Weeks After We Moved Into Our First Home, We Were Forced to Evacuate
It’s time to reconsider our role on this land
I’m in the process of moving all my writing to Substack; this was originally published on Medium in September 2020 where it was sitting behind a paywall (boo 👎). In it, you’ll learn where the name of my newsletter comes from, a little blend of Kimmerer and Sagan.
Four weeks before the fires, my partner, Nick, and I moved into our first home in the woods of Guerneville, California. Last Tuesday, at the exact moment we sat down for dinner, as if on cue, the evacuation mandate lit up our phones in unison. In an almost comical flurry of slurps of soup and frantic, unorganized fits of packing, we loaded the car like maniacs.
Choosing what things to take in a fire is a revelatory exercise. It affords a rare glimpse into the unimportance of so many of our possessions and the irreplaceability of others. Our housemate Brandon grabbed his storied cello, I stuffed my one duffle bag with a collection of heavily underlined books, and Nick saved the box of letters he’s amassed his whole life. In a fire, Steinbeck’s quote burns bright, “anything that just costs money is cheap.”
A day after we evacuated, we went back to rescue our 13 chickens (and grab more underwear). As we pulled up to the house, we saw fire cresting over the hills at the end of our road. Red flames crawled down the hill in the Armstrong Woods State Reserve where 1,300-year-old redwoods reign. After an adrenaline-filled dash of chicken-saving and necessity-grabbing, we drove away convinced our house would burn down, and worse still, the redwoods might, too.
As fate would have it, the night winds changed direction, and the fire-resistant old-growth redwoods pushed the flames east toward the town of Healdsburg. Guerneville and its ancient trees, by most accounts, would be spared.
As I write, another bout of dry lightning is threatening its way across our county, forcing us to accept that the anxiety and resignation of the past few days may only be the beginning. And if not this month or this year, who knows what the future, hotter years will bring. As people have started to point out, this is not the “season finale”; this is the opening scene to the Anthropocene. This year isn’t hellfire and brimstone because “2020 sucks”; it is chaos incarnate because we are finally reaping the poisoned fruit of decades of fossil-fueled extractivism. This isn’t a passing phase to be tucked away tidily with the year’s close; this is our wake-up call announcing again and again the dawn of a new era.
And how should we act in this new era? Do we try to escape it — is there anywhere to go?
A friend in the Midwest light-heartedly messaged me, “California in the end times is a bold choice.” In lapses of nerves, Nick and I half-joked with each other, “Why did we move here again?” Life in the Anthropocene is decidedly unnerving, but it can’t be outrun. The urge to move elsewhere or mentally escape by walling yourself in with comforting illusions is tempting but ultimately futile.
As Carl Sagan cautioned, “Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand.” In the wake of the fires, and in the shadow of what may be many more, we are committed to the land we reside on.
By facing the urge to run from what may be an ever-increasing threat of fire, I am reminded of my promise to myself and my duty to this land I am made from. Ever since I read Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s paradigm-shifting book Braiding Sweetgrass, I carry with me the challenge put forth in her chapter titled “In the Footsteps of Nanabozho: Becoming Indigenous to Place.”
This passage rings in my head like a mantra:
After all these generations since Columbus, some of the wisest of Native elders still puzzle over the people who came to our shores. They look at the toll on the land and say, “The problem with these new people is that they don’t have both feet on the shore. One is still on the boat. They don’t seem to know whether they’re staying or not.” … For the sake of the peoples and the land, the urgent work of the Second Man may be to set aside the ways of the colonist and become indigenous to place. But can Americans, as a nation of immigrants, learn to live here as if we were staying? With both feet on the shore?
This lesson reveals to us how the urge to flee is the hallmark of the settler with one foot still on the boat. One cannot learn to engage in reciprocal participation with the local environment while planning to flee it at the first inconvenience.
Part of the work of decolonizing the mind is noticing and resisting this pattern of thought to move somewhere else when the going gets tough. To pack up when the land has been depleted and the twinkle of some faraway place catches the eye. Of course, this is exactly what the rich plan on doing. They will leave everyone behind as soon they’ve reaped what they could and then seek refuge in New Zealand bunkers or fantasies of Mars colonies. They don’t understand that insidious tactic has played itself out, has necessitated the urge to move in the first place. There’s nowhere else to run. If we’re going to make it, we’ll make it together by digging in with both feet.
I encourage others to embark on the journey of The Second Man as put forth by Kimmerer. To welcome the transformation from a colonist to a member of the local ecosystem.* Once the decision to stay is made and upheld, one begins to see their responsibility in a new light. There is a reason indigenous communities across the globe have for millennia used prescribed burns to protect forestland. Intermittent burning helps clear out dense underbrush, decrease the frequency and severity of fires, increase biodiversity, and clear the way for a more healthy forest. This is a practice of deep understanding of place.
Our forests and the beings that depend on them need our attention. They need our participation and reciprocity. Our priorities as a nation and as a state have to shift to reflect the dawn of this new era that will test our resilience. From land management practices to indigenous land sovereignty to prison-labor firefighters, we have work to do. These changes won’t happen until the majority starts acting like they plan on staying. It’s time for those that have only seen this land as an asset, a service provider, or a temporary stopping point to firmly plant both feet on the shore.
Author’s note:
*It is my understanding that the indigenous community is not monolithic in its beliefs and that some groups may have issues or diverging opinions with the language of people of European descent becoming “indigenous to place.” There is a long cultural history (in white American storytelling) of the white man integrating into indigenous culture (a manifestation of forgiveness fantasies) that almost always centers the white man and their saviorism (e.g., Dances With Wolves, Last of the Mohicans, The Last Samurai, Avatar).
It’s important to acknowledge that suggesting descendants of settlers can become “indigenous to place” has the danger of being interpreted as becoming capital-I Indigenous, thereby overwriting the Indigenous people and cultures that are still here and have been here for tens of thousands of years. To me, this isn’t about becoming an Indigenous person, and this isn’t about superseding or appropriating Indigenous culture.
Here, I attempt to understand Kimmerer’s message on becoming “indigenous to place” as a prerequisite to participating in reciprocity with the local and global ecosystem we all depend on. Indigeneity here is used to convey a deep type of wisdom born from a profound understanding of place and connection to one’s place in the web of life. I wish to also bring attention to scholars who teach that decolonization is not a metaphor, and I will continue to fight and advocate for indigenous autonomy and land sovereignty. From how I understand it, becoming “indigenous to place” is the best method by which people anywhere will be able to contribute to a healthy ecosystem for all. It is my belief that the more people we can call to this common cause, the more resilient and diverse our future will be.
As an ever-learning co-conspirator, I welcome all challenges and opportunities for growth.
„One cannot learn to engage in reciprocal participation with the local environment while planning to flee it at the first inconvenience.“
that’s exactly the issue with „frontier“ mindset in both the physical and the virtual realm
I’m so glad to have come across your writing and thinking.