All About Me. Plus Grace Paley. And Wind. And Theory.

I’m almost three weeks in to the new job, and it’s finally feeling real and settled enough to tell you a bit about it.

I now coordinate environmental studies and approvals for wind energy projects.

And oh, the hate mail that will eventually bring down on my head. But at the moment I am very zen about that prospect, because I am now doing work that I believe in, that will allow me to provide for my daughter and bring about the kind of world I want to live in, and it’s energizing. At first I thought my new employer might not appreciate me outing myself but then I thought, after any given public consultation meeting anyone I meet can easily google me and I’m all over the first few pages so … there did not seem to be much point to secrecy. My nod to propriety is a current refusal to say precisely which company I’m working for.

Ask me how zen I’m feeling after that first public meeting.

I’m building wind parks! Hurrah!

(ahem)

I’m also on the cover of the current issue of This magazine. Eek. I’ll let you take three guesses as to which of those teasers* is mine. Although actually the piece is more about all of those annoying reasons why it is so hard for good information to compete against bad information. It could have been evolution, it could have been climate change, it could have been vaccines, but in this case it happened to be wind energy. Go figure.

A piece I wrote for Rabble on wind energy (there is definitely a theme developing here) has been selected for their latest best-of anthology as well.

And just to prove that I can go radically against theme, there is a new blogging gig in the works where I will be contributing on Toronto’s natural heritage. I think this is really exciting since–as you can tell from even the most casual perusal through my archives–I do love nature and natural heritage and there are not all that many opportunities to write on those subjects for audiences larger than this one. When that starts to come together I’ll post more details. But in the meantime–well, I guess that’s quite a bit actually, isn’t it?

Is that enough self-promotion for one day? Or one week? Or even a month, maybe? Let’s go with that.

I’ve been telling friends, readers, and passing acquaintances for years that when I was five years old I wanted to be a writer and a missionary. And while when I was five I meant the travel-to-the-bush and convert-the-heathens type, I think I’m actually doing it.

Neat.

~~~~~

A long, long time ago, I promised you a series of posts about greed, biospheric value systems, Nature Deficit Disorder, pro-environmental behaviours, positive psychology, and a basic cultural overhaul. We’re most of the way there! I think I owe you one more post, and then I’ll have a semi-cohesive Theory of Something. That is still coming. Next week. Probably.

But in the meantime, just because it has been a long time since I have burdened your innocent eyes with nature poetry, take this! By Grace Paley:

Fear

I am afraid of nature
because of nature     I am mortal

my children and my grandchildren
are also mortal

I lived in the city for forty years
in this way I escaped fear

~~~

From Begin Again: Collected Poems. Jam-packed with gems.

Of course you know me by now: we only think we are separate from nature and her side-effects in cities. Our cities are nature, as much as termite mounds are. But it seems to be a popular passtime, deluding ourselves en masse about our origins and destiny by surrounding ourselves with human artifacts and calling that “urban” and “civilization” and “artificial” and “unnatural.” It never works, but we keep trying.

~~~~~

*I think.