I grew up an hour north of here, on ten acres that my parents have owned for 35 years. There they carved out a home from a horse pasture: house, artist's studios, wood shop, gardens. Hardwood forest grew up around them, thick and strong and tall.
Now my parents are leaving. Their reasons are complex, and some are sad. While their land has matured and, in ways, reverted (from cleared to wooded), adjoining land has recently been bulldozed and developed. Instead of the honey scent of milkweed flowers blowing over and into Mom's garden, there is diesel exhaust. Gas wells are being drilled in the area; the rigs are ironclad and obtuse, and marching in ever closer.
It seems like wildlife has concentrated on Mom and Dad's land in the past two years - both new species and a denser population of old ones. It is bittersweet - I see all those animals, my parents included, clustered in the middle, looking out. They stand in solidarity, but they are cornered.
For my parents, there is a way out, and if they could take all the others to Vermont with them, I guess they probably would. They would pack foxes, rabbits and nuthatches (with snacks!) into crates in the car, and off they'd go.
At the very center of my being, there is my parents' land. I grew up out of arrowwood tunnels and shad bowers. It is painful, all this long writing of the last chapter. All this forever saying goodbye. But that, I think, is what has caused my family to gather so many nights in the garden over this summer, and last. And so we got to know a gift: nocturnal sphinx moths.
They are loud (bzz bzz), and as the evening grows darker, the moths flap out of the shadows of the treeline. The biggest one (in the second and third pictures above) I think might be an ash sphinx, and to my eye, it is just a bit bigger than a hummingbird. It loves Mom's lilies ('Arena' is the one shown here).
My dad, Michael Poster, made these pictures last summer.
10 comments:
This brought tears to my eyes, Zoe--what a difficult decision your parents must have faced, and how heart-wrenching for them to see something they've loved and made good being nibbled away from outside. I'm sorry the physical and emotional landscape of your family home is disappearing, while the home itself moves north. In a painful way, though, how lovely to be aware of what you're losing and so to enjoy it with deep attention now.
The sphinx moths here always startle me, and I shriek and duck before I've realized what they are.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Stacy. You are so right about the gift of being able to enjoy with deep attention now, and you put it perfectly.
Re the shrieking and ducking, I do that even as I'm trying to take their pictures... Unlike hummingbirds, they will crash into you! And it's an unexpectedly large collision.
Oh Zoe, I can't imagine how painful it must be for you and your family to be losing your connection to that land. The surrounding changes sound truly awful, and I know how much it would pain me to see such things happening here. I hope your parents find an equally enchanting place in Vermont, that they, and you, will come to love as much.
It breaks my heart that so many wonderful homesteads and wild areas are being swallowed up by greedy industry and its 'ironclad' monstrosities. Perhaps that's what brings us gardeners together most...the need to counteract the effects of industry with flowers and herbs wherever we can, and to give sanctuary to Nature when she is uprooted elsewhere. What an awesome family legacy you have though, that loving respect for Nature.
This made me sooo sad...How hard it ihas to be to leave that beautiful land. All in the name of progress which means All in the name of money!
Vermont too is beautiful, I hope your parents can carve out their own *special slice of heaven* for all of you to remember in the years to come.
Reading this, I'm remembering doing Tarot readings in your mother's garden at one of her shows, and the beautiful yellow painted floors of their kitchen. And it makes me think of walking in my own parents' orchard in the early morning and eating peas from the vine when they were still taller than I was. And how my parents tell me about the constant rattling of trucks now on the gravel road and how the cement pads across the county multiply and how the drilling draws closer around them as well. I live so far away now that it is easy to not think of this most days, although I know it is so painfully all-consuming for them. I think your parents are very lucky to have you so near through this experience.
Thank you all so much for your beautiful words. It is comforting to be connected with others out there that feel an involvement with nature, and who share some of my own feeling of responsibility to live gently on the land. Thank you for your well wishes, too. My parents love their new home in Vermont, which is very quiet, but for the bugs and the birds.
New Moon Girls, I remember that too. Your parents also made a haven where they are, and they've always worked hard to protect what is truly important. I hope there is some way for this madness to end for them, too. We were lucky to grow up where we did, when we did.
Thank you for writing so eloquently. Thank you for finding something interesting and beautiful and showing it to others. Thank you for telling us "someone needs to make the first move".
Vermont is not ALL that quiet...there's also coyotes singing, and tree frogs can be very loud! And those towering pines whistling in a wind! We are very fortunate. I hope others follow.
Love, mom.
My parents left their home of 40 years in 2010. It's a hard and sad thing to say goodbye, even when you understand the reason for the leaving. Was it fracking that sent them packing?
Thank you, Mom, and Ellen. Yes, it is fracking, and all that goes along with it. There is a gas pipeline company that covers a few acres next to my parents' property now. The gas industry is poisoning water and air in Susquehanna County. And unexpectedly, we've watched community members turn against each other over the money they stand to gain or lose. It's really completely disgusting.
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