The World Without Me

photo by Malaika Costello-Dougherty

Alan Weissman's new book, The World Without Us, is vision of earth without humans. On MyWire tonight, there is an Editor's Collection of articles about the book and its message. There also is this imaginative video:



Even as I am celebrating my precious daughter's marriage, or maybe because of that, I am acutely aware of how vulnerable we as a species are, and that makes me sad. We continue to live our lives, most of us, as if we had an inalienable right to be on this planet.

But all the evidence points to the rise and fall of all species. Each has its time; few are able to persist. "Nature" is harsh.

At the wedding reception, Uncle Ty was telling my 12-year-old Aidan about his 20 acres of swampland on Sanibel Island. Over the years, Ty has laid boards throughout his property, so that people can tour this otherwise inaccessible paradise without damaging fragile plants and animals in the process.

You can also kayak back through the jungle in narrow canals. Here and there, an alligator surfaces and thrashes frighteningly. There are spiders, snakes, lizards, insects of many varieties, shorebirds, eagles, ospreys, raccoons, possums, many fishes, and (possibly still) a rare Florida Panther or two.

In the jungle, it is easy to feel small. The mangroves are twisted and filled with poisonous hazards. Their roots are above the waterline at low tide and they catch bits of the seashells that are the building blocks of these sandy islands.

As the globe heats up, courtesy of the chemicals we continue to arrogantly pour into the atmospheric cloak that allows us (and other creatures) to breathe and to avoid frying from solar radiation, in the name of modern refrigeration, air conditioning, and automotive convenience, among other atrocities, we are creeping closer to the moment of destruction.

It pains me as a man, a father, a grandfather, that those younger than me, including all of these relatives and friends I hold so dear, will likely bear the consequences of a world gone mad. There is no comfort in knowing my time here is growing shorter, that each day that passes finds me walking slightly slower, slightly more bent, my hair whitening and dying, my skin wrinkling and blotching, my memories either escaping me (which is a real pisser) or torturing me (with unwanted clarity).

In the end, I imagine, all that will be left of me is my voice. I'll write, if I can, until I die. As with all other writers, I do this because I have to. There is no other option. Tonight, in the middle of so much happiness and beauty, perhaps the peak of what any human could wish for, I feel that we all are like flowers, doomed to bloom from small buds, open slowly, accept what is given to us, take what we are able to, in kindness or by aggression, in happiness or depression, with serendipity or by tragedy, with wholeness or in part, by collectivity or utterly alone, in weakness or by strength, mindlessly or with wisdom, but that, in the end, none of it matters, because all flowers die.

Tonight, I smell the sweetness of Thai orchids in a bowl in my kitchen, and contemplate my lovely daughter's amazing humanity.

It is tomorrow that I dread.

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