is one) to your camp. It’s like backpacking, only every day without end. But, this summer, I spent time on Street Outreach, going to camps. I hauled bottled water in my old backpack when the temperature was heading for the high 90s and lack of water began to take on a new meaning. We use water to cool down, not only by hydrating, but also by misters, cool cloths on our necks, sticking our heads in water… When you are camping on the rail lines, this is not an option. We told everyone about the misters set up around town and reminded them about the library, but…it was hot.  Everyone hunkered down in place, with very little water. Water access.

Later, I was interviewed by a young woman earning her Master’s in Public Health. Hunched in the supply closet, bottled water piled around us, we talked about water access. People taking water from the river to drink, knowing that human waste was running downhill from a camp  nearby. People trying to stay clean while camping and looking for a job—because who is going to hire a dirty person? Whole families showing up for showers at the Hygiene Center when it used to be mostly men.  How hard it is to cook real food when you do not have water, so nutrition suffers. And then, how do we change our policies to improve the situation.  Water access.

On my last day, we were asking people what they would need to come into settled and sanctioned camps, rather staying on ODOT land. Water, they all said. Drinking water.  Showers. Toilets. Laundry would be nice. We’d like to be able to cook something, so we need water.  Over and over. At first, I thought it was because I was along the railroad lines, were there is no water nearby, not even a river. Then I talked with people who had been in the city parks—the same answer everywhere. Water access.

Then, it was my last stop of the summer. Three people sitting by a rail line, slipping down the slope. They had a tarp rigged up, two battered garden chairs, a pile of cans to be returned. Two were chatting and called out to us as we approached. Sure, they would all love some coffee. Oatmeal? Yup. Do we have any water with us? Of course. I handed over a couple of bottles. While two chatted about a bad song from the fifties, I watched the third unwrap an old sock from his hand. He had a nasty and bloody gouge on it—the kind of accident that sends me into the house for the hot water and soap, followed by clean gauze and a bit of tape. Nothing life-threatening, but painful. He winced. Poured water from the bottle over the wound.  Studied it for a moment. And then wrapped it back up in the same sock.

Water access.