Pine Nuts with McAvoy Lane: Mother Nature and her 2020 lessons
Submitted by Jeff Munson on Mon, 05/18/2020 - 12:53pm
Since I started walking instead of running I'm enchanted by the simplest things. I guess trading "runner's high" for "walker's enchantment," is not such a bad trade.
Just yesterday I saw a pageant played out in the sky I had never seen before, and never would have seen had I been running. A bright north to south contrail lit up the heavens while a westerly wind wafted ice crystals across the sky to create a perfect feather, and I took it as a sign of impending good luck for Mother Earth and her inhabitants.
Oh, did I mention stuffing your pockets with dog bones will create opportunities to make friends with the likes of Blaze, Cooper and Zippy. After a while, they will spot you at a hundred yards, drop their tennis balls and come running. Petting somebody else's dog is pure profit. No, it's the walker's life for me.
Similarly, everything changed when the pandemic arrived; everything seems dearer. Mother Nature, in her daily appearance, arrests the mind's eye and energizes the soul. I start to see beauty in formerly commonplace things. Commonplace things, like rocks, have taken on a temporal aspect. I suppose when I start to see harmony in space and time I might be coming to the end of my visit on this lovely planet.
Then too, with the arrival of the pandemic, climate change drifted from my mind, and a curious thing happened. While everybody was home-bound, Mother Nature was on the mend. Oceans, rivers, the air itself, all were taking a step forward while we were taking a step back. She reminds us, even during a pandemic, that protecting our Mother must remain a priority.
As 2020 rolls along, the virus continues to dominate our attentions as our most immediate concern. Next comes the economy, which is joined at the hip to our well being. The good news is, once the pandemic has finally passed, we will be equipped, and of the right mind, to fully engage the crisis of climate. It looks like we might actually produce more electricity in this next year from renewable power than from coal, a thing not imaginable ten years ago.
I genuinely hope a grandchild will write the following letter 20 years from now.
"Dear Papa, we want to thank you and your generation for looking out for us and addressing the urgent issue of climate crisis, as you finally did on the heels of the pandemic of 2020. You turned a fire hose on our burning planet. Mother Nature had written a good script, a script that was working well until previous generations ripped it up. Then your generation came along with a new logo, 'Love Thy Mother!' We would take you out to lunch on Earth Day but you died ten years ago."
Yes, I will miss receiving that letter in 2040, as pushing up turnips will be my sole occupation. But I take comfort today in knowing that letter might be forthcoming.
In closing, I believe our logo bears repeating, "Love Thy Mother."
And this is where our short history of climate change 2020 comes to a close.
— For more than 30 years, in over 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy Layne has been dedicated to preserving the wit and wisdom of “The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope,” Mark Twain. As Layne puts it: “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher, whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American.”
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