sweet land of liberty

“There is no sense and no sanity in objecting to the desecration of the flag while tolerating and justifying and encouraging as a daily business the desecration of the country for which it stands.”—Wendell Berry, “Waste”

Stinchcomb Wildlife Refuge, Yukon, Oklahoma
May 2007

Gamma-Ray Grub

Weeks ago I read a fascinating article about the activity inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Writer Henry Shukman and photographer Rory Carnegie endured a bureaucratic nightmare in order to get permission to explore the 1,600 square miles declared off-limits after the Chernobyl disaster. The area is in northern Ukraine and the author says it is approaching something that resembles the “primeval untouched forest that human eyes may never have seen” — or pushcha, “dense forest.” The 6,000-word article touches on the aftermath of the nuclear explosion in April 1986 and how what is unfolding is an actual “laboratory of microevolution.” The DNA of most animal species in the zone has become unstable, the author says, and strains of mice have developed a resistance to radioactivity. A large pine forest has developed genetic abnormalities: the trees are red, not green. Some trees grow as bushes, with no discernible trunk.

The author also contemplates the sometimes-comforting thought that nature will endure: “It’s weirdly distressing to be here. As a human, it’s like staring down the barrel of our likely fate. We may wipe ourselves out with a nuclear holocaust, or with carbon and methane, or some other way we can’t yet conceive of. Or nature may do it for us. When it happens, trees may or may not mind.”

But what resonated with me was the descriptions of food. His initial resolute refusal of the area’s food was eroded with a little liquor and the pure pleasure and appeal of the freshly grown food. I found myself wondering what I would have done in this situation:

“Ivan the son is busy wiping down the table, spreading out sheets of newspaper for all the foodstuffs: eggs from chickens pecking under our feet, tomatoes from the garden, bread, a bowl of tiny forest raspberries, a whole dried river fish, crystallized and orange from its time smoking in the a homemade stove [which, by the way has a built-in shelf on top for sleeping on in the winter. Brilliant!]. It’s all local and it all looks great, but most tempting of all are the mulberries hanging above my head. They resemble elongated blackberries, and there’s something about the way they’re growing among oval leaves of the tree that makes them irresistible. I’m dying to reach and grab one, but they frighten me. We’re only ten miles from the power station.”

His hosts offer him homemade vodka, samogon, and make a case for its merits: “When you want make business, make networking, you live in the city. But here, there is natural food, for example this samogon, it is so good for you.”

The author is swayed by the tour: tomatoes, grapes, and vegetables growing in the garden. Ginseng, too, which is what is used in the medicinal vodka.

“A couple of shots later, my fears have abated and I’m tucking in like the rest. The fish is so smoky my eyes water, and soon my hands are stained bloodred from all the mulberries I’ve eaten. A bird starts singing. Flakes of sunshine shift over us. The hay is in, there’s a pig fattening for Easter, and the oats are almost ready for the scythe. If this isn’t rustic life at its timeless, bibulous best, what is?”

And I found myself feeling the same way. A case could be made — at least in my mind — for giving in to the risk of radiation for the bliss of this tainted and rejected wilderness. Granted, it’s not necessarily just the largely uninhabited wilderness that appeals to me as much as that combined with the insulated village and agrarian lifestyle. The people there insist there is nothing to fear, that cancer isn’t imminent. But does it even matter? Shit can happen anywhere, with a lot more apathy, boredom, or misery in the process.

So, if, hypothetically, I’m willing (I think?) to accept the risks of living in a vast, radioactive wilderness in order to enjoy an agrarian, communal lifestyle, what’s stopping me from attaining something slightly less threatening? Well, in my “would you rather” scenario, I am deposited in this radioactive forest — I haven’t had to consider all the minutia (financing, partners, locale, debt, water access, etc.) that I would have to address if I were looking to create that life from scratch. And besides, the rejection of that land is part of its merit — I wouldn’t have to worry about the things that threaten livelihood in rural America: Walmart, natural gas wells, super highways, etc.

cover the earth, take 2

On November 5, 2004, I took some photos of the Sherwin Williams sign in Denton, Texas. Using my clumsy Photoshop skills, my goal was to manipulate the sign to draw attention to the absurdity of the company’s logo.

exalted one

Housing development in Edmond, Oklahoma
September 2008

Houston, Texas, circa 2002

progress

Edmond, Oklahoma, September 2008

cover the earth?

© 2009 Tricia Dameron

the search for peace

Photo © 2004 Tricia Dameron