Date:	2009-07-16 13:16
Subject:	If You Build It They Will Come
Security:	Public
Mood:	contemplative

Jamie and I saw a movie earlier this week in which a character referred to a black hole as a "one way road to oblivion." The phrasing bothered me as it seemed redundant: a road to oblivion, particularly the oblivion represented by a black hole, must necessarily be one way. Things go in, they do not come out. Thus, I pointed out on the car ride home, to say simply "it is a road to oblivion" would really have sufficed. For his part, Jamie argued that just because you don't expect traffic coming from an opposite direction doesn't mean you aren't at liberty to build a two-way street any way. "I see," I said, mulling it over, "As a gesture of hope. Nothing has come back from oblivion yet, but just in case, here's a road?"

"No," he said, "More as a way to facilitate delusion, make it easier for people to take that fateful journey. Step right up, folks, this way to oblivion. Trains coming and going on the hour daily." He pointed out that we have many such devices to mask the point of no return; even when everybody knows there's no going back, it helps somehow to imagine that one just might.

I suppose he has a point. I know it sounds more awful than it should, but I often tell people I wouldn't have gotten married if divorce weren't a possibility. I mean it in perfect truth. In the days leading up to our wedding I was hyperventilating at regular intervals trying to comprehend the seeming finality of the decision--not the I didn't love Jamie, heart and soul, but I also loved having options. And I don't mean petty options like who to sleep with, I mean options like where you are going to live and when, the direction of your life, without having to factor in someone else's life and career. It wasn't until I realized in a moment of balmy clarity that just because I was about to say "I do" now didn't mean I couldn't say "Then again" later that I was able to commit to the ceremony. In fact, we proceeded to write our vows and deliberately left out the "til death do us part" bit. I wanted to be very clear as to what I was promising. My point here is not to compare marriage to oblivion but rather to an act that can't be unmade--not that I suddenly believe divorce is no longer an option, but rather that I recognize whether or not you call it quits down the road, you still have the intervening years that won't be undone. I, for example, will never now lead a life that doesn't include time spent in Texas, a direct outcome of my marriage. Of course, if I had thought about this prior to our wedding, if I had realized divorce wasn't quite the the "do over" I then envisioned, I might never have walked down that fateful path. Having the two way street, however specious, made all the difference.

Anyway, the idea of a one-way road to oblivion came back to me today as I began working my way through a stack of reports given to me by a climatologist I interviewed for the article I was working on. I had to brew myself a particularly strong pot of Earl Grey to get through it, wanting periodically to put my head down and weep and needing that jolt of caffeine to keep me reading on. I don't know that "oblivion" is exactly an accurate description of our climate-changed future, but its clear things are getting worse. One of the charts I looked at moved various states around a map to show what their climate could be comparable to by the end of the century. Where I live now was situated dead center over where I lived in Texas. There may as well have been a sign blinking there that said, "You only thought you got away."

"So, yeah, good news," I said to Jamie after calling him up, "Turns out we're going to be back in Texas without having to box up all our stuff."

"Did you say this was a projection for the end of the century?" he replied. "Well, not to worry. We'll long since be dead by then."

"That's what I love about you, your optimistic disposition." Then we had a moment of silence, remembering the mind-altering heat that was once a regular presence in our lives.

I thought of this again this afternoon as I stepped out onto my deck to water some plants and take a little break. We have been having a cool summer, and today is particularly nice, feeling more like a day in early June: breezy with a polite offering of sun. "What a waste," I thought, looking up into my maple tree and the blue sky perched above, imagining throwing all this away. From what I've read so far, climate change for the Midwest means it will be hotter longer in the summer, but also much wetter, a combination bespeaking prehistoric conditions. Actually, literally, you have to look 800,000 years into the past to find a comparable climate for this area for what is projected. And this made me think back to Jamie's idea of the "useful delusion" of a two-way street. Maybe here the delusion is that we are moving irrevocably forward instead of looping dangerously back. In a black hole, I suppose all roads would fold in on themselves.

The important realization, of course, is where your heading. Preferably in time to change course. Though it's true we'll never really return to a pre-industrial climate, it's also true we can dramatically mitigate just what the eventual outcome will be. It's the difference between where I live now being planted over Texas or over Tennessee--I'll gladly take Tenessee.

I leave for my stay at the arts colony at the end of this week. It's a small gesture, I know, but I ended up opting to avail myself of public transportation to get there. True, it is a bit more of a pain in the ass and does mean living several weeks without a car... but it means living several weeks without a car. At the end of our interview I asked the climatologist, "What hope is there?" And he said, in his opinion, there is the hope of every individual making small sacrifices that one day add up. Well, here's one more for that column.