Your One Beautiful Life

Acclaimed author Terry Tempest Williams is currently on the road for a cross-country "Open Space of Democracy Tour" sponsored by Orion Magazine and Orion Books, publisher of her most recent book, The Open Space of Democracy.

We say goodbye to Serni Solidarios, director of student programs at the University of Puget Sound, as we board the train from Tacoma to Portland. We find our seats and settle in.

I love trains. I love the slowness of trains and how civilized they feel compared to planes. They are quiet. Trains travel through the landscape at a scale my body can accommodate. Passing trees can be identified as maples, firs, and spruces. One can bird-watch and follow the countryside with a map.

Traveling by trains always feels like a romance, instead of an ordeal.

Brooke and I read through some of the students' papers that they wrote yesterday in class. I asked them to respond to a line inspired by Mary Oliver, "What do you want to do with your one beautiful life?"

"I want to see every wild place in the state of Washington and then see them all over again."

"I want family."

"I want to have a connection with community."

"I want to grow my own food and speak many languages."

"I want to love fiercely and be a fine friend."

"My life would be complete -- in my eyes -- if I were able to save the Hawaiian green sea turtles and stop the dangers and harms we put in their ways ..."

"I want to create an indelible mark upon all that I interact with. If I could live on as scar tissue -- that small reminder on someone's hands of a mistake or foolishness or a good-natured nick -- I would be happy ..."

"I want to be an opera singer. I really do. I want to preserve an art that I deem superior to anything else. Opera has the ability to transport my soul to a place of ecstasy ... The difference between my generation and your generation is superficiality. No one wants to be real anymore. A live performance isn't valued nowadays as in the past. The beauty of a natural, live voice is overshadowed by the site of J. Lo's ass."

"I don't want kids. I don't want a wife. I want to be a trauma surgeon. I want to drive a cool car. I want to sleep with many beautiful women. I want to put a Bowflex in my office."

"I want to eat 12 different kinds of lettuce ..."

"I want to change the world. I want to be surrounded by music. I want to travel and learn. I want to pay my parents back my college tuition. I want to not want."

"What do I want to do with my one beautiful life? I don't know. I really don't know. All I know is that I am searching for something -- or maybe it will find me. A world of wondering, just living."

The tenderness of these students gives me hope.

Hope. The discussion of the Environmental Studies Symposium at Lewis & Clark College organized by Anne Elizabeth Washburn, a graduating senior. She has asked Bud Moore, a forester from Montana, Derrick Jensen, a writer from northern California, and me to talk about hope.

Bud Moore embodies hope. He was born in 1917 and is a living example of how forest policy has evolved from cutting trees to sustaining ecosystems. He has run a trap line and a sawmill. He shares what he has learned from the Bitterroot Valley where he was born and raised. He is now writing an ecosystem-management plan for Coyote Forest, an 80-acre tract of private lands, that will serve as a template for private land owners, the next step after a conservation easement. His work partner, Betsy Spettigue, is helping him with this venture in Swan Valley. In his book, The Lochsa Story: Land Ethics in the Bitterroot Mountains, he writes, "We must take time now to deepen our understanding of the consequences of what we have done and are doing to the land ... Hold close to nature."

Derrick Jensen is, in his own words, "a possessed writer." His books are manifestos of how to live more consciously on the planet. He writes, "We are members of the most destructive culture ever to exist. Our assault on the natural world, on indigenous and other cultures, on women, on children, on all of us through the possibility of nuclear suicide and other means -- all these are unprecedented in their magnitude and ferocity."

He is unafraid of his anger. His views can be militant and compassionate at once. Author of A Language Older Than Words and The Culture of Make Believe, he unravels hope, asks us to liberate ourselves from these expectations. The students are completely riveted. Some are uncomfortable. "If you want to keep someone active, give them love, not hope ..."

"Hope is acknowledging you have no agency in the matter." He gives the example, "If we hope the salmon survive," we acknowledge it is beyond our agency. He says instead of "simply hoping," we can remove dams on rivers that salmon inhabit, work for better forest policies, uphold the Endangered Species Act.

I think of Vaclav Havel's definition of hope again, like a mantra.

A lively discussion followed with the students. Some argued that we must hold on to hope, not let it go. Derrick stretched their assumptions. Someone asked us to define what a miracle is. Bud said, "It is a miracle that I am still alive." The audience laughs. A student stands and says, "A miracle is something holy and unexpected."

I am quiet, hoping for a miracle within my own family. Call it prayer.

Derrick said miracles are commonplace in nature -- anywhere there is a leaf practicing photosynthesis.

* * *

7:30 p.m. We gather at the Agnes Flanagan Chapel for a discussion on The Open Space of Democracy. It is an evening of stories.

The story of Dud Hendrick and Elwood Cobb, two men who live on Deer Isle, Maine. Dud is a Vietnam vet who helped organize a Monday afternoon peace vigil that has been going on since Sept. 11, 2001. Elwood Cobb has a son, Joey, who is a petroleum specialist serving in Iraq. Elwood lives next door to the green where the peace activists meet. In August, Elwood was irritated by the vigil, the rainbow flags and banners of One Earth. He got in his truck and blasted the vigil with Toby Keith's song, "American Soldier." It became very uncomfortable. Dud approached Elwood only to learn that his son was away at war. They talked. Dud empathized and told him he had served in Vietnam. They agreed to talk further. Emails were exchanged. A relationship was forged. The next week, Elwood played his song again at the Monday night vigil. This time softer. A new sign appeared among the peace activists, "We support our troops." After the vigil, people gathered in a circle as they always do to discuss what they are feeling, thinking, anything that has happened during the week that is pertinent to peace and this community. Elwood walked over from his house to the circle. The circle widened. Elwood apologized for his behavior, but not his feelings. He explained them. He shared his love for his son. And his fears. Hearts opened. Differences became less. A real conversation has begun to unfold. The peace group has sent food to Joey and his troops. They have helped raise money so he can come home to Deer Isle when he is on leave. Dud Hendrick stopped the cycle of violence because he had experienced violence in war. Elwood stopped the cycle of intolerance because his son's life was at stake and he needed support.

Stories of exposure. Stories of hope. We need not look any farther than our own communities.

* * *

When love comes to rescue life, no one forgets.
-- Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall

* * *

Midnight, Mallory Hotel.

Brooke and I sit down at the bar and order ham sandwiches. Brooke role-plays a conversation between President Merwin and Vice President Cheney. It feels good to laugh. It feels good to laugh so hard; other people in the bar start laughing too. We all raise a glass to the absurd, the dark, and the unknown.