How… earthy
Writing by treason on Sunday, 22 of April , 2007 at 8:52 pm
Today is Earth Day and it’s a day that should be spent outside experiencing our earth! Why, one should plant a tree, or take a walk. We decided to take our dog into the little village of Corrales to smell all that is “country.” Yes, our little Corrales smells of fresh air, green grass, manure, and newly arrived Californians with real estate money to burn.
We saw a spectacular turkey. T “gobbled” at it from the car and it responded: “Gobble, gobble!” We wanted the dog to see it. “Gobble, gobble! Look! See the birdie?” Then we remembered that we are adults and that the people who live on the property might think we’re casing the place. We drove on.
“Let’s go look at that dog again!”
You see, several months ago we drove through Corrales and saw a ghost. There was this dog that looked just like our Doogan. Uncanny! “Look!,” we said to our girl. “There’s the dog who looks just like your dead brother!” We pulled closer when we saw the woman who lives there and we told her how much her dog looks like our dog’s deceased brother. The markings, the expression, the way he moves – it’s like seeing our dog again. She cocked her head, smiled, and slowly backed away.
It reminded me that today is my sister’s birthday and we always joked that her birthday was also Earth Day. And just about the time she was getting over that, Richard Nixon chose her birthday to depart the earth. That was something she never got over.
Earth Day is still just one day in this, the cruelest, month: I’d noticed earlier this week that Kitty Carlisle has departed, as well. And then I saw that Pat Buckley has, too. I’d been thinking of posting something about her son last week and hadn’t; then I was reminded that it’s only a matter of time before we lose her husband, too.
“I’m glad my sister won’t see that day,” I told myself. “She loved Bill Buckley.”
I sat down to watch the repeat broadcast of the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. I’d opened my eyes around three-thirty in the morning and caught a glimpse and thought it was really quite awful, but I wasn’t sure because I wasn’t awake. Strange, but I got the same impression the second time I watched it and this time I knew I was awake. The problem is that Rich Little has spent so much of his career imitating Richard Nixon that he has actually become Richard Nixon. In effect, it’s like Nixon is impersonating other presidents and celebrities. It doesn’t matter what they sound like – they always look like Nixon. And this is unnerving.
Or maybe it was because I was watching French election results – I was reminded of an interesting word: terroir. They say it’s a French term that describes wine or coffee. It can mean “earthy” or it can refer to specific characteristics stemming from the product’s geography. A definition I like is the loose translation: “a sense of place.” This suggests certain qualities and the effects that the environment had on the production of whatever it is we’re talking about. A wine, for instance. I imagine the word suggests terre, terra, terrarium. I see the word terror in it.
So when I heard that a couple people – why mention their names? – accosted Karl Rove at this dinner, the word popped into my head. Terroir. A sense of place. It’s similar, I guess, to a sense of decorum… or, more accurately, a sense of knowing your place. No one much likes that term – it suggests classism, sexism, racism, and all the other isms – but there is… no pun intended… a place for it.
And this might explain Little. So often the comedy portion of these dinner events is awkward or out of place. Again, Little, like others before him, seemed to lose his “sense of place.” Similarly, Rove should not have been accosted and those who perpetrated the act should have known better. But it’s clear they have no sense of place, either. And that is ironic, considering that the two are supposedly so globally aware. Aware of the earth, the planet; in effect, the whole place.
And then it hit me. Those who are claiming to know and love the earth and care so much about it really seem to know so little about it. And, really, I think this comes from us humans just not knowing our place on it.
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