The Path from Drought to Shinrin-Yoku

My husband and I watch in disbelief the televised scene on the evening news: an occasional cow roaming cracked, dusty, desolate terrain, a dusty bowl that until recently held the blue waters of Laguna Aculeo.

    We’d enjoyed going there to the lakeside home of friends, our country escape from the sizzling heat of the city. Along the way we saw farmers selling watermelons piled high in roadside wheelbarrows. Handmade signs advertised fresh, homemade bread. We spent refreshing afternoons savoring the barbequed fare and relaxing on the wide lawn where kids romped, followed by a swim in the lake. For decades the small lake attracted enthusiasts of water sports: skiing, sailing, speed boating. Growing numbers of vacation homes began to populate its shores, each surrounded by lush lawns and aquamarine pools.

     Now there’s no water for gardens, pools or boats. No water for watermelon vines.

    I read in the newspaper the politicians’ and experts’ speculations regarding the causes of this disaster: years of scarce rainfall, over consumption on farms and vacation home and illegal commercial use of subterranean waters. To me it smacks of lack of planning originating in the general belief that the earth’s resources are there for the taking. Aculeo’s dry lakebed is climate change thrust into our faces.

    Now people are paying attention.

    I see glimmers of hope beyond the dark gloom of drought and careless overconsumption. This week local supermarkets will no longer hand out plastic bags to shoppers. Other cities throughout Chile have already adopted the no plastic bag policy. The newly passed Law of Recycling proposes to regulate the use of plastics and move Chile towards a circular economy. Perhaps a turning point in attitudes here have been the shocking newspaper photographs and televised scenes of massive islands of plastic floating in the ocean

    Neighborhoods are actively looking to create more parks and green areas. Residents of three residential downtown towers are dismayed by the filth and graffiti of the elevated pedestrian walkways connecting the towers. The disgusting sight has motivated students and architects to create a group dedicated to the restoration of this space using the High Line Park of New York City as a model. I’ve walked the elevated Highline Park, marveling at the bees and butterflies visiting the lush gardens there in midtown Manhattan, and would love to see it replicated in Santiago.

    I’ve long known what research now shows that access to green areas improves the overall quality of life for residents. I have access to several city parks, though barely within walking distance. Besides, decades living in a big city plagued by smog, congestion and noise make me want more than a park. I want a forest. I yearn for place to practice the Japanese tradition of shinrin yoku, forest bathing, where I can sit below a tree and inhale its fresh, pungent breath, soak in the silence and allow my body to acquire a forest rhythm.

     Now for a good rain.

Unloading

I wrote this several weeks ago, but lacked time to post it.

Today is International Recycling Day according to our local newspaper, which included a special supplement on the subject. (Also included were heavy glossy magazines from department stores and a travel agency, one dedicated entirely to SWEATERS, and another to the latest in giant TVs, promising the same sensation as actually BEING at the upcoming World Cup in Brazil.)

I took a big load today to our local recycling center, not because it’s International Recycling Day. I’m just tying up loose ends before we travel to New York tomorrow. I expected a line at the recycling center, but I was the only one there.

Preparing for a trip does weird things to my head. I feel the need to put order in my life and our house, rather like emptying an Inbox labeled “Life”. I cleaned up a pile of papers in my study – drafts and rewrites and more rewrites – which gave me a light, uncluttered feeling. I checked the garden for any urgent last minute snipping or spraying, responded to all the pending emails and deleted all the spam (over one hundred!), and bought boxes of pills to cover my medical needs for two weeks. I’ll sort them into bags marked “a.m.” “p.m.” and “other”.  

Next on my list is choosing a lightweight paperback to read on the plane. I’ve only read half of Cien Años de Soledad but this deluxe edition is way too heavy for travel. I do worry that, when I return, I will have totally forgotten who is who among all the Aurelios and the Arcadios.

I could spend hours at the Strand bookstore in New York. But there’s never enough time to browse and then there’s the tough decision of narrowing down my choices to what will fit in my suitcase.

“Narrowing down” is a must when traveling. And in life. What do I need? What are the essentials? For this trip? For my life? I feel a certain anxiety about leaving home, because it involves some uprooting, if only temporary. To travel I must leave behind the known and the comfortable while also I go forth to the novel, the stimulating and eye-opening unknown. I am ready for that. Long stretches of time in the same routine in this city stultify me.

                                             A Rant and a Laugh

Still no rain. The weather predictions for the next week: sunny. I miss the sound of falling rain on the roof, vegetation and stone, the plunk-plunk in the rain spouts. I yearn for the smell of wetness – wet leaves. It’s been so long, these feel only like childhood memories. The air is saturated with smog, vegetation layered with soot. Yesterday, out walking on the city streets, doing my errands, the golden fall colors helped dissipate my negative thoughts. I don’t like living my day with a black cloud lurking over me. But beside a fallen yellow leaf there was a candy wrapper, a coke can, and further along cigarette butts. I once read that litter attracts litter. My observations tell me this is true. Bits of trash litter a weed-ridden, unkempt corner yard two blocks away. People think it’s acceptable to toss a crumpled paper there. I take that back – I doubt they think, which gets me thinking about recycling and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. I Googled the phenomenon which is also known as a gyre and the Great Pacific Trash Vortex. It’s all about PLASTIC. 

Grocery shopping takes me longer now as, glasses perched on my nose, I examine the underside of containers. Does the tiny triangle hold a number 1, followed by the letters PET? If not, back on the shelf it goes. But I often have no choice. If I want to eat yoghurt or buy household cleaning products, I must sin against planet Earth. How I’d like to have an interview with the CEO of Johnson and Johnson and give him an earful.

This lack of rain and the thought of all that accumulating plastic on land and sea frustrate me. I feel powerless, even though I sign every green petition that appears in my Inbox, refuse a plastic bag for my box of aspirin at the pharmacy and take my own cloth bags to the supermarket, while all around me customers file by with carts filled with plastic bags.

Experts here say there’s a good chance La Niña will bring us rain this winter. I’ll believe it when I see it, hear it and smell it.

Now that I’ve had a good rant, I’ll admit that, arriving home yesterday, the trilling of the hummingbirds at the feeder in our backyard cheered me up. Then I sat down to watch an entire hour of “The Big Bang Theory”, which had me laughing out loud. There’s nothing like a good laugh to put things in perspective – for a while.