Is it Arbor Day yet?

J'irai par la forêt
J'irai par la montagne
Je ne puis demeurer loin de toi plus longtemps
-Victor Hugo

As one who hasn't had much affinity for naturalist writing, I find it confusing and maybe even mawkish of me to write about nature all the time. I can think of a few possible reasons why it always seems relevant to talk about nature. They're not very compelling, but of my family and old friends, I am the only one who has ever lived in this region, and I haven't even been here very long, so certain unique features really never cease to surprise and amaze me.

And though it's hot and humid and I kind of forgot how horrible that is, the fireflies came out, and they are easily second place in my book of nature's greatness (the redbud is still number one). I'm also wont to tell a lot of South-as-myth stories; I suspect because I am still an outsider, my earnest wishes and supposed invitations to the contrary.

All this disclaimer aside, my nature story isn't all that happy today. There are these 2 old ladies - sisters, maybe widows, maybe spinsters - who live nearby and, like many old school Southerners in my neighborhood (such as it is), own lots and lots of land, presumably old farm land that's been in the family for at least a few generations. We live off Crawford Dairy Road, and nearly everyone within a few miles is a Crawford who helps out on the small dairy, works at the body shop, or is a plumber. The rest are Sturdivants, and they own various nearby car repair, towing, and gas station establishments.

Despite Donnie's best efforts, the Heatherly sisters own a whole lot of both sides of Windsor Road, where we live (named after the late husband of our cranky neighbor, Joyce Windsor, who refuses to wave when she passes on the bumpy gravel road in her blue Tercel. Imagine!) at the crux of a sharp curve. About six months ago, they offered to sell him the land, but either thought he was stupid or a sucker, and asked something like three times the tax value. He refused, of course, and plotted ways to make them come down, none of which came to any kind of deal.

The economy being what it is, the Heatherly sisters apparently needed some cash, so about a month ago, large, dirty tractor trailers plopped themselves just around the bend of Windsor, right at our line of vision. And a few days after their definitive arrival, they began to clear-cut the land. Clear-cutting, it turns out, has some tax advantage. On a regular basis, we get unsolicited letters from logging companies wanting to buy our timber, and when I first read one, I thought they came and chopped down a few of the biggest trees on the property, Paul Bunyan-style. It's not really the case. In fact, you have to squint to even locate the men operating the horrible gargantuan dozer that plows the trees down, breaking them just above the ground so they're left with a jagged stump. It's a very messy operation for both the land and the trees, and produces a whole lot of muddy crevices and rejected branches and debris. In the end, Windsor was no longer overgrown forest where a whole lot of deer, rabbits, and even a fox lived, but now looks something like the aftermath of an explosion from beneath that uprooted what remained and left it to die, brand new leaves now brown and crispy.

The truth is, I can't call myself a strict environmentalist or an activist of any kind, because my political views in general aren't cemented on either the right or the left. I tend to be fairly easily swayed in my head by a persuasive argument for or against most issues that don't oppose my core value system; I tend to hear both sides out and then behave essentially status quo. I'm not necessarily proud of this relatively ambivalent state of being, but it's honest from where I sit.

Because of that, I don't feel entitled to be nauseated every time I turn down Windsor Road. But I am. I feel like these trees screamed, cried, and shuddered to a painful death and I had to sit by and witness it with my ears covered and my eyes squeezed shut.

And yet, I am sitting on 1200 square feet of brazilian cherry flooring, in a chair with wooden legs and arms, at a desk made entirely of birch. My (dare I say) outrage extends all the way down Windsor Road and generally subsides about the time I pass the Crawford Plumbing sign, which is why it feels presumptuous of my heart to hurt about these trees. At least 5 people in the last week have said something like, "In twenty years you'll never know it happened," and all I can think is that in about twenty weeks I'll probably have forgotten and that I'm the worst kind of pseudo-reactionary - I care when it feels passionate and painful, and then . . . well, it's back to "what can you do?" and moving on.

I feel kind of dramatic about it, I guess, in part because I've been listening to a lot of opera lately, and it tends to make me swoon and get all caught up in the tragedies of characters like Desdemona and Orpheus. That sentiment personifies those trees a great deal more than even Mother Nature intends for them, since a new version of themselves - especially in the South - can be achieved pretty quickly. The tax break, according to a bona fide Forestry Service employee friend of Ashley's, is because clear-cutting provides something akin to crop rotation, and I guess they'll even help you plant it back.

In my more reasonable moments, I remain somewhere in the middle of people who run slaughterhouses and PETA - a little less frantic, but not a very good activist. I tend to think that moderate and responsible usage of these kinds of renewable resources is a tolerable way to be. But I like to believe that there are more careful ways to do the harvesting and that I'm at least entitled to feel occasionally kind of sad.