The days are getting longer, and now it stays light after 7 p.m. The frosty lawns have turned to rain-soaked, bright green grass. For the first time in months, I hear a mourning dove cooing.
Still, this has been a difficult time. Betrayal, for a writer, often becomes material for memoirs or stories. Who has let us down, and why? What should we do when it happens?
Recently, I have had to take a public stance against my local school district, which, driven by profit and greed and lacking foresight, sold the farm up the street where I live to a developer. Developments can threaten our landscape, our environment, and our way of life. In an earlier situation also involving the farm near where I live, I wrote about saving a landscape from ruin.
As a former journalist, I learned long ago what questions to ask of local township planning commissions and supervisors. That training, along with writing about controversy and bringing it to public attention, served me well. My questions and my writing were rewarded, leading to a possible change: fewer houses were proposed for the farm, where a tupelo tree that graces a field in front of a 19th-century stone farmhouse had been slated for ruin to make way for 500 parking spaces and a huge indoor pool complex, along with almost 600 houses in a 55-plus community, homes that start at around $650,000.
Sometimes, I think of Buddhist meditation and practice mindfulness. None of this is real, so why not detach ourselves?
As a writer, when you break the isolation, change happens. Turmoil can become a powerful fuel for creativity. People listen.
During our Women’s Writing Circle meetings, I encourage the women and myself to not only share our stories but also to honor our voices. Express feelings of rage, disillusionment, and heartbreak. More often than not, someone will respond with, “I have felt that way too.”
Maybe now, these signs of hope and possibility—a bird’s sweet song, longer days—offer a path back from the turmoil. Writing, expressing ourselves with self-confidence, and not apologizing offer the hope of connecting with others; we take on the hard work of this life, and our days become fuller and more meaningful.
Do I understand correctly that you have managed to reduce the development intended for the local farm? (Or was this on a previous occasion.) But whichever way, good for you. We hear and observe so many stories of councils neglecting the well being of its constituents in the pursuit of development.
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Yes. I and others spoke out. Three years ago, they wanted to turn the farm into an Amazon warehouse. We stopped that, and then the school district sold to yet another developer who came back with the proposal for 600 houses and a natatorium. Was able to get the local planning commission to recommend less density. But there is still much work to be done to save the farm as open space.
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Susan, Thank you for encouraging us to use our voices. We are all more powerful than we imagine, if only we allow ourselves to speak.
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Well said, Marilyn.
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