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BY BEN WHITE |
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Yucatan Diary Day 21by Ben White posted 02/03/05
One of my favorite quotes comes from Wendell Berry, the farmer who writes so clearly it seems he is using a scalpel instead of a pen. Wendell Barry is one of the best spokesmen around for old time American wisdom, of smallness and the importance of the soil and the people who work it. Coincidentally, his cousin, Father Thomas Berry, is probably the foremost ecotheologian in the country, and my kidīs godfather. (This occurred when my wife wanted our kids baptized. I refused, not wanting anyone mouthing such blather over them such as being born into original sin. We needed a priest who was both a Catholic and a pagan. Father Berry blessed my kids out of the stream behind my house, addressing not only Jesus but the Father Sun and Mother Earth. A wonderfully peaceful man.) Anyway, the quote is found in a book of essays by Wendell Barry called WHAT ARE PEOPLE FOR, I think in a chapter called A Poem of Difficult Hope. It goes something like: "the goal of protest that succeeds is more modest than changing the minds of everyone, it is to hold onto that within our hearts that dies from acquiescence." Maybe it's because, in the fight to protect the wildlife of the world, we almost always lose the battles we are fighting, even if eventually we do sway enough minds globally to make a difference. But if the reason you volunteer, or work to make dogs and cats lives easier, or the forgotten old folks at the home, is for you, because it makes you feel better, then it doesnīt matter if anyone else does it or even if your contribution goes unnoticed. I have come to believe that the fight for the last free wild creatures on earth is the same fight for the last indigenous cultures and the last pure water and the last place where people can politically choose their own destiny, and the last place that you can breathe air right out of the sky and drink water right out of the river without it making you sick. I fight this fight so I donīt die a little in my heart every time I surrender a little. Yeah, that ship is going on down there, but what can I do? Okay. So the Ewing is being able to blast the bezesus out of the Yucatan coast with impunity (ask Agatha Christie- the sea is a great place to hide little murders). And I am foiled in my attempt to shut them down by getting so close to their boat either with my body in the water or in a boat flying a dive flag. So, did they win? Did I lose? Yes. For sure. And no. They got:
We got:
To me, the moral of this story is that pressure works. Just never as much or as fast as we want. Today I indulged in a little crowd and flower therapy. Walked to the market just before noon, probably at its loudest, busiest, peak of human chaos. Bought a little plastic bag of sliced up pink grapefruit with- you guessed it- hot chili pepper mixed with salt. Weird. But good. A little bag of pepitas. A splendid round avocado. A bunch of sweet onions. A bag of salt. One Roma tomato. Then I found a lady selling some kind of really sweet smelling white flowers that look a little like honeysuckle but arenīt a vine. Then a half dozen of the brightest red gladiolas I could find along the whole row of flower sellers. Then there was this one old lady with just a tiny table sitting down close to the ground. She had clumps of gardenias for sale- one of my all-time favorites. I rushed home to my room in the Gran Hotel to find a vase for them before they got any droopier. But I couldnīt help going through the main square. The clown has come back to the square to perform, this time bringing a friend. Shouldnīt really call him a clown because he looks so different than the standard American white faced and bug eyed exuberant and pushy clown that has always scared the piss out of me. (If I am ever, finally, captured by the CIA/LDEO/NMFS/ Sea World/Office of Navy Intelligence/Monsanto/Knights of Templar/and Trilateral Commission cabal of bad guys and tortured they will bring in a clown squeaking pieces of styrofoam on either side of my head strapped to the chair. I will immediately spill the beans and tell them that it was all Susanīs idea and that I was just a patsy of animal rights extremists.) But the guy who performs in the park is pint-sized, with a stuck-on nose that makes his swoop forward and up like Nixonīs but more so, the big galoot pants with the shoulder straps, goofy big-toed boots and a little face paint. This time he was accompanied by a similarly dressed yokel who played the part of a whiny student supplicant. Every time the main guy would start his schtick, the student clown would interrupt with something stupid and need to be upbraided, or smacked with a folded up piece of cardboard that made a great WHACK. Then the student would get led to the edge of the roaring crowd by his ear with all the exasperation of a weary mom trying to control her rowdy kids for the umpteenth time. Even missing maybe half of the very fast colloquial Spanish, just the ridiculous body language had me shamelessly reduced to giggles right there in front of God and everyone. Leaving the park, I see the tiny shoeshine man I have seen before. At night he sits in his own chair, head down, arms hugging himself against the chill, hands gripping withered biceps. During the warmth of the day, I find him still sitting in his own chair, long past worrying about business, fast asleep, head back, mouth agape, his skin stretched tight against his cheekbones and his knuckles, dark deeply creased shiny skin just like a gorillas. Those of you who have traveled to Mexico know that most of the trucks have names, often emblazoned in huge letters in silver across the top of the front windshield. My favorite so far is: INOLVIDABLE AMOR. I believe this literally means UNFORGETTABLE LOVE, I prefer reading it as UNAVOIDABLE LOVE. My son Ben flies into Merida tonight (lord willin') and we will take off in the morning in search of the great elephant (this time whale) graveyard (eddy.) Where all the things killed by the Ewing go to die. Of course, there probably is no such thing, most things would just die and sink. But maybe we can get the evidence we need. Sure am going to look. I am going to keep going with the diary for a bit, although the definition of a "day" may become a bit looser and include a couple of days. I will end it either when I come home or when things get so placid and peaceful that I worry about boring you'all. Thanks for all the notes, good wishes, random kindnesses, blows toward Mexico to rock that damn boat, letters to Mr. Purdy, and contributions to AWI. This campaign, and my salary, is being paid for by the Animal Welfare Institute. Tax exempt contributions will be happily accepted at Animal Welfare Institute, Box 3650, Washington, DC., 20027. Love and revolution, |
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